I'm going to a trailhead tomorrow that requires driving through several streams to get there. We just had a bunch of rain, and I imagine there will be lots of water.

 

What's the deepest water you guys have made it through with a stock EA82? Any advice regarding water crossings?

Like gettin to the tops of your wheels is gettin deep for a stocker. When approching a water corssing have a little bit of speed as u want to make a bow wave. You have to try to not overrun or let it it get away fromm you. Keeping the peak of the wave just infront of your bumper makes a depression arround your wheels making for the lowest waterline in engine bay waterlines.

I had my '84 Gl 2wd in water up to the bottoms of the headlights once and I could feel it begining to float a slight bit (bouncing off the bottom) so I would say no higher than bottom of the bumper, but I would mast likely disreguard that advice if given to me. Be sure to remember the wet clutch and braks afterwards, and take it slow and steady.

Here's my stock Brat in some deep water, I've had water up past the headlights, and over the hood, it's all about keeping a constant speed, and don't stop or stall your car in the water:

 

 

 

 

Your EA82 may have a better time, it has a little more power.

I have had my 91 loyale in water up to the top of the headlights before. One thing about these cars is they will start to float i had an 86 brat that we went playing in and i remember one water hole that i got into water over the hood and up to the windshield, the engine kept running amazingly but i remember having a hell of a time getting through because i was floating! Just remember, if you do stall the engine in a water crossing, DO NOT TRY TO RESTART the engine until you get pulled out and have made sure there is no water in the engine. bending a rod or hydrolocking in the woods is no fun. Any ways, have a safe jurney

I too have had water up over the hood, but went to fast, and the stock "cold air intake" sucked muddy water up into the carb, so I took it off, if you've got a carbed EA82 you could do the same, but I'm not sure what to do with the airbox on an FI model

 

I attached a snap of my "modified" intake

Several times I've seen water come up to my windshield in an ea81.

This wasnt deep enough to kill the car the 1st pass through:

 

But when I tried to get back through

 

If your planning on crossing water, you might want to do something to seal off the distributor cap. Ive tried grease, rubber sealant, and even a yellow rubber dishwashing glove ziptied around all the wires. But nothing has worked as good as the Toyota 22R RUber Disty cap i have

 

-Brian

This wasnt deep enough to kill the car the 1st pass through:

 

But when I tried to get back through

 

If your planning on crossing water, you might want to do something to seal off the distributor cap. Ive tried grease, rubber sealant, and even a yellow rubber dishwashing glove ziptied around all the wires. But nothing has worked as good as the Toyota 22R RUber Disty cap i have

 

-Brian

What's the Toyota disty cap look like? Is it just a rubber boot that covers it up?

YEs, it covers a 4 cyl disty cap... just like our EA81's. There's an opening off to the side where all 5 wires come out. I had to cut my rubber boot alittle to clear the vacuum advance, but other than that, it buttoned up just fine and did a GREAT job of keeping water out. As long as you dont completly stop in the water you'll be fine.

 

-Brian

Sweet, I'll have to look for one.

I made it out there today. On the third crossing, I got water in the distributor, and had to stop and dry out the cap. We did this a few times, and eventually it got started. We picked up a few other guys on the trail, so we had the soobie loaded down with seven people.

 

Every crossing was a routine of "allright, everybody out"... cross the stream "ok, everybody in?" 14 times. The guys we gave a ride in ditched, so it was just me and 3 other guys coming out. On the last water crossing, we got water in the distributor again, so we dried it out and got it running again.

 

The arcing wore a path in the distributor cap, so a mile later, the car died. We started walking (8:00 at night), and eventually some drunk guys came along in a truck and drove us back to town. I'll have to go out there tomorrow morning and replace the distributor cap.

 

It sucks having to ditch the car, but I'm confident it'll be allright. It took 32 water crossings to finally do it in, so they're pretty tough cars.

Carry some WD40 to help clean and dry your disty and Cap. Also its nice to have a spare on hand

 

 

-Brian

you can also use silicone between your cap and disty to keep it dry.

 

I've had my fair share of deep water crossings. Don't go to fast because you'll make water shoot up into the engine bay. Take it nice and easy, but you need a certain amount of speed to keep the suby chuggin. I went through a water crossing a week ago that was really deep. Water came over the hood, wet floorboards, wet disty, hydrolocked carb. It took some dryin out, but it runs good now. It is amazing how subarus can swim. I'm scared that when I get my big tires they'll have a lot more air mass therefor making the subaru float even easier. I don't want to be floating while I'm trying to cross some water. Then again the mass amount of wait in the back of my wagon should weigh it down.(subs and recovery gear.)

 

This is deep enough to be a little scared.

 

The car is sitting there running. It never stopped. I drove it right out...forwards out. It got deeper there in front of it in the 'middle' of the 'lake' there...

A couple tricks I picked up from the "down under" web sites:

Rubber glove over the disty. Wires come out the finger tips and secure it on there with wire ties and maybe some silicone. Moisture does need to vent out of disty so don't leave it totally sealed up forever. A breather snorkle hose for the disty solves that problem.

I've seen pics of the Aussis using a blue tarp bungee corded over the nose of the car for deep water crossings. Seemed to work as long as they kept that bow wave just right.

If you go to www.toyotaoffroad.com and search for waterproofing tips...hereill find it for you. I helped write this article.

 

http://mkelly.proboards22.com/index.cgi?board=TipsTricks&action=display&num=1058202787

 

some of it is toyota spacific, but it has a lot of general info.

 

The car is sitting there running. It never stopped. I drove it right out...forwards out. It got deeper there in front of it in the 'middle' of the 'lake' there...

STOP THAT!!!!!! :cool:

if you have the spfi, you can rotate the airbox and inake hose 90 degrees and have it come straight back into the spare tire section, re-routing the wires gets interesting but they are long enough, sorry no pic to explain better.