Hey G'Day,

 

I thought the EA81 had adjustable valves.....which btw, is my shot at it......

Someone said something about inlet manifold gaskets, also a good call, (someone who knows!). I would do a tappet/valve clearance adjustment and see how you go. If it carby, then it will pretty much feed both sides if it's feeding one, (unless you have dropped one of the aircleaner wingnuts down there!!)

HTH,

Sixpack Subaru

Hey G'Day,

 

I thought the EA81 had adjustable valves.....which btw, is my shot at it......

Someone said something about inlet manifold gaskets, also a good call, (someone who knows!). I would do a tappet/valve clearance adjustment and see how you go. If it carby, then it will pretty much feed both sides if it's feeding one, (unless you have dropped one of the aircleaner wingnuts down there!!)

HTH,

Sixpack Subaru

 

That's right! It's an 81 so it shouldn't have hydraulic lifters! Or should it, crap I can't remember. You may just need to adjust the vavle lash.

i just REALLY needs a bad cleaning and a little bit of tuning... who woulda thought a car that had been sitting for 5-9 years need anything like that

On my 80 EA71 found out it ran on only 2 cyl on pass side. Changed plugs, had good spark, and compression. Still I could pull the 2 wires on drivers sied and car would idle the same. Pull pass side wires and car was stone dead. Finally a hot august night, and a 12 pack of determination set in-I finally decided the drivers side was starved for fuel. As this was a carbed engine, I did not worry about FI issues. I pulled a vacuum hose off the intake near the head, and put in a spray can tube hooked up to a can of starter fluid. Sure enough, as long as I gave a squirt on the can every 20 seconds or so the car would run, even with the 2 pass wires disconnected. Had big vacuum leak in some pollution control valve(anti backfire valve?) plumbed into intake manifold on drivers side that caused car to run on 2 cyl only, and a plug in it caused the car to run beatifully.

 

Of course during all this dicking around the grease from CV boots past and transmisson leaks ignited on the overworked cat converter, the garden hose was lying near by or that might have been the last hurrah for the little blue wagon!

lol...

don't bother with flushing your oil system with mmo or whatever, it only applies to ea82

 

you need to adjust the valves, they are mechanical, do it in firing order, there have been several postings about this

also a good time to replace the valve cover gaskets, I'm sure they are leaking

Of course during all this dicking around the grease from CV boots past and transmisson leaks ignited on the overworked cat converter, the garden hose was lying near by or that might have been the last hurrah for the little blue wagon!

 

HAHA, i had the exact same problem. i was at the top of a long hill after climbing it, smelled smoke so i pulled over. popped the hood and lo and behold, the cat was on fire. grabbed some water used for emergency radiator situations and saved my little car's life. needless to say, i got rid of the cat.

 

subiemech, are you saying that by draining out old oil and putting atf in and idling for a couple minutes won't clean up my valves and quiet the tick?

 

if so, i just wasted ten bucks on a huge jug of the stuff.

i have an ea81 btw.

 

subiemech, are you saying that by draining out old oil and putting atf in and idling for a couple minutes won't clean up my valves and quiet the tick?

 

if so, i just wasted ten bucks on a huge jug of the stuff.

i have an ea81 btw.

 

you might be in luck because your ea81 has an automatic trans, which usually had the engine that did not require valve adjustments

 

but to make the atf in the engine work, it will take more than a couple of minutes of idling

 

try driving 1/2 hour at 4k

 

then change oil to a good 15w40, castrol tection works good for me, and a purolator filter -- got rid of the tod for me

 

I understand the frustration but never heard the reply on compression once up to temp. Beyond a vacum leak possible..... but no one has stated what could be issue of cracked head? or crossover of compression due to failed head gasket, after all per the post nine years no running was the car weatherized? Just a thought.