DirtyMech

Okay I put in about half a quart and warmed it up real good. Didn't detect the knock, but as I said it is erratic. What I DID notice was the damn idle was REALLY erratic. For some reason the idle changes during driving, perhaps in correlation with temperature...I reset the timing to around 800 after I put in the half quart (had to raise it up earler today because of the knock). Not sure if the knock is just because the idle gets really low or what...I'm going to be carrying my laser tachometer around with me a lot more so I can figure that out.

TOD? Tip Of the Day? =] I check and top off my oil level regularly because my engine has internal oil consumption. I'm pretty sure its full right now but I will fill it up a little more and take it around the block to see if there is a difference. By hydraulic lifters you mean the lash adjusters on the EA82, correct? I did head-gaskets on this car before and noticed that one of the lash adjusters WAS a lot easier to depress than all the others? Could just one or two of this soft lash adjusters cause the knock? And hey where would I get a cheap set of new ones? Mitzpah? I've heard their name mentioned before on this board.

Okay guys. Same old DL Wagon: 1985 EA82 2WD five-speed, with a BRAND NEW carburetor I just installed. Before I couldn't get my wagon to idle under 1100 RPM (sound familiar?). I had the carb idle speed set way up, so the thing wouldn't die on me. This caused the engine to Diesel after turning the key, making a nasty knocking sound. The old carburetor was VERY worn, with noticable throttle shaft play, so I replaced it. This allowed me to bring the idle all the way down to 700, where it is supposed to be. BUT after running the engine a while, it developed the knock sound again at idle speed. This had caused the engine to stall before, and is continuing to cause the engine to stall at erratic times right now. The knock seems more pronounced when the engine is WARM, possibly because the carb choke plate is opening? The knock is still definitely most pronounced whenever the engine dies, creating that Dieseling sound. I don't believe this is preignition; that is only supposed to happen during acceleration, correct? Could this have to do with the idle adjustment? I only use the top screw to set idle adjustment, never bothered much with the bottom one; never seemed to do anything anyhow. The carb is the Hitachi DCZ-328. Any guesses?

AWESOME! Thank you so much Skip. I can't visualize what the guy in the guide is describing, but I'm sure I'll get it once I take the doors aparts. Thanks again!

Ahh thank you, that answers at least one question. I guess the problem with the doors must be mechanical or something then. But its so strange that all 4 doors are affected. I wonder if this is a common problem on older Legacys? If not then perhaps the problem has to do with the electric locking system. The driver's side door lock sometimes sticks in the 'locked' position, and you can't put it into the unlocked position, but when you pull the lever the door pops open despite it being in the locked position...ach. I will have to get the Haynes manual for this vehicle soon. Perhaps it says something about this locking problem.

Hello all, I'm usually posting in the Older Generation forum because I own an 85 Loyale with an EA82 in it, but I recently bought a 1990 Legacy L Wagon for only $450. It has some problems though. Cracked windshield, missing running light, etc. The driver's side door will also not accept the key for the doors, so I must open it from the passenger's side door. I imagine I'll have to replace that somehow. But there is one extremely annoying problem. ALL the doors lock (the switch flips) when you open the door from the INSIDE. Here look: Lock is open and I am about to open from inside. I open latch and lock closes in mechanical concert. I'm not sure why the locks do this, but this is happening with ALL FOUR doors. I think it might have something to do with this button on the driver's side door: The square button at the top that says 'lock'. When I push this button up and down it does nothing. It seems to be broken. What was its mysterious original use? Perhaps it is what causes the doors to lock automatically on the inside? I do not know. But I do want to fix this problem, and if I have to rip out the panel walls on all the doors to do it I will. But if I'm lucky someone here will recognize this problem and tell me a better course of action. So how bout it my fellow Subaru drivers? Recognize this problem? My utmost gratitude to anyone who has a clue for me!

Oops I guess that was the wrong address. Here's the direct one: Can you see the Cool Star device now? Its a small black box, very small. I doubt very much could fit in it. Whatever it is its sealed very well. Maybe I should have cut it open and examined it before throwing it away....

Ah sweet Jesus....it was a line going from the vacuum reservoir alright. It was the line between the resivoir and the intake manifold. I must have detached it when I was getting a jump due to the dead alternator. Well at least I know where my fan system's vacuum reservoir is now. Learn something everyday... A big thank-you to everyone (especially Subarian). Still, I wonder what that CoolStar device I took out of my car was for. Perhaps the last owner was trying to install an air conditioner or something. Oh well. That's a few less ounces I'll be driving around with. Into the trash it goes!

Okay guys, I'm back home from my crazy roadtrip. I replaced my alternator in the middle of the trip, and the engine lights went off as 91loyale suggested they would (Thank You!). My clock and stereo are also now both working without losing power at strange intervals. The tap I made into the main ignition ACC wire seems to be doing the trick. But sadly, my defroster button was not fixed by installing a new alternator. The internal fan continues to be stuck in front vent mode. This isn't a major problem, but it was a major pain getting back down to the Bay. I had to keep a towel in my lap the whole time going down I-5, so that I could wipe the fog off the windshield periodically. No, I did not detect any hissing noise when looking under the dash while the car and fan system was running, although I did find some places in the vent system where air was escaping. Those I covered with duct tape, but there was no change in the problem. Whatever mechanism causes air to stop comming out of the front vents and come out of the defroster vent instead, it is broken. BUT I may have found a possible cause of the failure. On the passenger's side of the dash board I noticed a small black device connected to a bunch of wires hanging down from behind the glove box. Upon further inspection I found that the device was connected to nothing more than two grounds on the body, through a hole in the body wall that leads to the inside of the engine compartment. Since it didn't seem to be connected to anything but a ground, I removed it. It has a sticker on it that says Cool Star. Here is a picture: Does anyone recognize this device, and if so do you know what it is for? It's a 50/50 chance that it's related to my fan switch problem.

1985 Subaru DL 1800 2WD EA82 Stationwagon w/o power steering... Where to start...well it all begain when I decided to rewire my car's clock. I took my clock's ACC wire when I was putting in my stereo a year ago, and its been dead ever since. So after learning some things here, I took off the ignition cover on my steering wheel, located the main accessory wire with a multimeter (it was a blue wire next to the white BATT wire), and split it open so I could twist on my clock's wire. After fixing my clock, my CHARGE, BRAKE FLUID, and STOP LAMP lights on the dash all refused to go off after the engine was started. They would dim as engine RPM went up, and get brighter as RPM went down, until the engine died and they stayed on full brightness with the rest of the display. Soon after this, my battery started dying. I took it into a local AutoZone, which tested it and told me it was good. The alternator on the other hand, failed the test at AutoZone. I've never had any problems with my alternator, but now it is apparently dead. Could I have shorted it when messing around under the dash? I hope not. And to top everything off, my internal air fan control switches are refusing to work (perhaps because it gets juice from the alternator?). The fan intensity switch still works, the hot/cold dial still works, and the off button still works, but the flow of air is stuck in constant front vent mode. When I try to send the flow of air towards my feet or use it as a defroster, nothing happens. The defroster, vent, bilev, and heat buttons are all nonresponsive. I can't get my window unfogged anymore, and it is making driving very dangerous. I don't know what is wrong with my Subaru. Somehow, messing around under the dashboard must have caused all this (I pulled on a lot of wires), but at this point it doesn't really matter. I'm going crazy with everything that is failing on my vehicle. For the moment, I'm going to replace my alternator, but I doubt that will solve everything that has gone wrong. Do any of these problems sounds familiar to anyone? Please, I need all the help I can get.

Hey guys. Thanks for all the valuable information about ACC. Next time I will look under the ignition housing. But for now I got it . I found an ACC outlet in a code reader connector under the dash. Plenty of amps to run everything. It was in a red clip with nine wires. Everythings back together now and seems to be working fine. Yay!

Thank you John. But what I really need to know is where I can add a new line. Id like to keep my car as original as possible, but this is starting to freak me out. My acc wire for both the stereo and car is dead, as shown with a simple multimeter test. This happened when the live acc wire brushed the back of the stereo. No fuse is blown, but the acc wire is dead. I need a new acc wire. Getting a solid battery line to the stereo back in the day was no problem. I simply added it to the battery terminal under the hood and routed it through the hole on the passenger's side leading to under the dash. Getting an ACC connection isn't going to be as simple, apparently. I need to go to the outlet under the dash somewhere that will let me plug in a new line, but I don't know where. I am going to solve this problem very soon, one way or another. I am tracing the line outside in my car (in the hellish rainstorm that has taken over the entire pacific northwest). My theory is that the outlet must be near the ignition keyhole, which is where the switch that turns on all the ACC wires is located (right?). The wire, a blue one with red stripe, has led me to waay under the dash board. I have farther to trace, but will probably need some special tools, including something to cut the plastic routing covers with to trace the wire, and a coat hanger hook to grab them with, because it is REALLY cramped trying to get to this crap. I think taking the dash board out of the car must be worse than taking the engine out... Back to work...

Okay so now I've blown another ACC wire trying to put my clock and stereo in parallel. It worked for a moment, then I hit the back of the stereo on the exposed wire and ZAP! Now it's dead and its not the fuse. This is driving me crazy. Does anyone know how to fix a blown ACC wire (one thats only live with the key turned to On) or how to put in a new one? I can't for the life of me find out where to put in a fresh wire, which is what I would like to do.

Ahhh okay. Well live and learn, I guess. The one good thing about this is that I found an ACC wire on the windshield wiper button that apparently does nothing. I'm going to use it to fix my clock. Theres SIX wires on that button, which makes little sense. Two are essential for running the windshield wiper, and a third powers the motor when the switch is turned off so that it returns to its proper resting position. The other three....no idea. One is nearly no voltage, possibly a ground, another is around four volts, and the third is 12/13. Disconnecting the 12/13 volt wire, the yellow one, I found no change in wiper function. So to the clock it goes!

Ach....found it. Thanks Northwet. *smacks head* My multimeter is nearly busted. I need a new one. Don't know what the heck was causing that small spike in voltage in the defroster circuit when the wiper was on... Now everything is back together.... The defroster is working, but not very well. Only small streaks appear in the haze on my back window. Oh well, I guess it's enough to improve visibility while driving. I think there's amps getting burnt in the wire that goes to the ground. It feels warm.

It's a station wagon. Four doors. It's the one that came before the legacys. I don't know the chassis number...even though I should. I think its A10 or A11. And now I've done more tests on the rear defroster, which definitely looks like it came standard. All the defroster wires are wrapped with the other wires for the car. I'd have to tear apart the body to trace all this crap by hand. And I've also found out that the rear defroster is connected to the rear windshield wiper switch in some way. When the RW (rear wiper) button is off, I get zero volts. When it's on, I get between .10 and .25 volts. I've tested the positive lead that goes to the fuse from the battery, and it stands between 12 and 13 volts. I had to rip a lot of stuff apart on my car, which is going to be a paint to put back. But I think a solution to this problem is at hand. Since tracing the wires is going to be nigh impossible, I believe my two best solutions are these: ---- 1) Intercept the windshield wiper lead, which is also putting out 12 to 13 volts when the RW switch is on, and split it somehow so that it would send juice to the defroster. This would be ideal. I would have to find the wire, which won't be hard. But about putting these two things in parallel, would that work? Or would there not be enough amps? I have had problems trying to do this kind of thing before.... 2) My second option is to run an accessory wire (one thats only live when the key turns) straight to the defroster. This is the most attractive solution because this is something I HAVE done before for my CD player, and know it works. The only problem is that I used the clock wire directly from the clock, which means my clock is now always dead, and I don't have another lead to steal from something. So I would need to know of a place to plug in an accessory wire that wouldn't screw something else up. Does anyone know of such a spot, perhaps under the hood that I could run a wire through to the dashboard inside the body? That would be ideal, and perhaps I could even fix my clock while I'm fixing the defroster. So to put my Q's in short: 1) RW and RD in parallel possible? Not possible? 2) Where to plug in a new accessory wire?

It's a 1985 DL 1800 EA82 2WD, 5 speed manual, with the Leone/Loyale body.

Rebuilding an EA82 with over 170k miles on it that looked like it NEVER had a rebuild, caked all over with oil, major leaks in both cam tower seals, PLUS cleaning and painting the inside of the engine compartment, also covered in years of old oil and grease. I had to repaint my garage floor after the job was done, and my driveway will never look clean again, no matter how much I hit it up with the wire brush.

Whooo, hello everyone! Long time no type. Well I'm on the road up in California near the Oregon border, and it is cooold up here! Heavy rain predicted for days, and my 85 DL hatchback has had a dead rear defroster since the day I bought it. Last night I checked the 20A fuse, the two connections between the resistors in the glass, and did a visual inspection of the exposed wires. Everything seems in order. Also did a multimeter test (read below for results). Lucky me I forgot both my Chilton and Haynes at home, so you guys are my only lifeline. I only got two questions. My everlasting gratitude to anyone who gives their input! ---- 1) Is there a separate switch for the rear defroster, or is it connected to the rear windshield wiper button? I know this seems like a newbie question, but its important for me because once I know I can begin tracing the circuit for a break. I KNOW the circuit isn't on every time I turn on the key, and there doesn't appear to be a separate button anywhere on the dash. So is it connected to the R-Wiper button, yes? Perhaps its just hidden somewhere very clever. 2) I used a multimeter to test the voltage at the rear window and at the fuse. At the rear window it was about 0.25 V, and at the fuse it was a little over 3 V. What I'd like to know is does the defroster need 12 volts like most everything else in the car? Because if it does I can just jimmyrig the thing by routing a wire from my clock lead to the positive side of the defroster circuit. Sound like a good idea? It's my option of last resort in case nobody has any words of wisdom for me. ---- Well I'm going to go back to my car and start tracing wires. I'll check back here a few times today. Peace.

Breakthrough! I got the engine to start running, but it continues to die unless I have my foot on the gas. It seems almost certain to be a carburetor problem at this point....but I don't want to have to replace the bastard unless necessary. And this little bit: When I try to rev the car up high while its running, the carburetor itself will make a sound like its backfiring, a CHK! sound followed by a short explusion of smoke. It also starts to do this when it goes down to low idle, right before it dies. I'm at my last ends at this point. Adjusting the fast idle every which way makes no difference...I either have to take it to a shop or try my luck with replacing the carburetor. Any votes based on what I've said so far? The Shop or New Carburetor? I'll let those more experienced than myself decide...

I've conducted some basic tests on the carburetor. The automatic choke heater is working properly, the choke is adjusted correctly, and the plunger for the anti-dieseling solenoid is receiving voltage and makes an audible click when given power. BUT I do not know how to properly adjust the fast idle while the carburetor is on the vehicle, and I'm not sure if its at the right setting. That's minor though. Getting the car to idle at ANY speed is very hard at this point. But there's something that's really bothering me. When I turn the key on and off and try to get the engine to start, the carburetor violently kicks back vaporized somethingorother. There's a plume of concentrated fuel vapor or exhaust that squirts out the top of the carburetor and its driving me crazy! What could be causing air pressure to run in the wrong direction? The only reasonable answer is that the exhaust strokes of the pistons are pushing air up through the intake, yes? I don't know. Air pressure in the intake comes only from piston movement, i think, so this should be true. Perhaps the duty solenoids are fouling things up...those bastards are clicking furiously whenever i turn on the key. I don't know what this indicates. Duty solenoids supply extra air to the fuel/air mixture depending on the signals from the computer, yes? Then the computer must be reading something that says there's too much fuel going into the carb, which would make sense considering how much I've seen being pushed OUT of the top of carburetor in tinly droplets and plumes of vapor. Bah I'm just hypothesizing. This problem is starting to crack me...

Okay I've recently put my cleaned EA82 back in my car. New timing belts, head gaskets, valve cover gaskets, and freshly sealed cam towers. Valve timing and ignition timing are on spot, and compression testing showed the engine to be in good condition But the car refuses to start. I highly suspect the DCZ-328 carburetor of mine is the problem because it was the first object I rebuilt, and I may have screwed it up. When I turn the key, the engine tries to catch but the carburetor will ignite gas above the air intake opening with a big blue flame, and when i turn the key off it will sputter little drops of gasoline upwards out of the carburetor. Sound familiar? What I'd like to know is if there are any tests I can do on the carburetor to see that it is functioning correct, and eliminate it as a possible problem? Replies are greatly appreciated!

Thanks Miles! I owe ya one.

Hmmm...strange problem. Does your car hesitate or hiccup when trying to go up a hill? Because then its your fuel pump, which would explain the low speed in fifth gear. If not then it might be something else. If it feels like something is wrong with that gear and that gear only, then the problem is likely inside your transmission. Got any more detail you could add? 65 mph is your max with the pedal to the floor? Can you go faster in 4th? Dunno about the tire question, sorry.

Hey while were on the subject, has anyone had any experience timing the cam belts without the timing belt covers? My covers broke when I removed the engine for a rebuild, and I decided to keep them off because they're falling apart and oil soaked, etc. But now I don't have those convenient timing marks on the inner covers for when I'm timing the damn thing. Do I just have to do it by eye, or can I use an alternate point of reference? I was thinking about riggin a level somehow to hang it from the cam sprockets. That might do the trick, but I'm not sure if the timing marks on the cam sprockets are perfectly vertical when being timed...I might just end up getting some replacement inner covers from Pick N Pull if I can't figure it out.