TomRhere

Just had a guy stop here at my place, (he was looking at the house for sale next to me), and asked who is it that owns the Subarus. Me, said I. Says he recently bought a Legacy at police auction and it has no reverse. Said it does move forward, but he didn't want to drive it all that much in fear of tearing something up. Told him I'd asks the guru's here, see if I could get some ideas from them. He'll stop back by in a couple days to see what, if anything, is said.

Have to ask; How old are the heater hoses? Reason for asking; Few years back I bought a Subie with supposed bad head gasket. Owner was shown the "residue" on the DS head. Get it home and was doing some checking when I noticed steam from heater hoses. Sure enough, they were weeping coolant. New hoses, and we were golden.

Not really. 50/50 is ideal, but up to a 70/30 mix of Antifreeze/water is okay, depending on climate region. A lot of 'low speed-hi rev' driving will cause an engine to run warmer than normal. The cooling system relies on airflow thru the radiator from forward motion of the vehicle, along with the fans flow of air. Speeds less than 25 MPH, don't really move enough air thru the radiator. Atleast that is what I'm told by people that know way more than me about these things.

Pick-up coil in the disty went bad, or wire(s) to it have broke off. I had one instance of the magnet under the "C" shaped piece in the disty shatter, a multitude of little pieces where found. No idea as to why it did that. Slapped in another magnet, and it was good.

Nice looking BRAT!!! Need to get going on my '82 BRAT, then get after the '85 BRAT.

Hose in the upper left of the pic, is for the ASV, you can remove it. There's a few more components down there, if you follow the hose. I removed the silencers from mine a capped the ASV itself. Other part in the pic is the Idle-up for AC. It can be removed and the vacuum line plugged, if you don't have AC anymore. There is a way to make it work with the Weber, but you'd have to search for that info. I don't know it right off the top of my head. You could weld the cable attachment to the throttleshaft if you run out of other options. Last ditch idea for that though.

Finally got proper working brakes on Son's '88 GL10 Wagon yesterday. MC went bad, swapped in anotheer one I had here, but couldn't get any of the bleeders to break loose due to rust. Been hitting them with a spray of Yield for the past few weeks, and finally got them all freed yesterday. Even got the adjusters to work on the rears by spraying them dowm also. Kinda moot now, as this here Wagon is soon to be put out to pasture. To many electrical issues with it, and the underside of it is to the point of not safe anymore.

There's a supposed difference around the front at the headlight/turnsignal. Not to sure on that though, as my '82 BRAT has a newer year fender on the passenger side. Looks like it fits fine to me.

Be sure to grab the cone washer, flat washer, nut from the donor when you get the hub. Chances are the ones on yours are shot now.

The splines in the hub have stripped out. You will need to replace the hub. Axle "should" be okay, but take a good look at the splines on it when you get the hub off.

Those drain plugs are the only way to fully empty the engine of coolant.

Honestly,, I was "there" at that time. Swapped plugs and wires, lifted breather can just enough to allow ease of wire routing under it. Hose that came off isn't routed to breather, and really isn't close to any that are. So I don't know why/how it came off. Didn't actually "see" it until I leaned over the breather, putting my head where the spare tire goes. There it is....

Fix both issues today. It was indeed a vac leak. Hose had come off a nipple on the manifold. Was laying right beside it and looked as if it was ok. Different view angle exposed it. Headlight issue turned out to be burnt connection in the connector for the dimmer switch.

Yeah, I was thinking vacuum leak myself. Spent time yesterday looking things over and didn't find anything obvious. (I did find a couple of the hoses that attach to the breather can that had split the day I did the plugs/wires.) Need to round up all the empty cans around here and take them in, maybe I'll have enough from them to get a can of carb cleaner. Now I get to hunt down the reason the headlights decided to not work last night. Ziltch, nada, nothing.... Thinking of naming this BRAT, Murphy...

Check the write-ups in here. http://www.indysworld.com/80s/general/USRM/subrepair.htm

This is my '85 BRAT, bone stock. Put new NGK plugs and NGK wires on it last weekend, just 'cause it was due for that stuff. Cap/rotor looked good at the time and wasn't replaced, besides,, those parts aren't that old. Anyways,,, now it has a rough idle, and misses until it gets into the upper RPMs. Has since doing plugs/wires. Pulled the plugs today, they look to be even in color throughout the set. Ceramic is still fairly white looking, just a tint of discoloration on the side electrode. Re-checked for the umpteenth time, that I do infact,,, have the plug wires routed correctly on the cap and plugs. Rechecked disty timing, it's about 8.5* BTDC. Checked for vacuum leaks, found a couple of possibles and repaired them. Pulled plug wires individually as it sat idling. No matter which one I pulled, engine ran worse. So it isn't just one cylinder causing it. Swapped in a different "used" cap/rotor, no change. Been hearing a snappish sound out of it for the past few weeks while driving to/from work. Sound is coming from the headerpipe(s) from what I can tell while driving it. It is not "spark knock". Sounds more like a late firing cylinder. Comes and goes, and doesn't relate to engine load, IE: pulling a hill, lugging engine down, what have you. Just does it when it wants too. Ran some Seafoam thru it in the tank prior to this tank full. While the Seafoam was in there, no "snap" noise. Get another tank of gas and it's back. Gas is from same station I always get it from. Down to about 1/4 tank on this last fillup. Somebody, please,,, give some ideas to check on. I'm at wits end here....

Let's just say that for the past 6 months or so, both the '85 BRAT and the '88 GL10 Wagon have done their best to put me in the poorhouse. Lot's of issues sprang out of the wood work, mainly small items, but still they cost money to fix. Right now, the Wagon is sitting waiting for the mastercylinder to be replaced. Son mentioned last weekend that his brakes are feeling funny. So we jack it up and pull the front wheels, thinking it's due for new pads. Nope.. Pads are like new, but there is no shiney area on the rotors, just rust. Not good. BRAT is wanting to run hot lately, along with other issues. Radiator, T-stat(OEM) are new as of last February. Waterpump is 3 years old and an OEM unit, (replaced it shortly after buying the BRAT). All hoses are new during the past few months. Won't get into the '07 Chevy HHR, as that stuff don't belong on here. But still, it's costing me money....

Check the transmition mounts. My '86 was doing that, new mounts and she was good.

In the meantime, try pushing on the handle 1st, before you pull on it. Found that to work on a couple of mine. Not a "fix-all" but it does seem to help release the latch.

The flathead bolts in the kit are to long, so you need to get shorter ones. Don't really recall length of proper ones right now. Get some 3' lenghts of fuel hose. You'll need it. Original hoses won't reach to the new inlet/return from the carb. There is enough free-length of hose there now, so undo them form the carb you have, cut a bit off, then head to the parts store with them, get some new hose to match. Refit the hoses if you need to, to get to the parts store... Use the cable attachment off your old carb on the Weber. May need to space it out a bit on the throttleshaft, flat washers will work there. Depending on how the choke rods are bent, it can interfere with the cable crank, hence need for spacing. Also, use the T-fitting for the fuel line from you're old carb on the Weber. That gives you the inlet/return fitting you need.

Good point GD. My experience has been with the earlier ones, '85-'89. But I do know they changed the angle of the lower outlet on the later radiators. So yeah, one needs the earlier EA82 lower hose to fit the EA81 radiator for the upper return hose.

If you go with the EA82 engine; Move the HH towards the firewall, the distance of the mounting holes. In other words, the front mount bolt will go in the rear frame hole, you need to drill the new rear mount hole. Best to remove the disty to install the engine, but just removing the cap gives you wiggle room. Disty is very close to the MC during install, but plenty of clearence after engine is in. A previous owner of my '82 did the swap, I pulled the engine for a reseal and corrected some of the things they did on the re-install. I found a flex hose to fit for the lower radiator to waterpump inlet. The EA82 lower radiator hose is a trim to fit for the T-stat to upper radiator hose for the EA81 radiator. I left the waterpump driven fan off, just so there was some more room at the radiator. The electric fan did it's job of keeping engine cool. They swapped the EA81 flywheel/clutch onto the EA82. I would leave the EA82 flywheel on the engine, find a clutch set-up to work with your trans. Or, swap in the EA82 5-speed. You can use the EA81 flywheel on the EA82, but you need to transfer the T-belt and ignition timing marks over to it. Believe me, it's no fun doing T-belts with no marks to go by. BT-DT!

Carbed vehicles don't run the pump "key on-engine off" or "during crank". Only when engine is actually running.

A workaround for a faulty FPCU on these vehicles is this oil pressure switch, http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/moreinfo.php?pk=2399944 It's for a '76 Olds Starfire. They had electric fuelpumps, power was controlled by that switch. No oil pressure = no fuelpump. An adapter will be needed to install it on the oilpump. Much safer than direct wiring of the pump..... edit; NAPA lists these numbers for the switch. ECH OP6610 & ECH OP6627 They also list the connector ECH EC428

^^^ I can see where that could happen if the clips were missing. But I do know from experience, that it will definetly chuck the inner pad out of the caliper, if a solid rotor is installed in a vented caliper. And the piston will nearly come out of the caliper when that happens. Happened on my '86 BRAT. Owner previous to the one I bought it from had swapped the rotor on the PS. I never paid that much attention to it to be honest, even when in there replacing tierod ends and balljoints. But when it chucked the pad out on a drive home. I realalized why. Never did find the missing pad, but the outer pad showed just less than 1/2 wear on it. All clips present and accounted for.