Rick James

Thanks ivan.. My ex is looking at small pickup trucks and is not interested in the Suby going back to my son. This may go up for sale. mdjdc?? I'll slip a pic in a few so check back here...

Vermont. I'm excited you make it sound so easy. I have a space to do this and, fortunately or not, the time.. I need to go there now but will check back later. many, many thanks

mdjdc many thanks. Which Richmond are you in? I agree with the Loyale loyalty. So i can do this myself? I was born to work with tools, seriously, but most all of it goes into construction of homes. Any tutorials out there are much welcome.

Vermont...come on out Yeah, it's a brutal affair getting the car to drive forward. The front wheels locked up while the tow truck was winching it onto it's flatbed. The truck couldn't maneuver to the car so I had to drive it out to the road. Bad,bad,bad things happening in there. The car has a lot of good things going for it though, esp for a '93

My teen also has a 93 Loyale but with automatic transmission. He claims a screeching noise from the front and then it wouldn't go forward but he was able to back it into a parking space. I get to it today, check the tranny fluid and surprised to find it's not low. I check the differential oil and see there's basically nothing. I try a very short test drive and sure enough rumbling from the front almost as if a brake shoe dropped but at around 5mph the noise is deeper she bucks and stops dead, stalls out. I mean the chest seat belt was actually stretched, that kinda dead stop. Whoa. Never had a car seize up so quickly like that. I re-start and back it up to the parking spot. Right next door is a repair shop, I explain and the guy says sounds like the tranny seized and this will cost $1000 or so. THE QUESTION: This $ will be more than I paid for the car($800). It's in good condition overall with minimal rust although the four wheel drive doesn't work ( i bought it from a backyard mechanic who did something to screw that up...that's another question for another time). My ex-wife doesn't want the car in his hands any more and would like to re-coup some cost to put toward another vehicle. Many parts can be swapped with my car. I'm throwing this out there for suggestions...fix or sell, fix AND sell, do everything I can to save the parts, do the work myself??? I need to have it towed somewhere today and am grasping at a logical solution. What kind of money should I expect to get for a Loyale in this condition? thanks, RJ

^^ Quoting because this turned out to be the solution. Pulling the distributor body up, turning, and dropping back in allowed for the correct advancement of the timing. This was somewhat ghettoed in the parking lot of Suby guys who listened to my sordid story, rehashed it along with me. We compared disty caps, double check wires and sequence, scratched heads, spun our wheels. The old guy had had enough so he reached in , unbolted, picked up, turned it(clockwise I think) dropped back in and then did the timing light. We had plenty of lateral play to get it advanced properly this time. They showed me how my attempt to advance the timing earlier had only gotten me to 0 degrees before getting max'd out by the bolts. Still don't understand. There's no way the disty was able to move upward during the original fiasco. Could a timing belt have slipped? GenDis...I didn't get around to removal of the timing belt covers. Couldn't bring myself to dealing with all the bolts and tight space at the time but will do that sooner or later to change the belt Drove 3 hours to get home today and so far all is well, she ran beautifully. akc, thanks, excellent tutorial pics. many, many, thanks to everyone here. ^^ this is why i said "ghettoed" in their lot. The old guy didn't attempt any correct way, just a seat of the pants pick it up, turn it a little, then drop it back in. This did the trick and compensated for "something"..dunno what :-)

ohhh man alright... thanks

Do I need to have the valve covers off..is that what you're saying?

^^ found these ??where are these marks you speak of? I found everything else to be in order...the rotor points to #1 when a TDC.. thanks again...still at it

Well I DO have my leatherman..heh. What a gorgeous day..to be sticking my head in the Suby. I did a lot of searches here on the word "distributor". God,.. the stories. *Maybe I just have the wrong cap*.. but it sure would have to be a very subtle difference. The only thing I can see that doesn't match are the vent of the caps. QUESTION..the caps are symetrical right? ..so theoretically I could ignore the #1 on the cap and rotate it but still put the #1 wire where it's supposed to go, right? The car was running fine, all I wanted to do was eliminate that "won't start in the rain" issue and I'd seen the arcing coming out of the original cap. The move I made on turning the distributor to get this to run was drastic. It just CANT be right. It HAS to be the wrong cap....right? what a gorgeous day..

Ohhh man, now I see the confusion. Nooo, I'm sorry I wasn't clear. I have a distributor cap that is held down with two screws. It's one of those screws that stripped, not the bolts that hold the distributor body. No, the distributor body never moved upward. Thanks for following this plight...it ain't over Gen.Dis., Sounds like it would be near impossible for the gear to skip unless the distributor body came up, right? And the only force involved was the original rotor knocking around under the disty cap that was loose because of a stripped screw. I must be dealing with something else and yeah going back to scratch is logical isn't it..Fuuuuuuuubbbbbbbarrrrrrrr!!!! I'm just visiting, ya know the T-day family thing, and this happened..not set up for mechanics here.. I guess you guys have done all you can for me many thanks RJ

I'm not positive about anything other than my wires are in sequence. If I pull up on the rotor things are tight. When you say the distrib may have come up are you talking about the shaft that holds the rotor? cause that seems tight also. I don't know much about how the timing belt is clued in here or what it would take, force wise, to make a tooth skip on the shaft (what's the real name?) I removed the dust cover of the distrib and looked inside.. didn't see anything bent or any debris. Looked pretty cool in there. It does seem as if the timing may want more advancement but that's not possible by turning the distributor cause it's maxed out in the clockwise direction. I could be totally off on that line of thinking. It ran slightly hotter than normal in the advanced position also. thanks

thanks to you guys here, I now know the firing order and locations of plugs per sequence number, I double checked, and all is hooked up accordingly. I had to advance the timing A LOT (turned the distributor clockwise all it could go ??!) in order to run this thing down the road without it gagging but it still isn't flowing through the rpms effortlessly like it should. I moved it a number of times,without finding a true happy spot but it starts and idles easily. Guess I need to get real about the exact timing but there may be more than one issue ..this was just supposed to be an easy change of an old distributor cap:-\

I'm still at this. The car starts immediatley and can idle. I can rev it up but it gags at @ 1200 rpms then smoother on upward but still not drivable. I had my elbow on the rubber boot of the air intake most of the time when fooling with this , so I figured maybe I did something there. When removing the boot while idling she dies out...I dunno, supposed to happen? I'm not really set up to be dealing with the timing here, can't get a good visual on any marks, but am about to ghetto the movement of the distributor. Maybe the rotor getting jammed cause the belt or shaft gear to skip??? I don't know what I'm talking about..and sure as hell don't want to be turning the distributor when two days ago this thing ran fine..as long as it wasn't raining (the reason for the new cap)

yes, I replaced the cap and still have the no power issue. I thought maybe I was sold the wrong cap but most everything matches except for the vent situation. What's up with the vent thing anyway? My original has two ports down low and one "escape" up high. The new one eliminates the two ports down below. Thanks..I'm back on this doing some research but still checking in here.

thanks GD Re:stray bits.. maybe.. also, I was drilling and small filings were in the area..I'll look into that. The car starts, am almost postive I didn't switch up wires, almost. Will check more tomorrow. Assuming wires are correct and nothing in the way of opticals, I'm open for more options. thanks again

thanks the only thing I tugged up on slightly was the original rotor just to see how it was secured. It was tight and the shaft didn't come up much if any. This same rotor then shattered on the inside the new disty cap once engine was cranked. I assumed it's because the hold down screw on the cap was stripped but I since solved the hold down issue. Now with a new rotor, I'm still not sure why things have changed. Any more options?

When removing the old disty cap, one of the scews broke. Got the cap off and drilled it out.I buy a new cap and install, the new screw seemed as if it had re-threaded the hole and would hold. It didn't..once the engine was cranked the cap was kncoked loose and I discovered the rotor had shattered. I buy new rotor and install. I solved the disty problem by running a machine screw through with a nut. This held tight. Now I have a tight disty and tight rotor but no power and the timing? seems to be way off. What happened? Why is there a number 1 on the top of the disty cap? The new cap had a number one on it and I oriented it the same way the original cap was but the new cap has a different location of "vent" holes, not matching the original cap. I didn't mix the plug cables up. I'm sure the distributor shaft spun a few times after the rotor shattered but there isn't any option on direction or location of rotor due to the set screw screw so why isn't this a no brainer? Won't putting a new one back on with the set screw mean that it'll just pick up where it left off and it will be where it needs to be? I need to get back on the road tomorrow. Any ghetto timing adjustments like just turning the distributor until it sounds right...or am I off base on everything? Many thanks in advance RJ

On my own '93 Loyale, with a working hood cable, the grill has two screws that hold it down from the top besides the plugs on the bottom. I can pull the grill outward, slightly, on the kid Loyale but figure going any further means damage is sure to happen. I tried briefly to slip my arm up from under but gave up. How do you remove the grill if those two screws are holding the grill down from under the hood? Thanks for the info. RJ bytch

SUMBODY (kid related), yanked the cable that opens this engine hood too hard, I'm guessing, and pulled the cable off the latch and out of its housing. Anybody know a trick to get the thing open now? I doubt reattaching the cable is a big deal...just need to get the hood open first. Thanks RJ bytch

Thanks for all the advice... Daeron, I'm not ready for the pdf file yet...gonna check that idle air control valve first. Superdave, I never get tired of that joke...

I'm bumpn this just cause.....I'M RICK JAMES BTCH!

So while I had my mechanic do my rear wheel bearing ,I also had him change my sparkplugs and do tune up just a few weeks ago. Now that the weather is getting slightly cooler, the 93 Loyale is hesitating during the morning. It's the type of lag time where if I start up and go to the first stop sign (around two hundred yards),the car will die and need restarting. I'm thinking some vacuum thing but wtf do I know? This never happened with my old plugs, I just figured it was time. Or maybe he did something during tune up stage. After the car is warmed up, everything idles fine at 1000 rpms or slightly less, and runs smoothly. The real cold weather is coming, however, and my habit of starting car and going in for coffee won't work, I'm pretty sure, based on the recent indications. So what is it?

Well, just came back to say thanks for the info. I wish I had tackled this job but am glad I didn't. Even my mechanic had problems pressing the thing out but he still performed this job in little time and had my car back the same day. I didn't get the self satisfaction of doing my own work but I also didn't get the frustration and many extra hours this would have cause me....not that there's anything wrong with that.......if I wasn't making the pennies while this was being done...I'd be doing it myself also.

The noise I thought was just a transition of one pavement to another turned out to be a bad rear wheel bearing, I'm kinda sure. I can grab the wheel, pull towards me and there is a lot of play. After hearing the noise go from a rushed air kinda sound, to a sqeak to a noticeable rumble, I chose not to drive any further. The car is on my trailer right now. I'm trying to decide whether or not to tackle this job or deliver to my mechanic down the road. The time I spend might be better on other responsibilities that could bring in some money. Do I have to remove brake line? Go thru the bleading process? I sound like a wimp (but i'm rj btch )....but I know how a 2hr repair can turn into 5 or more with runs back and forth to parts store etc. Should both rear bearings be done at this time assuming same mileage? I did find the following thread http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=51696&highlight=loyale+rear+wheel+bearings but who wants to hold my hand further?