TomRhere

Storm has done passed us by now. All we got today, was another dusting. You can still see the grass under it.

I have drilled and tapped the T-stat housing on other makes to install an additional temp gauge. Not much meat there, so you have to be careful in doing so. Think your idea is a good one, but would use a pipe plug instead of a bolt. Better seal at threads that way.

All we have here this AM, is a light dusting of snow. Radar is showing more on the way though. We shall see.....

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?threadid=4702 Got the same problem here, in both BRATs.

Built my own 2" duals on my '82, using E.M.T. electrical conduit. For mufflers, I used Xcelerator Turbo Mufflers. Pipes exit just in front of the rear wheels. Pics here. http://usmb.net/gallery/albuo81 Nice little Taka-Taka-Taka-Taka at idle. Sounds damn good when you nail the loud pedal. Nice mellow croon at hiway speeds. May be due to it breathing even better now, but since the Weber install, the exhaust note has changed somewhat. But for the better in my opinion. Hard time here, not nailing the loud pedal everytime I drive it. My 11 year old Son loves the sound too. 'Specially when he's riding in the back, "Come on Dad, Hit it!!!" Ran her hard thru the gears afew times, come around a corner or curve and people are outside. The look on their faces be priceless. "All of that, came from,...... THAT!" I have the only BRAT in the area, so most people are taken-back with just the vehicle itself, the exhaust really gets them. No hassles from the Cops, yet. Did have one follow me across town, and all the way home once. This was after I nailed it to beat traffic, as I was coming out of the pizza joint. Heavily travel 4-lane street, during high traffic flow. PS. Nice mud bath on that BRAT Scott!!!

Miles Take that one arm from the XT to a garage (Brents), they should be able to press that pivot bolt out. You know, the one I ground the head and nut off of. If nothing else, press the old bushing out, and pop in a new one, they're not that much in price. Pmed you again on the tranny.

Good write-up, Skip! Suggestion for those who find that it is the ignition switch that is the culprit to the "no crank" problem, and wish to add the push button/relay fix. A plentiful and cheap in cost relay to use, would be the starter relay from an electric start riding lawn mower. It would easily handle the job of switching power to the solenoid on the starter itself. A heavier duty one, would be to use a Ford (please excuse the foul language there) starter relay. One would still need to use a momentary contact switch to activate the relay. But either one would be plentiful, and they come with mounting flanges attached. Just my .02 added.

Will be here on the 23rd of this month. Nice little Christmas present for the Wife. Found it on the Yahoo BRAT Club site. '84 BRAT GL Auto. Has the Hi-Topper, and lots of new parts on it. Such as radiator, exhaust, water pump, and good tires, but no rear seats. Mine, (well, Her's), for $700.00...... I've been looking for a decent shape, decent priced one for a while now. Del, (Wife), has shot down everyone of them, 'cause she didn't think they were worth the asking price. Showed her this one, and she asked me, "Why it wasn't sitting in the driveway yet?". Engine has a bad HG on the Pass side. No biggie there, as I have a good engine and 4 spd D/R tranny in the '86 to swap in. Don't like the Auto tranny, 'specially after reading all of the horror stories about them on here. Have to get my Friend, (who does body work), to help me with swapping in the Fun Roofs from the '86 also. Hate to scrap a BRAT, but the '86 is in way bad condition due to rust. Would just be way to costly to fix her up. So she will donate all of her good parts to the preservation of the '82, and the '84. Even thinking of cutting out the rust prone areas, (wheel wells, rockers, what have you), and sending them to, http://www.alfaparts.net/subaru.html , so that others may benefit from her demise. I will get pics posted in the photo section, just as soon as I can figure out what my password is. Dadburned fuzzy memory!!!! Life, good it is, Yes!!!

Might want to ask this question over on the http://www.xt6.net board too. I got a nice copy of the ECU wiring for the '88 XT-6 engine I have, from there. Couldn't hurt...

The connection for the sending unit was the culprit on my '86. Corroded to badly to fix, so I cut it out, and soldered the wires together. Been working ever since.

Do believe that the shielded wires in the ECU wire loom, are all ready grounded at one of the grounding wires of the harness. You can check that easily enough with a multi-meter or test light. As Miles said, the shield is a braid like that of co-axial cable, and is usually just under the outer jacket of the wire/cable. You only need one end of it grounded. If you ground both ends, you will induce noise into the wire, not eliminate it. You don't want noise in the wire, gives false signals to the ECU. Been studying the wiring diagram I have for the '88 XT-6. It is different than what you have, as far as the coil wires go, but I don't believe that you want to ground that Black lead that you mention. But I have been wrong before.

http://usmb.net/repair/?FileType=Folder&CurrentDirectory=FOLDER_3f3c69dbce8b26.61439718/ Worked for me.

I've lost count on the number of cars I've seen like that. Owner brings the car to me, says the brakes just started to make noise. Like what?!? You deaf or something?? Don't remember the exact make of car. But one had been ran so long, that it had worn the piston down. Had another that the rear shoes had worn down to just the center rib. One heck of a groove in the drum, almost cut in half. Really like it when someone brings me a car with way iffy brakes. I do them all up right, proper adjustments, and what not. Owner comes to get car, takes off down the road, and screeches to a stop at the stop sign. Well, way short of the stop sign, really. They're so used to driving on iffy brakes, they don't remember what good brakes were.

Been getting that, "you can't lift a subaru" crap here too, everytime I talk to someone about the plans for the BRAT. I just ask them if the have internet access. If the say yes, I give them Scott's web site addy. They usually don't have much flack to give after looking at it. About busted a gut over that diamond-plate waffle marks on the forehead comment. Gotta be some "mean" brakes on that BRAT. I know you have a lot of irons in the fire Scott, but you really need to get your site up-dated.

I used to live in Jackson. Lesbaru, I think you're thinking of Dadeeo, (Terry), he just joined the board. Lives over in Paw Paw, Mi.. There's a couple of people on the XT6.net site from Mi., and a couple more over on the Yahoo BRAT Club. I'll see if I can get them interested in a Meet. Been asking around since the last time we tried this, for a place to go play in the mud around here. Just don't seem to be a happening thing. But I haven't given up on it. Seen to many of those "other makes" of 4X4's covered in mud, so there's got to be a place to do it. I'm open for any week end.

Would also have you re-check the tightness of the axle nut. I've had the axles out of both of my BRAT's , for various reasons. Upon re-installing them, and torqueing the nut to specs, I've found them to be slightly loose after driving around for a while. Bearing(s) not fully seated in the hub, or the axle not fully in all the way is the only thing I can come up with on that one. A good indicator of this is, car wants to steer to one side or the other, when you let off the go-pedal.

I would be interested in a set for the EA-82, and ER-27 myself.

i am here at tom's to pick up my parts. got all that i need for the conversion minus the struts. i need to find a set of impreza/legacy struts. some of the boots re ripped, but i can fix that. i know that the impreza axles are cheaper than ea82 axles. does anybody know how much impreza/legacy struts cost?

you should be able to get away with a 85-86 dist with 2 wires

you all know my story..................

Not sure where it's located, but there's a relay for the rear deffogger. Sounds like it could be your problem. Do you hear any sound of a click, other than the switch when you push it? If not, I'd bet it's the relay.

:slobber:

Now I know I have to get mine done. :slobber: :burnout: (Edited to change subject heading) (Just trying to keep it clean)

I'm done with it, finally. Well almost. Got the rear suspension laying on the garage floor now. Pulled all of the hoses and the pump part of the air-ride system. Got the individual struts off, along with their solenoids. Where's the brain for the air-ride located?? The body shell is now resting on jackstands, with no engine, tranny, front suspension, or rear suspension. Really kinda sad to see it that way. This car is more rusted than I originally thought. About the only parts of the underneath, that aren't all rusted are the main floor section, and the gas tank. Again, I was way surprized at how easy the bolts, holding the rear suspension section in, came out. Broke them loose with the 1/2" drive breaker bar, and spun them out with the 3/8" rachet. Really easy, they were. Going to grab the E-brake cables, and the clutch cable, then I'm totally finished with it.

Don't know much about FI systems, myself, but sounds like it's running lean. Sitting with no hood on it, could've cause some corrosion on the wiring connectors, giving false signals to the ECU. Could be the coolant temp sensor is bad, or faulty. ECU has to know the temp of the engine to give proper pulse timing to the injector(s). Would a bad O2 sensor cause a lean condition? Where as the O2 sensor is telling the ECU that the engine is running rich, causing it to lean-out the engine. Lean air/fuel mixture will cause backfires thru the intake, so can improper ignition timing. Have you checked for vacuum leaks, everywhere?