karinvail

My newly swapped in EA82 has a lot more oil pressure than the last engine. It runs between 55-70 depending on RPM's and cold/warm. I assume by the guage that 45 is ''normal'' oil pressure. Can this much oil pressure cause problems? I can see that there is a small oil leak I didn't notice before - looks like the oil pump gasket by the location I'm guessing (middle of motor just behind the timing covers).

when my husband and I did my motor swap, before-hand I marked *everything* on both sides of the connection that wasn't totally obvious with masking tape and numbers corresponding to where it hooks up to. Helped immensely!

personally, I wouldn't bother with a JY alt - you can get lifetime alt's at parts stores and never have to buy one again....

Ditto. When one of my previous Soob's started doing that, I drove straight to the auto parts store and had them test it. Changed it in the parking lot - easy easy. I just noticed on this latest Soob a couple days ago that the volts were down to 9-10v. I changed it with my spare as soon as I got home and all is well again.

The engine that hubby and I just swapped out had the vacuum lines totally wrong, so I spent a good hour or two reading that @#$% diagram that's on the inside of the hood, but there is one that I couldn't figure out. This is an 86 EA82 (manual 5sp.tranny) and it's the only small outlet on the drivers side of the air cleaner coming out the bottom at an angle towards the drivers wheel. I have no clue where it needs to go and couldn't decipher that on the diagram. Anybody know which one I'm referring to and where it goes?

hmm - I wonder if it's had a tranny swap and not motor swap then - I've not seen a Subaru that age with a 5 speed before (but I could be wrong!). these engines are super reliable if they haven't been abused with neglecting to put anti-freeze in them or overheating them (the problem with my car from it's previous owner so I had to put a different engine in). Ya get what you pay for though. I wouldn't expect miracles from a car with that many miles, but that is some darn good gas mileage they reported! I've never gotten over 30mpg with any of the Soob's I've had. 26mpg in town usually and 30 highway/freeway driving. ALWAYS use super unleaded - never regular (they sound like DOO-DOO on regular unleaded in my experience). And difference between 2WD and 4WD is just that - the 4WD you can use in 2WD (front wheel drive) or 4WD - if you do *any* off-roading, hunting, etc, then a 4WD is wonderful. I will use 4WD if I drive in my lawn even just so I don't leave peel-out marks (although this year the yard is pretty dry, so I don't have to worry about that so much).

Honestly I think you could find a 4WD car for that price and that age/mileage. Kelley Blue Book doesn't go back to '82, but is says for an '85 of that age/mileage is only worth about $375. I personally wouldn't buy a 2WD car (and is it a 4sp or auto tranny?). I think $400 would be more reasonable in my opinion though. But, in the PNW, Subura's are pretty easy to find....... It's a personal choice though. If it's worth it to you, that's what matters!

I would be willing to pitch in to help save the domain name - as I am sure a lot of others would too. Please, just ASK if you need help, there are too many people that use this URL to lose it (even if the board was saved, it sure wouldn't be as handy if it was on another domain name since this is the one that everybody knows.....)

I haven't had an operational hill hold on any Soob since my original Soob (an 85 that I had from 88-91). I loved the hill hold and never had a problem with it. But, I'm seeing a lot of posts where people are talking about removing the hill hold? Why? My current Soob has the cable snipped, but my parts car has an intact cable I was thinking of trying to swap over, but I'm wondering why so many people are removing theirs?

I suggest renting a sprayer/compressor and doing it yourself with the appropriate paint. My husband and I did a roller paint job on his Thiokol snowcat. Didn't turn out too bad actually, but it's definitely 'orange peeled'. The type of roller that you use will give you less orange peel effect if you did end up rolling it on. VERY SHORT nap will give you less orange peel. We used a short nap, but not the shortest available because we wanted a good thick coat and we only had 2 gallons (it was close-out paint that was already mixed). You can see the paint on this website http://www.geocities.com/snow_toaster/ (We stripped it down to bare aluminum before painting). NOTE: we got a better digi cam last year, so the later pics/pages are much clearer than the earlier pics/pages.

Well, I'm not sure exactly what we did, but it's fixed. I did un-do the exhaust that was hanging on the trans. - that seemed to be binding it up to the side a little - after that, it was able to shift down into 2WD again. At least it's fixed - what a relief!

since I posted, we thoroughly checked the linkage. The linkage that is at the top of the transaxle is all the way back when the shifter is as far down (toward FWD) as possible. It cannot physically go any further back, but the shifter is not in the right position it should be when in FWD. I am totally befuddled. It feels like it's in 4WD when the linkage is all the way towards the rear (and I think it IS in 4WD). Dang, this is the last thing I would have thought we'd have problems with since it was just an engine swap!

My husband and I did an engine swap in my 86 EA82 Soob this weekend. We got my motor out, the donor motor out (from an 85 EA82) and then the donor motor in my car yesterday. We finished buttoning up with timing and routing the vacuum hoses and hubby did an exhaust (made one exhaust from the two cars). Runs good, sounds good, but when we went to back it off the ramps, the clutch didn't work. We backed the cable off as the cable on the donor car wasn't as tight as the one in my car. Then, the clutch worked, but it still needs some 'fine tuning'. We will do that when we figure out the other problem that arose I guess - that being the 4WD. The instrument panel says the car is in 4WD when the shifter is in FWD. Then, when you shift it to 4HI, it acts like it's in neutral. Then, shift in 4LO and it is in 4WD. The 4WD worked perfectly until the engine swap. All we did was swap engines (and used the clutch that was on the donor engine since it was already attached). What did we do wrong? We thought maybe we had bent the linkage, but that doesn't look to be the problem. We did have to jack the tranny up quite a bit to get the old engine loose, but it wasn't up against the firewall (not THAT far).

Do you work at the PAP, or just a frequent customer? LOL

Too bad my wheel isn't in as good of condition as that one - maybe you could photoshop your pic for the wheels page so you have a nice wheel with the centercap and all

Hmm - I have some wheels from my last Subaru (an 83) hanging out in the garage. I don't see a picture of this style on that page (maybe I'm missing it though)..... they seem pretty 'common' looking to me though? I don't know what I'm going to do with them since they are from the 83 - from what I'm gathering the 83 is the EA81 style and my latest Soob is the EA82 style (an 86).

I say try all you can to get the REAL title. It's not only about legalities, it's about morals and ethics too. You will feel MUCH better if you do it the legal way...... just my .02

ah, I should have thought of that! Hubby just hooked up a new radiator on his '61 Thiokol Snowcat with the tranny cooler (but those inlet/outlets were on the bottom of the radiator he used, so it didn't dawn on me that's what these were).

I put a radiator from an 87 GL turbo wagon on my 86 GL wagon - the radiator from the turbo had 2 extra (smaller) outlets on the drivers side of the radiator (besides the normal larger outlet/inlet on the top drivers and bottom passengers side) that I wasn't sure what they were for. There were no hoses for this on my carbed engine. I didn't have anything to cap them with, so I looped a peice of hose from one to the other - was this the right/wrong thing to do?

I was told - (and I don't know if this is 100% true or not, but sounds reasonable to me) - that when you work on anything with the cooling system, when you put the water/coolant back in, then you start the motor and let it warm up the first time with the radiator cap off - then when the thermostat opens up, you can top off the radiator if the water/coolant level goes down. I guess this is to prevent those air locks. Don't knwow how common they are in Soob's, but I've heard of them being a real pain in other rigs.

it's pretty easy to take the front cover off the timing belts to see if that is a problem. The middle cover on mine has a plug that looks like you could just pop that out and feel in there without taking the covers off. My first Soob the timing belts went out going down the freeway and it had just barely over 60,000 mi. on it too Haven't had one do that since then (knock on wood). Even having the dealership repair it, it was only $200 to fix. It's something I wouldn't hesitate to do myself now though.

Mine is now ''Regrets'' - because I regret every buying this POS.... I love Soob's, but this one I despise.....

My brother just gave me a set of Yakima racks for my Soob - it has a bike rack attachment (that I will never use, LOL). Trying to think of something I can make so it can be useful..... anybody have pics of clever attachments for their Yakima racks? Or, where can you get pre-made attachments?

Yesterday I was on a trip a couple hours from home and on the way home, there is a set of steep hills - It wasn't overheating (fan is working fine), but by the time I got to the light at the bottom side of one of the hills, my car just quit and started billowing steam/smoke and would not restart (cranked fine, but wouldn't catch) Temp guage was in normal range. Pushed it off the side of the road into gas station parking lot and opened hood. I was assuming it was going to be a timing belt, but there was smoke/steam billowing from the passenger side head (smelled awful!). I'm assuming it is a blown head gasket? I eventually was able to restart it, but it ran like CRAP. Very rough and rattly. Hubby came with a car trailer and we hauled it home on that. Haven't looked at it this morning, but head gasket is my first guess. Does that sound like a good possibility?

the clutch on my last Subaru did the same thing you are describing before I sold it - the cable was at it's limit to how far it would adjust (it was stretched I assumed). Since I had no more threads on the end of the cable to adjust, I put a spacer behind the adjusting screws and cut the end off the threaded part (because it was hitting a part on the engine). It worked for a very short while until the cable stretched more. If it were mine, I'd change the cable out and try that first before I yanked the motor or tranny again. Cable's are cheap and easy to replace......