dieselvan2003 Posted November 14, 2004 Share Posted November 14, 2004 Hello to all. I'm working on a 88 EA82 for a friend. It has the "tick of death" syndrome. I bought a complete gasket set and started replacing gaskets and seals. The oil pump shaft looked good (no groove). The 'Mickey Mouse" seal had been installed incorrectly. One of the small holes was pinched inward. After I got the oil pan off, I tried to get the oil pickup tube out. No go. Someone must have used a hardening sealer to glue the pipe into the engine case. I've used padded vise grips on it. I've applied heat to it. Nothing's helped so far. It's in there tight! It will turn a little bit, but it's not come out more than a fraction of an inch even with hard tugging. I think I'm going to end up cutting the screen off and using my slide hammer on it. The thing I'm afraid of is not being able to get a new one. I hope it's still available. If not, does anyone have one they could sell me? Many thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieselvan2003 Posted November 14, 2004 Author Share Posted November 14, 2004 UPDATE - Well... It came out with the slide hammer and a whole lot of whacking. I noticed that the bore of the engine case where the pickup goes in is galled. The o-ring was smashed and badly distorted. I'm sure the engine was sucking air from that point as well. I wish I knew how that ended up liike that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idosubaru Posted November 15, 2004 Share Posted November 15, 2004 in the XT6 world it is recommended to never touch this pick up tube. they do not come out very easily at all. i would wonder if the o-ring was distorted by the process of getting it out. i have been *told*, though not by what i consider reliable resources because i can't remember who told me this, that the oil pump pick up tube is essentially pressed in place on an XT6. best to have a machine shop do it. like i said, i have no actual experience with removing it myself. of all the XT6 guru's that i know, i don't know of any that have removed this pick up tube, so you are now considered a legend. i did attempt to remove it a few years ago and when i got this advice i decided to just put the oil pan back and leave it alone. that was 50,000 miles ago and i haven't had a problem with it, i'm at 203,000 miles now. definetly post more info on how the reinstall goes with the pick up tube. i was always curious about it since it stumped me a few years ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieselvan2003 Posted November 15, 2004 Author Share Posted November 15, 2004 Hi Gary, This EA82 is in a 88 GL 4WD 5sp wagon. I'm replacing all gaskets and seals except for rear main, valve seals and head gaskets. I'm working out of a Haynes manual. The procedure they give for removing the oil pan is to drop it a few inches and then to loosen the oil pickup tube and swivel it to allow the pan to drop the rest of the way. I got the pan off by jacking the engine up a few inches. I didn't actually read that part of the manual until I was looking for the procedure to remove the pickup to change the O-ring. I read a message from the archives that said that the oil pickup tube O-ring was a high failure item. The one of this car was brittle. My friend said that the car got hot once last summer because he left it idling with the A/C running. (He might have a weak fan clutch.) I've seen three O-rings that were distorted so far: The "Mickey Mouse" O-ring, the pickup O-ring and the passenger's side cam carrier oil feed passage O-ring. Someone's been into this engine pretty far. It looks like they might have had the heads off. One thing that surprised me is that there were no large O-rings in the Felpro gasket kit for the cam carriers. They included a tube of RTV and instructions to make one. They included two cam cover O-rings though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stngllhm Posted November 15, 2004 Share Posted November 15, 2004 if you are talking about the seal between the cam tower and head the silicone is how it was sealed stock. on a side note if you are replacing the intake gaskets don't use felpro you will almost certainly going to have problems i like the victor-rienze gaskets from car quest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idosubaru Posted November 15, 2004 Share Posted November 15, 2004 that's good to know that the pick up tube oring is accessible. like i said, noone in the XT6 world has attempted it that i know of. jacking the front of the motor up and lowering the rear of the transmission is the way i do the oil pan gasket. cam carrier gasket is silicone based as you now know. that's OEM. i've seen those gaskets distorted just as you mentioned. someone made small metal inserts (our of muffler tape i think), to install inside the mickey mouse oil pump o-rings to prevent them from being sucked into the ports like that. your felpro kit included the two cam carrier reinforced orings? the XT6 fel pro kits i received did not have those. and they didn't come with the RTV sealant for the cam carrier either. that's an expensive kit to not be complete! the XT6 kit retails over 200, local place cut me a deal at 150 fortunately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toybuilder Posted November 15, 2004 Share Posted November 15, 2004 I have removed and reinstalled the oil pick-up tube on a few ea-82 engines. The method that works best for me is to use a hammer and a chisel and drive the pick-up tube out of its bore from the base. I have never damaged the tube to the point that it was not reusable. This method works best with the engine out of the car. that's good to know that the pick up tube oring is accessible. like i said, noone in the XT6 world has attempted it that i know of. jacking the front of the motor up and lowering the rear of the transmission is the way i do the oil pan gasket. cam carrier gasket is silicone based as you now know. that's OEM. i've seen those gaskets distorted just as you mentioned. someone made small metal inserts (our of muffler tape i think), to install inside the mickey mouse oil pump o-rings to prevent them from being sucked into the ports like that. your felpro kit included the two cam carrier reinforced orings? the XT6 fel pro kits i received did not have those. and they didn't come with the RTV sealant for the cam carrier either. that's an expensive kit to not be complete! the XT6 kit retails over 200, local place cut me a deal at 150 fortunately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MorganM Posted November 15, 2004 Share Posted November 15, 2004 I had to use the BFH and a big chizel to get mine out and back in. Pretty tight fit! Didn't replace, or even notice, an O ring there. No lifter ticking here !_! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snowman Posted November 15, 2004 Share Posted November 15, 2004 What kind of sealant was included for the cam-carriers? If it's RTV, I would highly recommend not using it. Many do use that type of sealant there, but that's not what came from the factory. The original sealant is difficult to impossible to find, but suitable replacements are Permatex Ultra Gray and Permatex Anaerobic sealant. These do a better job sealing and don't gunk up the inside of the engine (i.e. oil passages and stuff) like RTV can. Ditto on the intake gaskets. I go with genuine subaru replacements, but generally as long as it's not the cheapest stuff, they'll work fine. Never had the pickup tube off myself. Haynes says it's a high failure item? Any other info on that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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