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Subaru’s are easy. alternator 10 minutes. AC compressor 20 minutes Starter 30 minutes. Timing belts less than an hour. Headgaskets aren’t hard to do int the car at all - but there are two of them. Anyway it’s all easy - engine pulls straight out like an old full size truck, no transverse mounted squeeze shoehorn job. The wheel bearings suck sort of but they’re not prone to issues besides just being old of course. comes down to personality - if you’re averse to learning new then yeah, you’ll have ample room to dislike it. Otherwise they’re rather simple and there’s very few situations that requires a special tool, and none of those are in the engine bay. Everything except a valve job and full on rebuild in the engine bay is done with basic garage sockets and such. in the US an 87 loyale would be an EA82 with timing belt. Don’t know about CA. I think they’re carb until 87 and 88+ is SPFI. these don’t have headgasket “issues” but at this age, mileage and unknown history anything is possible. Look for new cooling parts as a sign of recent repair attempts chasing headgaskets. EA82 Headgaskets are easy to do in the car, not a big deal if you’re into wrenching. Who cares, you’ll be doing doing the clutch anyway. 33 year old car with high clutch getting dumped for cheap - adjust it but I’d be planning a clutch job and I’d wonder if that’s a main reason it’s on the market Carbs are trash. Just wait for a newer FI EA82 engine. a carb rebuild, replacement, or thorough adjust will get it working if you want to keep that archaic useless trash. Convert it to SPFI. springs - get aftermarket. Cheap and those springs are simple diameter length and spring rate type springs. Often Subaru springs don’t need replaced though they may be trash at that age if the struts and general abuse are all bad. I just bought a set last summer. Very inexpensive A quarter century ago those engines were great for inexpensive, predictable reliability (even if they are gutless dinosaur tech engines). easy to run high mileage reliably with them. Full timing belt job with new pulleys and crank/oil pump/cam reseal and plugs/wires/cap/rotor and they run 200,000 miles predictably with 50-60k timing belt changes. but they’re nearing 35 years old with unknown history so you have no idea what you’re getting. The 35 years of history and maintenance are more of the question mark than the car/engine. It’s a worthless 80s subaru, they rarely sit and get pampered for 35 years. And parts availability is worse - around here nowhere will carry things in stock. Which isn’t a huge deal if you’re on top of missntennace but few folks are that particular over inexpensive 1980s cars. So again - odds are stacked against it - but there’s definite possibility if you’re game depending what you’re after. B

Update: Distributor was 180 off. I had a cam and spun it as I watched the valves to see what order stuff was happening in. I had swapped it before, but this may have been too much and I couldn't find my chalk line on the timing mark. Changed it to fire right and the Brat tried to start when I cranked it over to check the mark again. Thank you GeneralDisorder.

As I said quite some time ago - you can't essily do the diagnostic on this. First of all you don't have the diagnostic harness/resistor kit. And second Subaru doesn't publish the specifications for harness resistance, etc. They rely on the diagnostic kit and a detailed procedural plan that will allow the bearer of the kit to find the fault. The only way forward would be to do a lot of comparative analysis between different circuits of the system or a similar model that's functional. Beyond that you're pretty much going to be doing parts swapping. GD

Thanks Jeezek, I’ve never come across it referred to like that. Always before TDC is what I’ve heard. Cheers Bennie