Since the honeymoon fiasco a few years back I've kept my eyes peeled across country for a suitable gen2 wagon replacement. In a matter of 48 hours I found this gem on CL east of San Bernadino in the mountains, talked with the owner, booked a  cheap flight and started the journey back to Missouri. She comes with the original bill of sale and shipping manifest from 81. Plus a stack full of service records. Only 50K miles put on it up to 2002 and only 79k currently. Motor runs great, interior is a six or seven out of ten, but the body is a solid 8. Not much rust and she's sealed up tighter and quieter than my 2003 Outback. Now to just undue some of the "fixes" that were applied by the last two owners. Plenty of things that need fixed or tended to; a beer tap shifter that snapped off on the way back, a cut up console, driver seat is totally broken down, could use a weber, a new thermostat, rewire rad fan to heat switch, fix heater blower, fix/recharge the AC, replace rear drums with discs, upgrade alternator, properly mount the brushbar, non-snow tires, and hatch area carpet needs replaced. All of that and I'm still crazy excited to have another proper Subaru. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the way back I had to fill the radiator a number of times and just figured it had an air bubble causing the coolant to continuously overflow. So a couple days ago I pulled it up on to an incline and ran through the coolant burping procedure. Unfortunately I'm still having to continuously refill it. So I took a closer look last night and much to my dismay I found a slurry of coolant/oil under the valve cover and noticed the passenger side HG has white residue all over the outside. Pretty shocked for 80K on an EA81 to have to do a head gasket. Getting the gaskets ordered today, I think maybe the last 100 miles were the worst as far as needing to refill coolant. Do I need to be overly concerned with checking the bottom end or just slap in fresh gaskets for the top end and call it good?

Drain the oil. If it looks like a milkshake, I'd refill with some cheap oil and listen for bearing noises. Particularly on start-up and no-load rev around 3-4k rpm. The EA81 is fairly hardy, but the main bearings usually get loose first... cause there's only 3    If there's no milkshake oil, you could refill and do the check if you want, but it's probably OK, as long as you didn't notice any noise on your trip. 

 

Nice wagon!! I had one, same year, same color. One of the best cars I ever had! I'll never forget the first time I saw the dash lights at night