asavage

Grinning, Ducking & Running. It's an old Usenet acronym. Sorry, it must not be in common usage anymore. Ways to skin a cat are many and varied. I did not mean to imply ignorance nor inexperience, and if that is how it was read, I apologize. Well, no, but knowing at least enough to avoid big misteaks (like having to pull the heads off again, because someone didn't realize they are Left & Right and not interchangeable) is certainly valuable. And this is just the place to ask for advice or help. Bearing in mind that opinions are like armpits, nearly everyone's got a couple. I kind of like the "dribble bar" above the lobes, that only operate if the relief shuttle doesn't stick shut. Lots of low velocity oil in that area -- as in the lifters feed -- so that's naturally where the crap is going to settle or congeal out. Synthetic lubes rule -- because they are built up ("man-made") from natural gas molecules, and therefore have all the crap removed. Iso-dewaxing/hydrocracking is a very good refining process, but it still doesn't get that last 5% of crap out of the oil. Holiday? What holiday? I don't work (directly) for a gummit agency, nor a bank. I celebrated Presidents alive and passed-on by trying to stay off Welfare: by working!

Wish you were closer. I'd like to stash away a 4WD 3AT; mines kinda soggy. I'm afeared that with the new engine, it's gonna lose 2nd.

I am going through this on my '93 EA82 myself. Based on discussions with three Subaru shops and my four cracked heads, I'll say "yes". Typical was this response, "They ALL crack there", "We don't weld them up, because they crack again within 8k miles." Yes. In your case, the crack likely extends into either the intake (sometimes) or exhaust (more often) port area. I don't know. Aluminum Head Rebuilders in Portland charges $150 per EA82 head for a rebuilt one, which is a very good price, and the core charge is an additional $50. They don't care if the heads have cracks between the valve seats, and even if cracked into the ports area, will still give $25 core refund. I just packed up my cores tonight, in prep to ship them back to them tomorrow. The two heads I just bought from them are quite good, no cracks in between the seats (which surprised me). I would have liked new exhaust studs, but bought my own and the old ones came right out, no problem. The EA82 heads are Right and Left; the only difference I've seen is that the EGR port is drilled through and threaded on the right head. AHR told me that the right head is the one that cracks most often. IMO, no. If you've got the typical head gasket leak of oil to the outside of the head, you might want to pull it and regasket it, just to eliminate that leak. Ditto for the camcase-to-head interface (no gasket, just RTV, but you do need a special o-ring there, get it from Subaru, the replacements apparently last longer), the camshaft seals and o-rings around the seal carriers, and the oil pump mounting gasket (see my oil pump thread for details on how this gasket fails). Timing belt and idlers/tensioners replacement is a lot easier now that you have the engine out. And look hard for oil leakage at the rear main seal, as now's the time to replace it if you have any leakage at all. You have a cracked head, almost certainly. Leak in exhaust port. If you want a good used one, I've got one off of Caleb's (then Turbone's) engine. I haven't run the engine it came off of, but Caleb says it ran OK. If you don't need it immediately, you can have it for free, just pay shipping. I need to hang on to it for about two more weeks, then I'll have most of an EA82 engine core left over for parts (No. 1 cyl. scored). Mark & Rob have both gone out of their way to get me used parts for nearly nothing, I can afford to pay back the community. USMB is a very useful place to gather information -- and opinions, and occasionally, both

Well, "severe knocking" doesn't sound like the well-known piston/bore clearance issue. Light tapping is normal for that one, IIRC, and is not a warrantable issue, though that apparently depends upon how much "noise" you make over it. Seems like I've got a TSB on it somewhere -- probably Alldata -- but I'm sure a Google search would yield more.

You said you disagreed with not using 20W50, because "these engines run hot" (IIRC). I was saying that EA82s don't run any hotter than anybody else's engine . Yes, the expansion rate of aluminum alloy is much higher than cast iron -- I used to own Corvairs Quite so. The lifter whose valve is in the partial-open position when the engine is stopped, bleeds off some of the oil that the check valve is supposed to retain. On startup, that lifter needs several seconds (about 15, in my case) to replenish with new oil and take up the slack again. Agreed. But I doubt that there are many stationary Subaru applications. A few, but not many. a) Because the FHI engineers specified bearing clearances throughout the engine based on a particular CPS rating, and changing the base viscosity of an oil to something higher is going to change the volume of primary-fed bearings, and volume & pressure of secondary-fed devices (like hydraulic lifters). This may not be a Good Idea. Because thicker oil requires greater horsepower to move. This is not a trivial point. It can require several more HP to move SAE 30 oil through a system at a typical engine lubricating system volume than, say, SAE 10. This is thrown in that pot called "parasitic losses". Air-cooled engines have their own set of issues WRT oil. Foremost is oil volitility, IMO, another reason I'm a big fan of synthetically-produced lubricants. Though the old VW is a durable design, it isn't a particulary efficient design (there, that'll spark some discussion!). (I used to do a LOT of VW work.) Witness the ability of them to run with no filtering of the lube oil. Well, lawnmower engines didn't have oil filters for a long time, either, but they do run. For a while. And then they're used up. Just like the VW. By today's standards, 140k is not a lot of miles on an engine -- I know most people here would howl if they had to rebuild their Subaru engine at a mere 140k! The VW engine was designed to last as long as it needed to last, just like a lawnmower engine, and if you want to, you can make either last quite a bit longer. But that's a triumph of maintenance over engineering. Yup, that's why I said it may make economic sense to run 20W50. I personally prefer to start with an engine that doesn't require this patch, and then maintain it in such a state that it may never need it. That was my experience as well. However, if I'd gotten the engine with about 140k fewer miles on it, and kept the oil clean, I doubt that I'd have "only" gotten 160k miles ouf of those lifters Oh, you're one of "those" (g,d&r!). The Corvair uses exactly the same lifter and rocker arm design that the SBC does -- the parts are interchangeable, only the pushrod is different, the 'vair's being a shorter length. But on all the SBCs and 'vairs I've had to work with, I've never adusted the valves with it running. There's simply no need. The idea is to center the hydraulic lifters' plungers in the center of their travel, and you can easily do this with the engine off, by hand rotating the engine to the base circle of the cam lobe, loosen the adjuster to get the least amount of lash discernable, then preload to spec (3/4, 1, 1.5, whatever). No mess, and I don't have to swap the covers, nor to I have to worry that the lifter will not bleed down fast enough when preloading and the valve smack a piston -- I've seen it done by an inexperienced "mechanic". Plus, then engine fires up quiet and smooth, no need to have to listen to all that racket while you go around adjusting them. Well, whatever works. Certainly, you can adjust SBC hydraulic lifters with the engine running. It's completely unnecessary, but it's the sort of procedure that's ingrained in the culture, so that's that. I've even seen one repair manual describe how to do it. Sheesh. Of course, this "adjustment" is not necessary at all -- Chev is the only one that I can think of that allowed "adjustment" of automatic lash adjusters. Buick, Cad., Pontiac, Olds, and Ford all have fixed-adjustment systems, and until the rocker parts become so worn as to be well out of bearing material, they work fine -- and by the time you have lifter noise on those designs, you've got other problems that are larger! Yea, Verily, Brother! Unfortunately, we now live in an age where disinformation is disseminated as fast as information, and the real skill lay in determining which is which.

Auto electronics is NOT so easy: See my thread on ECU repair . It is never wise to ask somebody to to figure out how to do a potentially dangerous activity without also giving them the knowledge that can save their life. I know I'd feel really bad if somebody caught their car on fire and I didn't even try to tell them beforehand that there's a better way. "Works" and "UnSafe" are not mutually exclusive. We're so used to installing aftermarket tunes and lights that sometimes we forget that this stuff can kill you . . . because statistically it really IS pretty safe, even if you do something completely boneheaded. Fusible links will save your rump roast. But if you wire around those links with just the right gauge of wire, you can become overcome in smoke before you have time to pull over to the side of the road. I once charged a friend (in high school) $80 to rewire his electric fuel pump, stereo, and what was left of his ignition switch, on an old (not so old, then) '70 Firebird. Seems the former owner had run a line to the rear-mounted electric fuel pump using speaker wire and ran it inside the car -- through the rear seat springs. Imagine what happened when my friend got three football players into the back seat, and then turned on the key? Yup, smokeshow. No, it wasn't fused. Why didn't I cut the friend a better deal (at the time, $80 was a small pile of money)? Because I felt that that repair had to be at least a little painful -- and it *did* take me seven hours to do. If you wire an IC up with the 5V to the wrong pin, the worst that will likely happen is some smoke gets out of the wires, or an expensive circuit is scrapped via cascading failure. But in a car (or airplane) your life is on the line. Extra thought and planning is warranted for circuits that have the potential to risk your (or my) life. Just because 12V automotive electrical systems have been in use for 60 years does not imply that people who work with them actually understand a significant fraction of How They Work. Most people know enough to do Black Box repair, ie, "If it cranks slow, I'll try charging the battery, and if that doesn't work, I'll buy a starter, or clean the terminals, or maybe I'll take the alternator off and take it to (Schucks/Kragen/Chief/Autozone/NAPA) and have it tested." IOW, they don't have a clue as to how it works, why it works, or the engineering that makes it work. It's all "replace A, then replace B" Black Box repair. Yes, empirically you can learn a lot. And you can go far (in industry, in hobbies, etc.) using this empirical knowledge, gained the hard way by trying this and that and seeing what happens. My point is that there is more to the Why and Wherefore of this stuff than can be gleaned easily from parts swapping and the adding of swithes to a dashboard. I'd bet that fewer than 5% of folks reading this thread had heard of CEMF or know that a starter motor running at 150 RPM can draw five times the current of the same starter running at 400 RPM, or why that would have an effect on marginal battery or cables, but a I'd bet a larger percentage could tell me that if the starter is running slow, it might be time to replace it, and maybe the battery would last longer if the starter was replaced sooner rather than later. Get my meaning? Knowledge is good, and knowing that you don't know something is a good place to start knowing more. Sometimes knowing more can save you (life, limb, money, aggravation), but other times you just have to take it on faith because in modern times, nobody can be a Renaissance Man (sp?) and know a lot about everything -- there just aren't enough hours in a life. Hence, I tap experts for their knowledge, and if an expert -- who has qualified herself to me, that is, proved that she knows whereof she speaks -- can shorten my path to a solution, I grab it.

If you increase the distance of the original circuit, you will want to go to a larger gauge wire, because even a small increase of resistance at 13.5v is going to make a relatively large difference in voltage drop. This isn't household wiring, where you can get away with a 5v drop from the panel to the refer. You may want to think real hard about that one. For example, in your parallel circuit, which path to ground has the least resistance, the strap from the switch to ground, or the 10 ohm filiament from the switch to ground? IOW, just when do you think the filament will light up? Getting back to the real reason that you want to keep the wiring large is one that Skip just mentioned: Counter ElectroMotive Force (CEMF). Without getting technical, what it means for a DC motor with brushes is that when the motor is forced to run below design RPM, its effective resistance goes down. Put another way: if you have a bad bearing in the fan motor, and it drags from the extra load, the fan draws more current than normal. Or, at least, it can; this is not a universal constant, and some dual-speed fan designs do utilize a series dropping resistor to obtain the lower fan speed, but I digress. The extra current it not all converted to work (moving more air), it's converted to heat, which doesn't do the fan motor much good either. If you add length to the OEM wiring, the total circuit resistance goes up. Let's say that you add 8', and that the extra 2-5 ohms makes a difference to the fan (it might or might not, I'm not going to go find out right now), and the fan runs slower but begins to draw more current, but still within the fuse's rating. Now you have a lot longer wire operating in what the FHI engineers figure was close to max rating for the circuit, and you see that the wire gauge is now a limiting factor in the circuit. You can get poor fan performance and decreased fan motor life. In this particular circuit, it may be no big deal. Still, I personally wouldn't run a wire extension on this type of circuit that was smaller than 12ga. And as usual, make damned sure to use wire ties and a real grommet when it goes through the firewall. But you're right: if the wire shorted, it would merely smoke a little and run the fan continuously. Might not start a fire, but you can start a fire using less than 15A. My personal preference for this kind of circuit is to add an accessory relay with contact rating of 30A or higher. Why so high? Inductive devices (ie a motor or A/C clutch) have, as Skip said, "back EMF", and when you open the circuit you get a high-voltage spike in the circuit which arcs the contacts and (re)moves metal. Hence you need larger-current-rating contacts in an inductive circuit switch . . . unless . . . . . . you add a diode of suitable capacity across the contacts, wired "in reverse" to the circuit. Because the inductive voltage spike on the contacts is in the opposite direction from "normal", the diode shunts the spike to the wiring at a much lower voltage. It's like FM, and it makes the contacts last a LOT longer. I was adding diodes to A/C clutch cycling switches 20 years ago, to keep from having to replace them so often. And on one system I'd heavily modified, I'd added a dash-mount 12V LED to let me know when the A/C clutch was engaged -- for engineering/test purposes I needed to know the statefullness of various control circuits. Upon disengagement, the LED would momentarily flash brighter. This was a custom-engraved-bezel LED, it cost me quite a bit to have made, and I wasn't going to have EMF kill it. Enter another diode, no more problem. I figgur'd Skip would appreciate that bit. (Oh, and how to do a "Fan On" indicator for this manual-fan-ground circuit without adding a relay? Well, I still like the idea of adding a relay, but if you really want to cheap out, wire the 12V indicator between B+ (battery hot, fused of course) and the ground side of the fan. Fan off = 12V on both sides of indicator = indicator off. Fan on = indicator gets hot from (fused) battery feed, ground from fan ground circuit. I do this sort of thing all the time in add-in buzzers for a "headlight ON" warning circuit: in that case, wire a series buzzer/diode combo between ign hot and headlight hot. Headlight OFF & Key ON = diode prevents buzzer from grounding through headlights. Key OFF & headlights ON = buzzer grounds through any ign-switched load, low enough current that nothing else runs. It's the same setup the aftermarket buzzer kits use -- except I had to come up with it myself one afternoon 25 years ago.)

Do you think that the EA82 runs hotter than, say, a Toyota 22R? Just because it's all-aluminum-alloy construction does not imply that it runs hotter than other conventional designs, only that it's lighter and can theoretically dissapate heat faster -- which implies it runs cooler than other designs <grin>. If you accept that, then the you'd have to admit that the idea of running a base viscosity of 20 doesn't make sense from a maintenance standpoint . . . but, because of the combination of factors I cited, it may make good economic sense! You are one of only four people whom I've met over the years who knew that . (I actually won a "door prize" at a seminar last year, because I was able to correctly answer the question, "what does the 'W' designate".) I completely agree. Clean oil is the best way to minimize wear in any hydraulic system, including of course hydraulic "lifters" (I'm sticking with the US colloquialism because to insist on a more correct term is not only confusing to US readers, it's also harder to type!). Personally, these days I'm running Wix filters on my EA82 (51361, or if you buy the NAPA-branded Wix filter, it's 1361). They have the orange silicone anti-drainback valve, which in theory has higher temperature resistance to hardening. I don't know if this is really an issue if one changes the oil on time, but I've seen the black neoprene ADVs fail -- pull off the filter after the engine's sat overnight, no oil comes out: the filter's only half full: bad ADV. In my case, I had a noisy lifter for less than 15 seconds on a cold start. I disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled all four suspect lifters, but the problem persisted. To me, this implies that one lifter was leaking down at night, and it took 15 seconds for enough oil to pump it up. It might have been a leaking check ball, but more likely it was excessive bore/sleeve leakage, because I had inspected the lifter parts pretty well. Several days after the R&R operation, I took it all apart again, replaced all four lifters, end of problem. Why all four? Because I could not accurately ascertain which lifter on that side of the engine was failed. Purely economic reason to replace them all -- I value my spare time! I'd already tried the cheap-out method -- cleaning the old lifters -- and, as usual when I try to shortcut, I got burned. Of course, there are thousands of EA82s running around with cold start lifter noise; this doesn't prevent them from running perfectly fine. I imagine that most people wouldn't bother fixing this kind of issue. Again, you demonstrate your education. Though if you've ever watched a SB-anything in good condition run with a valve cover removed (not recommended!), you know that "rotating slowly" isn't what they normally do. Every one (again, in good condition) rotated pretty darned fast. Well, "fast" in this context is very much a relative thing. At idle . . . the ones I've seen can rotate the pushrod (which is rotated by the lifter) about 15-20 RPM. For the rest of the audience: the lifter bore centerline is offset slightly from the cam lobe centerline. That's why rotation is imparted to the lifter. It's designed like this to try to equalize wear on the cam lobe and lifter scuff end. Now I've got to get back to assembling the EA82 over here on the engine stand . . . stoopid me, I looked right at the R&L heads, and still torqued them on backwards! EGP port is apparently the only difference, so you folks running w/o EGR don't have to care about R&L heads, I guess. I had to backtrack and swap them around, and naturally, I'd already glued one camcase on. I hate removing RTV, and half-set-up RTV is even worse.

Yes. I speak Brit -- I worked in a British motorcycle repair shop during my formative years, and drove Hillmans for several years, so I can translate "spanner", "boot", and "windscreen/backlight" with ease . This seems to be the concensus. On the EA82, the sucked oil pump mounting gasket shown in the pic at the top of this thread is a very common problem. I replaced the one shown, and when I pulled the motor 4k later, the new one was already deformed and starting to become like the old one. I glued in the next replacement and I'm hoping for better long-term results. It is high pressure differential on that gasket that causes the deformity (well, it's really caused by a poor casting design, but that's not so easy to fix, except by an EJ22 transplant), and running higher viscosity oil (as most suggest) is going to make the deformity worse, faster. There, that'll be a controverisial statement [waving red cape]. It requires a higher vacuum to move a given volume of oil of higher viscosity, than of lower viscosity. Higher vacuum = higher pressure differential on the gasket = gasket deforms faster/farther. File that under "Reasons to Stay Away from 20W50 in the EA82 engine." That'll really get the teeth gnashing -- expect vociferous rebuttal here. Including testimonials on how 20W50 immediately fixed their problem, or how they've been running 20W50 for years etc etc . . . but read on. On the lifter problem: One theory is that the oil becomes aerated from the leak in the deformed gasket on the suction side of the pump, and that the aerated oil prevents the lifters from becoming solid. I have my doubts about the being a cause of significant lifter noise for a couple of reasons. Why is it that I only hear one -- or sometimes two -- lifters banging away? If aerated oil is happening, then air should be being fed to all the lifters, and I should hear a lot more racket. Also, I'd bet that the actual effect of aerated oil would be delayed valve opening, not banging rockers. But that last is only a good guess. I can say that repairing the gasket shown above on my own vehicle did not noticeably quiet my noisy lifter, nor did disassembly/cleaning of all lifters on that side of the engine. The way I finally banished the noise was to replace four lifters with new ones: that did the trick. As an aside, the EA82 lifter design is such that you don't need to keep each old lifter with its bore, should you take them out for cleaning. Unlike the SBC (and a lot of other hydraulic lifter equipped engines of that period), the EA82 lifter itself does not move up and down in its bore with every cycle, and does not contact the cam lobe at all. So -- other than the rocker arm pivot area, there is no "wear-in" area for the EA82 lifter, and you can happily swap them all around if you like, with no detrimental effect. Try that on a SBC (or SBF or actually any similar engine of that period) and you're asking for cam lobe failure and dished lifters. Who can say? Probably not, but it's not really useful to know for certain. Is it the lifter pivot/rocker arm interface, the rocker arm/cam lobe interface, or the rocker arm/valve interface that's got excessive clearance? Doesn't matter, as it's all the same cause: too much clearance caused by a hydraulic lifter which is not doing its job. From my reading on USMB, here's a summary of EA82 noisy lifter issues: a) dirty lifter internals -- might be repaired by the Marvel Mystery Oil (or similar engine flush-like substance) treatment aeration of oil -- might be repaired by regasketing the oil pump c) insufficient oil volume/pressure (worn engine) -- might be repaired by: . i) installation of oversized oil pump. . ii) changing to higher viscosity oil . iii) reduce engine bearing clearances d) stuck/seized pressure relief valve in heads -- might be repaired by removing and cleaning the relief valve(s) and/or replacing the relief valve springs e) damaged lifter -- repaired by replacement All of the above methods have their advocates. I have personal experience with e) on my own vehicle, and successful repair with a) on a EJ22 -- a "five minute fix", what a pleasant surprise last month.

Old (abdiadic) rule of thumb: every 10°F temp rise = 1 HP drop. Keep a cold air feed for best power. Do not use underhood air.

Well, yes and no. I looked into this pretty seriously four years ago. I bought 'fiche for my CX500, and was already running a site hosting FSM for several cars (the site exists only in this room, now, it's not online, but will be again RSN, maybe before the end of the year). Anyway, the 'fiche I got I paid to have printed to paper, using the best tech I could find commeasurate with cost, I spent about $50 to have the 'fiche turned into a 2" stack of paper. It was 'orrible, mate. The quality of the stuff was pretty poor. I started in with it with photshop and quickly decided that my time is more valuable. Now, that's not to say that I couldn't have done it -- I've got around 20 GB of scanned manuals online in this room, but the 'fiche stuff is pretty poor to read on paper, and I decided to abandon the project, sold off the CX500 stuff and recouped the cash. [i wrote a php/MySQL backend as a display subsystem to my site, and I still own the code, but it really needs some polishing and features enhancement for the next stage. But here I am, typing away to you folks instead.] Then there is the legality issue: you have to have permission to distribute, and putting it online is distribution. There are murky areas, and I work with those for the stuff I do. Maybe FHI doesn't care if you take their stuff and make it available worldwide, I don't know, but it behooves you to ask. Tech changes, and maybe this is an easier process now than it was four years ago.

It wouldn't hurt to know year/model . . . Are you sure it's exhaust you're smelling? There are several known problem areas for oil leaks, and a couple of them leak and get blown back onto the exhaust wye pipe and can smoke like a MF when the pipes get hot. Also, on some models, the right inner CV boot will burst and spew grease directly onto the wye pipe's cat (and onto the hood, and onto the spare tire and firewall, etc.). First sign is when you get out after a hot run, and can see/smell the smoke. Open the hood, watch for it. If you can smell actual exhaust, you have a ventilated floorboard (rust) and an exhaust leak, or an open tailgate (wagon). Just my guess.

Not quite. That person had high CO; high HC has overlapping but often different causes. (Flooded purge canister, for example. Don't know if it happens on Subarus, but it does on other cars.) Usually, however, it's either a very bad overrich condition, a dead (or very low) cylinder that isn't firing, or an ignition problem of any sort. HC = unburned fuel Look for reasons why unburned fuel is making its way through the engine. Air filter restrictions are tempting, but 3xx at idle is pretty high. It's possible that you have failed cats, too, but you'd usually see elevated CO with that as well.

With a bit more finesse required by the operator to launch. Over the years, I've converted two vehicles "back" to heavier flywheels, because the light ones were too light for the application. One of them was a hi-po Corvair 140hp [four carb stock, this one was higher comp. and converted to Holley] engine with reverse camshaft & dist drive, installed in a '60s Porsche 912, a not-unusual retrofit in those days, owing to the cost of rebuilding the 4 cyl 912 engine after it blew up -- also not uncommon. With the reversed bits, and a trans adapter, the Corvair ran "backwards" to match the Porsche drivetrain. Took me months to get it sorted out after the last five Covair "experts" had had their way with it. As I got it, it was nearly impossible to drive, with the combination of too much carb, too much compression, and almost no flywheel. I put the two-carb heads on it (lowering the compression), knocked it back to a single two barrel, and had a heavy flywheel made from scratch. The car was quite liveable then, and the Doctor who owned it was very happy with the transformation. Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.

You sure 'bout that? I looked at an '86 EA82T recently, it had the A/C on the outside, and it sure looked factory. Or a really good kit, I suppose. Changing No. 2 plug was a PITA with that setup.

I used to perform alternator conversions on old Japanese & British cars, using the Delco alternator model prior to the S10 series. The older unit was a bit smaller diameter, and could be had up to 63A with the right combination of stator and rotor. And as little as 35A. For the British cars, these units were especially easy to use for positive ground applications, as their positive and negative diodes are physically the same size, and the mechanical regulators do not care about polarity. Take 'em apart, press out the diodes from their heatsinks, press them back in the opposite locations, then fab a minor bracket or two for the alternator mounting, determine which lead on the car's harness is for the idiot lamp and fab a harness for the mechanical regulator. Voila! A cheap, positive-ground alternator that can be serviced anywhere. I did about a dozen of 'em over the years. On the S10 series: if you're not going to use an idiot light, use a 10 ohm 1/2w resistor from the lamp terminal on the alternator to a switched hot, to bring the regulator online. It doesn't draw any appreciable current, so you can connect it to any switched hot. Don't use a doorbell switch on the dash as suggested, it does not drop enough voltage, and the regulator can be damaged. On the subject of alternator capacity: do you really want or need anywhere near 100A capacity? Unless you plan on arc-welding or are running some huge number of high-draw lamps, 50A is plenty. As Shawn mentioned, the Datsun 6 cyl diesel had a 60A alternator and they work fine -- you can't recharge a battery at 60A anyway, it'll warp the plates. (BTW: the Maxima diesel alternator is designed to accomodate a vane-type vacuum pump on the back, so the output shaft runs through the alternator. Like my '59 Eldo/Seville's generator did, to run the onboard vee-twin air compressor for the Air Ride Suspension. Yup, GM had full Air Suspension -- no coil springs at all -- from '58-61.)

When I bought it, my '93 Loyale Wgn had the gate power lock harness disconnected in the gate, and the trim panel was loose. When I plugged the power lock back in, I found out why: on the wagon, that mechanism is NOT a solenoid, it's a motor with an output like a wiper motor. Mine had a stripped worm gear inside, so the limit switches inside it never shut the motor off, it would run all the time. It also didn't lock/unlock, of course. I bought a used one at a yard ($35, nothing's cheap in the sticks), two bolts and new trim panel clips, all done. Having the locksmith make the manual key lock work back there was a lot more work - -he worked on it for over a half hour (I watched) and charged me only $25, which was a steal for the work involved. He had the new chrome trim plates, too, so it all looks like new now, and the key still matches the rest of the car. He also had some of the black trim plates (for GLs?).

Skip's correct, you want to connect the ammeter in series between the battery and the rest of the car (but exluding the starter). Find the heavy wire (about 10ga on most cars) leading from the battery, break it, and make the ammeter's connections there. This is often easiest to do if you disconnect it from the battery, connect one lead of your ammeter to that lead, and one to the place where you disconnected the stock lead. If you connect the ammeter to the alternator's output, the ammeter will only show how much current the alternator is generating at any given moment (unless the alternator has a bad diode, but that's an exceptional case). Be sure to use the same, or preferably one size heavier wire when you connect the ammeter. Most ammeter "kits" ship with either 10ga or 12 ga wire, which may or may not be heavy enough for your particular application. Wire is cheap, don't scrimp. Also, be doubly certain not to route the ammeter's leads near sharp edges, or use wire loom wrap to protect them. If it shorts, you'll have a fire, guaranteed: it's unfused, in most installations, unless you install an additional fusible link between the battery and the ammeter lead. The ammeter, wired in this fashion, will show the current flowing into and out of the battery, which is what most people want to see (Is it charging? Is there a current drain?) It will not, typically, show how hard your alternator is working, because a properly regulated alternator carries the load of all the car's combined current needs, plus the current to recharge the battery after it's been started. The shunt style ammeters are a lot safer to wire, they don't carry all the current up to the gauge then back to the rest of the car, but I don't see the shunt style ammeters sold much outside of OEM channels. A shunt style ammeter is the only ammeter installed in OEM applications, and have been for at least forty years.

If you've ever sold a car you really liked, only to have to trashed before your eyes in the place where you live, slowly degrading week after week, with nothing you can do about it, you know the heartache I felt when I sold a car to a guy who later sold it to a guy running a paper route years ago. [Routes, whether newspapers or something else, wear cars out faster than just about anything else you can do on the street.] The car wasn't cherry when I sold it, but it had about a thousand hours of my time into it, ran like a Swiss watch, and I'd put about 50k trouble-free miles on it. In the space of about two months, it was junk. Last I saw, it was on blocks, wrecked and parted out. That was 15 yrs. ago.

Actually, clutch kits can be purchased which include a pre-turned flywheel, and you later return your core. They're more expensive that kits without, of course, but they can save some time, because you don't have to wait for your flywheel to be turned. In general, unless you had completely smooth clutch engagement when your clutch started slipping, and there are NO blue spots or small cracks in the friction surface area of your flywheel, the rule is to always have it turned. Unless you don't mind that juddery feeling every time you launch.

Please post the reference address of this quote. I think this is a misleading, out-of-context quote. If I'm correct, this would read, " . . . higher levels of soot [/i]in the lubricating oil[/i] . . . ". Modern diesels utilize a different EGR control system that can significanty increase soot in the oil, not in the exhaust stream. This is a challenge for the oil filtering system for a modern diesel. I'm on my way out the door, but I can find a couple of refs for this.

So -- a minor tuneup got you a reduction of CO by about an order of magnitude times two. Why fight the system? It's there to let us all keep breathing a bit easier. You probably picked up some mileage, too Really, on these older rigs, if you can't pass, something's really wrong. The pass std level is quite high. Until about '97, anyway. (this talk of registering in a non-test county -- it's easier to fix a malfunction in the state of tune or maintenance of the engine!)

If you can't find the real Subaru woodgrain panels, try asking over at http://www.stationwagon.com/ This is a very common problem in restoring 60's through early 80's wagons that used that applique. The stuff can be bought in bulk. I'm a fan of estate/break/station wagons of all kinds.

The problem was that some of us have very low bandwidth to the internet. I live so far out in the country that my ZIP code is EIEIO (try saying it out loud). My best connection is 26.4k . I have a local proxy server, so normally I'd just have to download your pic once, and from then on it would be served by the local proxy server, but in practice there appears to be a metatag override in the vB software that prevents this . . . I have not investigated, because if true there isn't a whole lot I could do about it anyway without a lot of work . . . and I'm not into a lot of work I could probably rewrite the page on-the-fly by revere proxy and feed it through a local copy of Apache . . . but it's too much work. Anyway. A smaller pic would be nice. Or, better, a link to a pic.

Sorry, I was tired and groggy and I don't do my best writing then. Yes, as you surmise, it was the Maxima. The MB five cylinder 3.0l is a dog. Their six cylinder is supposed to run much stronger, but I've never had a chance to dirve one. Even though both the Datsun and the MB have OHC, and the MB has 200cc over the LD28, the Datsun would flat run away from my 300D. Hell, the 300D was so slow that I'd have to pick which freeway onramp to use to get on I-5 in Bellingham: Iowa St. to southbound I-5 is uphill! Several, actually. They sold the LD28 (SAE 80 HP) in the 810/Maxima in '81-83 or early '84, then stopped importing them here. But I understand that that engine is a light truck engine in other countries, and that it turbos real well. I can hardly wait [rubbing hands]. Nissan also marketted a diesel four cylinder in their PU line for several years in the early/mid 80's. I don't know anything about that one, but it doesn't look much like the LD28, so it's not derivative. You should drive a 200D (1960-68) sometime! Diesels aren't all slow. It just seems that way, because mfgrs are always and forever putting little diesels in vehicles. Imagine a 2.0l Four in a 2800 lb car: that's the 200D. Add four-speed column shift and you don't exactly have a performance platform. The Tempo diesel performs fairly well, because it's a 2.0l in a small car. The Rabbit diesel (remember the Rabbit? It preceeded the Golf, was sold through '84), if equipped with a 5-spd, runs out quite well, if you can stand the interiour noise -- I've worn out two of them, and after the last one, I swore I wouldn't buy another, but I did eventually pick up an old Jetta diesel because it had a sunroof. The Rabbit will cruise right along at 75 MPH, and still get 44 MPG. But it's a low-quality ride: the interiour noise would leave me with a headache on long trips. My former '83 G30 (1T GM van) has the 6.2l, and though it's only rated at 160 HP, it towed things very well, and got 19.1 MPG over 80k miles, not bad for a rig as aerodynamic as a shoebox and pushing 5,800 lbs with me and 33 gals of fuel. It has proper gearing for the engine, and if you stomp it from a stop, it moves (for a big box on wheels, that is). [later] Forgot to mention: the old (head-gasket-blowing) Rabbit diesel engine, 1.6l, is a "high RPM diesel": it's governed to only 4400 RPM! The G30 would top out (with 175k on it) at 86 MPH. It would go faster, except the damned 700-R4 would not stay in overdrive at full-throttle, and in 3rd gear (direct), 86 MPH is bumping the 6.2l's governor! When I'd back off 1/8th, the 700-R4 would upshift to OD, and I could sometimes creep up to 89 MPH. I asked, but nobody had a trans valve body mod for the 700-R4 for a reasonable price, that would allow OD and full throttle at the same time. Not bad for the frontal area of a Peterbuilt.