555Ron

Hi, I have a 1987 Subaru Leone DL (i think) carbed EA82 with no powersteering or A/C. I have decided to change the waterpump, and from there the jobs list has snowballed majorly mainly due to "can i do it myself" thinking... i just find doing mechanical stuff interesting. I have a few questions and i'll have more as i start to pull it apart, and would like someone who has done the job before to advise me on what i should be doing. 1. Theres oil leaking from the timing belt covers, not sure where. I plan on changing the seals on the camshafts, but it looks harder to do the crank seal. Should i order a seal and attempt it or have a wait and see approach. (Car has 148000kms on it... about 95000 - 100000 miles) And are they crank seals difficult to do? 2. I keep getting told to grease stuff in my workshop manual. What type of grease should i use (I live in Aust, and the grease i know available are castrol and valvoline... where would i find the grease you recommend?) 3. What should i grease in the camhousing so there is no wear when i restart the engine? Should i get the old timing belt and try to pump oil with my hand via an old belt? 4. With the oil leak, could this affect my pulleys? Should i hold off getting the belts until i have inspected the idler and tensioner pulleys for damage? (I can get a cheapish timing kit (gates) with pulleys, but i was going to buy the Subaru belts if the pulleys were ok) 5. The oil pump doesn't seem to make any noise, but when i put my stethoscope to it it makes a faint tick-tick every second or so. Should i pull it and put new O-rings on it? 6. My manual says to take care of the inner bearings when removing my camshaft from its housing. Where abouts are these and what does this mean in plain english to do with the camshaft? 7. I have a couple of noisy tappets and the cam housing leaks. The passenger side has no noisy tappets though. Should i take the tappets apart still and clean them up? 8. One website says to "use 1.6mm O Ring in lengths to seal the Cam Housings", whats this mean?? 9. My Torque Wrench is 30 years old, and has never been used. The minimum setting is 14.8 lb ft. How do i check that it works ok and will this be low enough? The timing covers are to be torqued to about 5 lb ft (my book has it in metric units, so i don't know the exact number off my head) 10. The oil sump has a minor leak. Should i replace the gasket, or just tighten the bolts say 1/6th of a turn. I understand i have to take the exhaust pipes off the heads to get the sump off... are they difficult to put back on? Do i need to put them back on to the right torque? I have exhaust cement too, do i put this on both sides of the gasket? Or do i put it on the exhaust/head? Thanks in advance for your help.

Ok, i have the Gregory's (A lot better imo), i'll scan it in for you over the weekend.

They knocking on braking could be many things... a warped disc rotor, bad brake calipers, bad CV joint... as could be the rough engine. I would doubt it would be fluids though i'd get them changed if its a cold climate where its been stored. (change them asap, best to be on the safe side) The rough running could be the valve timing out one notch... lack of compression in a cylinder... anything. I'd take the car to a mechanic and get him(her) to diagnose the problems. Anything he says take it with a grain of salt. People will tell you anything to get rid of a car they don't want. I drove a 10 hour round trip to look at a car that had a little surface rust, a smooth engine etc. Well, it was a pile of junk, not suitable for a wrecker! If he says it ran good when he stopped driving it... why did he stop driving it? (and why is he selling it too) Even if he has an explanation for that, assume he is lying. Better to be safe then sorry. You should have a list of questions to ask the seller such as the ones above and if its ever been crashed etc...

I've got a generic wiring diagram for those models (like.. combined e.g. manual not seperated from auto, and its for 86, 87 models) and a supplement for the 4wd wiring system (which is connected to the window wipers if you do it as this suggests, my old touring wagon never went into 4wd when i turned the wipers on... but thats for another day), if no one has anything better to offer. It's connected to the ninth pin from the left (blue/green) with a black/red on its left and green/black on its right on the huge instrument cluster connector. See if those wires are on your car... You could try connecting it up and see if the 4wd indictor light comes on. I can scan these in for you... but my time is very valuable (i just spent ten minutes looking that up for you) [scanners give me the ************s]

I have the wiring diagrams for the 82 year models and for a late utility model. If you could give me the main colour and the tracer colour in the order on the 82 model car i might be able to help you out with functions, and where to put what where from your car to the dash.

*hijack*Hi Ross, How/where do you use/get an oil pressure tester? Does it sit under the bonnet, or do you attach/detach it when you want to take a reading? */hijack* ... apologies for the hijacking.

Hydraulic tappets... i dunno. Get a screwdriver and put the pointy end where you think the noise is coming from (eg. cam housing) and put the other end to your ear. Rev the engine and move the screwdriver around until you can find it (the noise). Then come back with the results... could be anything, someone else might have an opinion. p.s. waterpump might be a really good place to start. They're pretty cheap too.

In general, i find once you let the smoke out... they don't work anymore.

Damn. Oh well, it was worth a try. How much of the dash did you buy? Just the part behind the dash? I think i might do it. Its always been something (the only thing, love it to bits) that annoyed me about the car. It would be awesome to watch the revs go up as the boxer start to scream!

Hey Drangonwing, would you mind posting a couple links so i can read up on this? I've seen one website with the basic idea and how you could go about it (Pretty sketchy though)... but BMW made a V12 and Ford (in paternership with mazda... perhaps?) converted a Focus to run on Hydrogen using a modified IC engine. I think it reduced power output by roughly 25%. (But who cares... plus i think Ford supercharged their car to overcome this) Try doing a search on these projects... it may have a couple of tips for you. Both these cars were powered by hydrogen that was fed into the cars fuel tanks. Water is the result of burning hydrogen... so in a round about way you're trying to burn the ashes of a fire is how it was put to me by a nay sayer. But, if we all had of listened to them... we wouldn't have got too far. Go for it... and if it works... you'd better give me the recipe for my EA82. I think you should start off trying to run the engine on hydrogen... then try to get it to run off the water. I think you'll find this will be the part that will be harder then you think, so you'll have to be determined to get it finished. But good luck with it... i really hope it turns out. Give us some progress reports too...

Yeah.. high/low beam etc.

How much did the new instrument panel cost? I've got the speedo and the picture of the car on the right... and not having a tacho annoys me! I've though of putting an aftermarket tacho on it, but i think that will just look crap! Do you want to do mine for me when you've finished? I've heard what a mess it is behind the instrument panel....

Alright, the parts should arrive in a week... but i've not had a lot of luck recently with Subaru. So it may be 2-3 weeks until they get installed.

If you take it to a radiator repair specialist they should be able to put a completely new bit of plastic on your radiator and it will be good as new...

Ok, on the basis there are no stupid questions... only stupid answers, what does HLA stand for?

What do you need to do this? Can you work on the engine inside the car with the radiator in it still? I don't like the thought of taking my timing belt off... it is something i would take to my mechanic. Do you have to worry about the tension of the belt when you put it back together? Could i do the timing belt myself? I really like working on these things but i don't trust myself to do it right and worry about everything that could go wrong and stress about it.

To get the stickers off... Buy a bottle of tea tree oil from a supermarket/chemist. Saturate the sticker with the tea tree oil and then heat it up with a hair dryer a gently peel the label off. Scrub the remaining sticky residue with a paper towel and tea tree oil and it will come off surprsingly easy. (I tried many things, including specialty products on my 18 yr old boot lid, and i found tea tree oil to be by far the best) To get new stickers. I doubt you'd be able to get them from Subaru... maybe you can. I'd try to get them custom made from some kind of printer business... i don't know. But to get paint, i used to work at an auto shop that would make custom paint. You can buy a 300g presurised pack for $28.50, which gives a good result. But you would be better off buying a 1 litre tin ($22) of custom paint and using a compressor to apply it... but if you want an excellent result... take it to a panel beater and get them to respray the affected areas. But to make custom paint, we just put your make, year of manufacture, and colour code into a comp. program and it comes out with a recipe. You might even find one on the internet if you're lucky and try to do it yourself. I'd put it in for you, but i don't work there anymore...

I really baby the engine when its cold. And when its at operating temperature i still baby it and look after the car because i enjoy driving it and intend to keep it. And, i'm a Subaru fanatic and i just couldn't abuse a Subaru. It doesn't make any squealing noises, but i did notice today that the belt had a little shudder in it. I'm going to check the crankshaft pulley because it came loose about a year ago, after starting the engine. The noise sounds like suddenly theres a turbo diesel under the bonnet, and isn't related to the clutch. The pump isn't leaking yet. I noticed my mechanic also checked the tension of the belt when he looked over the engine, so i think its ok. I think camshaft belt tesioner may be the best bet. It was checked before i purchased the car, but any work these mechanics did on the car, they seem to have done a half hearted job with cheap parts. Ross, the rally of NZ is two weeks away too;)

I think the tranny buzzing can be fixed easily with $20 worth of gearbox rubbers. I've got the same problem in my manual 5 speed transmission, and i've got the parts on order from Subaru. It's supposed to get rid of the slop and the buzzing noise in the gearbox. They are a pretty solid little gearbox, but the rubbers in the gearshift selector wear out. I'll let you know how i get on.

Hi, I have a 1988 Subaru Leone. I am from Australia so your cars are a little back to front to mine (). About two weeks ago i redid the cooling system. (New radiator, thermostat, thermostat housing, cooling hoses) A week after i started to hear a noise that started mid way through the revs to the high end of the revs. I took it to a mechanic but the noise almost goes away when the car is hot so he couldn't diagnose it. When i refilled it i did it very carefully so i didn't get an air lock in the system. I've not got a lot of experience doing this stuff but i do it carefully. I refilled the system with Tectaloy long life coolant, which isn't the cheap stuff. The water channels inside the motor were in perfect condition, and the car has been well looked after with less then 100,000 miles on it. How do i figure out where the bearing noise is coming from? I've stuck my head near it and revved the engine with no success. I think i may have upset the bearings in the water pump but i don't want to replace it to no avail. Its coming up to be due for an oil change in the engine... but the engine is full of oil and there are no warning lights coming on in the dash. The other little problem i have is a backfire on delceration when cold. The Anti-backfire Valve (Which sits on the right hand side between the air intake and the windscreen washer bottle, near the charcol converter) will rattle pretty violently when i take the foot off the accelerator. So i went to the wrecker and got a second hand ABV and its doing the same thing. Is it two faulty units or is this what they do? Or could it be something else in the anti-pollution 'junk' causing this. The other thing that might make a difference is i had the front muffler replaced with a 2.5" stainless steel pipe... only because it was cheaper. I still run a stock, 1 year old rear muffler on the back. I've been told the catalytic converter is no good any more, but i put my hand over the rear muffler and couldn't find any leaks on a quick inspection. I've got a can of stuff to put down the manifold to get rid of carbon deposits in the cylinder heads, but i don't see how this will fix the problem when it only backfire (like someone is throwing small rocks at the exhaust) when it is cold at pretty high revs. Thanks for your help, and reading all that crap:banghead: (edit: The car only has three pulleys: Alternator, Water pump and crankshaft)

I don't know if you can get it in the states, but i used a hair dryer to get the sticker off then "Tea tree oil" to get the sticky residue off. It worked really fast and its a natural product that won't damage the paint. Be gentle though, you can take the paint with the sticker. So use heat and the tea tree oil to get the sticker off. And the paint code should be above the front left headlight. It should be 3 numbers. Mine is white and has a paint code of 828.