Been trying to get my new 2 me 84 Hatch road worthy.

 

Found out a co-worker was an Ex-Subaru Mechanic and he let me borrow his old-school tools for adjusting the rockers on the non-Hydraulic lifters on the older EA-81..... excellent...

 

The book (owners manual) stated to loosen head bolts and the mechanic said, nahhhh... just assure head bolts are proper torque and then adjust gap on rocker arms. So took his word and didn't loosen head bolts. (engine must be cold-sat over night cold prior to adjusting)

 

I found one head bolt #1 (center of head) loose and torqued it to proper spec using the fancy off set head socket tool. To me loosening a head bolt on a 23 year old motor is asking for leaks... I guess...

 

but all going good and will report when on the road.... I am sure I didn't NEED those tools but it sure made it easy for a first timer.

 

 

 

 

Yeah - you don't need the tool. Probably helps if you are doing lots of them every day. I've adjusted plenty and couldn't rightly see a reason they even designed a special tool for it.

 

GD

I need to adjust mine badly, how long does it take? Something I would like to learn and start doing myself.

I need to adjust mine badly, how long does it take? Something I would like to learn and start doing myself.

 

Surprisingly it didn't take too long, not counting putting the covers back on which I havn't done yet, ... for my first time about 30 min. each side (after I read the chiltons etc and figured it out a game plan...) You will spend more time degreasing and removing old valve cover gaskets then the actual job.

 

by the earlier reply you don't need the factory tools, but they SURE HELPED! I was hoping for a reply regarding loosening the head bolts as the owners manual says but I wouldn't, but what do I know:-p

 

It wasn't that bad to do. I am learning ='s mistakes. I don't need the car right now so time is on my side... no rush means no stupid mistakes...hopefully , but yea.. +1 on learning to do it yourself. First you have to make sure you don't have the Hydraulic lifters so no adjustment needed...thus the newer EA-81 has the, "don't adjust sticker on the valve covers."

 

If this makes sense and confirm with Chiltons or "How to keep your Subaru alive", (D'oh.. didn't even look at that chapter.)

Here is what I did on mine:

Remove battery, Remove covers, take out spark plugs, 22 mil socket on front crank nut and turn engine till fly wheel to "0" deg at time mark and assure distributor rotor is pointing at plug #1 wire on distributor, (if not, rotate till rotor points too plug wire one on dist.and "0" deg on time mark-lift dist cap to take a peek) now you can adjust #1 intake/exhaust gap. Rotate engine clockwise 180 deg from "0" and their is a slash on the opposite side of the fly wheel now visible at the time mark and that is the Top Dead Center mark for cylender #3 & #4, (adjust #3). Rotate engine clockwise 180 back too "0" deg, that is TDC for #2 (adjust #2) Rotate again 180 deg, back too the slash and TDC on #4 (adjust #4) so the fireing order should be 1,3,2,4 so you start with 1, go too 3 etc... (double check on that as it's late and from memory)

 

To adjust, loosen locking nut, turn little square end to make adjustments and reset lock nut and check gap with feeler gauges. Torque lock nuts 11-13 ft pounds.

 

check your settings on each one again by rotating the engine back to each TDC of each cyclender and assure gap with your feeler gauges and then do it one more time just too make sure. I found I had to push down a bit on each rocker to get it to hold open and not close the gap to get an acurate reading.

 

I recently read a post to coat the new cork valve cover gaskets with grey silicone High temp. let dry and install. A valve cover gasket set was like $11.

 

Again.... I am learning and hope info is accurate, having a good time just hanging in the garage with my Hatch, tinkering... and hope some of this info is usefull to others. Just feels good to work on something.