kayakertom

A headgasket not torqued properly or not using oem intake manifold gaskets?

I have the same year dl wagon and get 24 mpg mixed city/hiway and 28 mpg hiway. As GD says, it is very easy to have some vacuum hoses hooked up incorrectly. Also with an '87, many of the hoses will have become hardened with age and heat exposure, so they will be a source of vacuum leak. Another thing to do is test for any brake drag - jack up each corner and see how easy each wheel spins in neutral.

Am ready to start my conversion. The white '87 gl 3-door ea82 has only 134K on it. It had a HG problem along with stripped plug threads and apple cored governor gear. Replaced one head and put in a replacement governor gear, but after just 8 miles, it shows coring again. Engine runs great. Bought a bare d/r transmission - supposedly a jdm one with less than 60K miles through it. Found an '87 gl wagon (264K on odometer) also with a d/r transmission with interior trim that matches the 3-door. Have pulled the motor already and seperated the pressure plate, flywheel and bellhousing. Plan to pull the 3-door motor and then the auto trans. Have pulled ea82 motors 6x now, but not from an automatic - any advice? The jdm trans has apparently been lying around for the past 4 years without any oil, should I replace any seals? Have an excellent - lower mileage pedal assembly ready to go in the 3-door (thanks Ed). Anything else to worry about? PS: There is usually good beer here.

If your oil pressure is good, you might try using "Seafoam" added to your oil. If you do access the lifters, it is fairly easy to pop off the retaining cap and clean out the innards and put them back together. I have just finished rebuilding and installing an engine and I did replace some of the lifters with spares that I have. When my motor started, it was fairly noisy, but within 3 minutes of adding Seafoam, it quieted down.

Have been slowly dismantling a $100 parts wagon and got to the engine yesterday. Pulled a valve cover off and right away noticed 1 missing rocker arm and the corresponding exhaust valve spring at a noticeably lower height than the other three. When I pulled the head, found that the exhaust valve was held open by a dislodged concentric disc insert that surrounds the valve stem. This disc is of slightly larger diameter than the exhaust valve itself (not a stem seal?). Found the missing rocker arm lodged in one of the coolant chambers. From the looks of the piston chamber, the previous owner must have been running on 3 cylinders for awhile.

If you are not getting any smoke out of the exhaust and your engine oil is not a milkshake of coolant and oil, then I would suspect the heater core or hoses to be the problem. You could partially drain the radiator and then bypass the heater core with a new hose to test.

Anyone know where the radiator fan relay for a '90 Loyale w/o ac is located? On my '87 gl parts wagon with ac, it is located on the passenger side of the engine bay behind the strut tower. Have pulled off the panel by the fuses, but didn't see it there either.

Sounds like a seriously cracked head.

So that we are on the same page; you have the engine block then the cylinder heads, then the camshaft tower, then the valve cover. If the leak is coming from between the cylinder head and camshaft tower, did you use the reinforced o-ring?

From your description, I'm not convinced the problem is the fuel pump. I would put new NGK sparkplugs in, check for good ignition wire connections, spray sone carb cleaner in and around the carb, check and replace hardened vacuum lines and replace the fuel filter.

I've done 6 motor installs in the past year without a clutch aligning tool. It's fairly easy to eyeball it for centering. When you drop the motor onto the transmission shaft, have the car in gear so you can bump the car / turn the shaft to come through. Quote: Originally Posted by Joey Joe Thats easy enough, any one know if a clutch alligner is necissary?

Another simple thing to do to keep your subaru running great is to just use NGK sparkplugs.

My '89 xt has them and the other day I clipped my neighbors' tall garbage cannister while driving in reverse - the mirror popped forward on impact and then I got out and popped it back in place - no damage.

I use petroleum jelly. It helps also to have the camshaft sprocket pointer aligned for timing belt installation, so that you are not working against the valve springs.

I have an '89 xt, fwd, non-turbo ea82 mpfi with the 4eat auto trans and I have to say that this is the first auto trans car that I enjoy driving. The car gets about 26 mpg and shifts very smoothly. 173K on the vehicle, no oil drips, no rust and the car drives like a slot car = cheap fun.

Does it still have the key in the keyway slot on the crankshaft? You need that to lock the harmonic balancer / crank pulley to the shaft. "To clarify a little more: Well what happened, is that my pulley came completely off, and I would like to know if there is any sort of spacer between the bolt, pulley, and crankshaft."

I'm parting out an '87 gl wagon in the Portland area, the right front passenger door/mirror and right front fender are in excellent shape. Color is sky blue.

To keep using a heavier weight oil and to minimize piston slap during warm-up during winter months the best thing to do is add an engine block heater for those cold nights. I lived in Fairbanks for 5 years and those winters were harsh. Did you know that: For air temperatures of -20 to -35 F, the air is so dense that it is like having a tubo on your engine. For temperatures below -40 F, it is dumb to drive your car - all the rubber parts lose their flexibility and shocks and suspension parts wear out quickly. When you drive in the morning after a car has sat overnight during a Fairbanks winter night, the tires go thump, thump, thump until they warm up enough to allow the rubber to flex. I would never buy a used car out of Fairbanks. PS: Referring to non-synthetic oil as Dino oil is bad. Our earth oil deposits are the result of millions of years of deposits of dead micro-organism life in the oceans.

I can now recommend Larry @ 503-984-7743, who advertises on PortlandCL. He has both a dolly and flatbed truck, best if you can be flexible with his schedule. Nice guy and reasonable. Tell him subaru Tom provided the contact info.

I've just taken an ea82 radiator apart and am in the process of cleaning it - lots of whitish crud around each row; need a long thin & narrow piece of metal to push through each row to get all the crud out. I don't think a water hose would do the job. The right chemicals would likely dissolve the crud. Seems the radiator was designed to be taken apart easily.

Grinding - have you placed a jack under the motor and possibly bent the sheet metal cover under the flywheel viewing area?

I'm picking up a gl parts wagon tomorrow morning (blown head gasket + high miles). Have used up my free AAA towing and need a recommendation for which company to deal with or who to avoid. Also, does it need to be put on a flatbed truck (manual d/r 4wd)? Tow is from SE Hawthorne to SW L.O.. Thanks, Tom

I have a '87 dl 4wd and also have had similar problems. If things are working right, you would depress the gas pedal once to set the choke and then after about 2 minutes tap it again to kick down the idle. The problems that mine had were vacuum leaks - I have replaced all of the vacuum lines that had hardened ends. Misrouted/disconnected vacuum lines - having another car to help route correctly. That carb is a mess of hoses. Poorly adjusted air/fuel mixture screw - I had a local subaru shop adjust mine. Another possibility is the O2 sensor needing replacement. I assume you have good ngk spark plugs installed and that it is properly timed. I have found the Haynes manual helpful

If you have coolant steaming out your exhaust, then it's either a head gasket or a cracked head. When you pulled the plugs to do the compression test, did you notice one plug looking different than the others? A head gasket problem only gets worse.

On my '87 dl wagon with a Hitachi, it helped a lot when I put new vacuum hoses on; the hoses with heat hardened ends can be a source of vacuum leak. It is very easy also to miss a connection or to have one or more small hoses get disconnected when working on the carb - what a mess of hoses.