edrach

Changed the oil today since it was due and the rains subsided for this weekend. Checked the voltage at the battery terminal with my trusty DVM. Revved engine slightly and reading went from 14.8 to 15.1 VDC. That matches the 14.8 that I saw cruising down the road today going to Pick N Pull in Smokey Point. Time to put in another alternator! Just as an aside, I've lost coolant recently and added almost a quart of pre-mixed last evening when I returned home. Today while checking the alternator I found my leak....a hair-line crack in the top plastic spurting coolant when I revved the engine slightly. Bad timing, but glad I found it today and not tomorrow driving to work.

I bought a scan gauge for my Impreza a while back so I could monitor water temp and alternator performance. I hate it when you can't tell from the stock gauges that things are bad until AFTER they go bad. Scan gauge has warned me about over-heating well before the dash gauge has even moved off it's normal warmed up position. Tonight the gauge has warned me that the alternator is failing without losing one headlight bulb. Returning home from qman's birthday party I saw the alternator voltage climb up into the low 14 volt range. Very unusual since it's normally 13.3 to 13.8V depending on load and rpm. By the time I reached home I saw it hit 14.7V at 700rpm idle with the hi-beams on. Time to replace the alternator and have a new voltage regulator installed on this one. Last time I had the voltage regulator fail, I lost two low beam filaments on the headlights in one day before I realized the alternator was failing.

Being one who's wasn't too careful with checking the oil on a regular basis, I could always tell when the oil was more than a quart low. The oil pressure would drop just enough and the dreaded "tick of death" would start. Time to add a quart of oil; fixed it every time.

Thanks for searching first. Glad it worked for you.

Regardless of what they did, you should have a detailed list of the services performed; whether it's warantee or not. Go back and insist on the paperwork for your records.

Which model Subaru do you have? One time I locked myself out and had AAA come out to open the car. He couldn't get it open and finally (after an hour) called his office. Office guy told him it's easier to unlock the car from the rear door; almost impossible to do it from the front door. Five minutes later he had the rear door open.

I can suggest a local mechanic who could do the rebuild for you at a reasonable cost. Drop me a PM with an email address and I'll be glad to pass it on.

So, was anyone there?

You don't actually need to run the engine when you search for wheel bearing noise. Once it's up in the air, out of gear, and the handbrake is off (or not in park). Turn the wheel by hand, with your other hand on the strut below the spring. You can usually feel the roughness of a faulty wheel bearing. This is a generic test, but it would help if you mention year and model of the car. Good luck isolating the noisy bearing.

Too far for me to go to find out about rallycross plans. Anyone interested? Reminder from: org-l Yahoo! Group Title: ORG Monthly Meeting Date: Wednesday January 25, 2012 Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm Repeats: This event repeats every month on the last Wednesday. Location: Buster's BBQ, Tigard Street: 11419 Southwest Pacific Highway City State Zip: Tigard, OR 97223-8627 Phone: (503) 452-8384 Notes: Dinner at 6:30, Meeting at 7:00 Get reminders on your mobile, Yahoo! Messenger, and email.

Sooner or later this will become a sticky; this question comes up so often

Funny, I get all my alternators at Pick N Pull. I have a '97 Impreza (square plug) and I usually pick them up at the wrecking yard. When I buy one I install it on my Impreza and put the used one (that I know still works fine) on the shelf for when I need one in an emergency. After 20-25 days I know the junkyard alternator works fine and I keep it; if not, I return it for another or credit. Not bad; a working alternator for around $20 plus a $10 core charge. Last one I had on the car failed after two years. There was a very good rebuilder in Ballard that I used until he moved to California. It cost around $90 for him to rebuild one of my bad ones. I liked having him since I got a quality rebuild every time. Now I use junkyard ones.

Thanks for the follow-up. So frustrating to follow a thread through a myriad of suggestions and never know what finally solved the problem. Good job on fixing the overheating issue.

I've got a dash cover in tan; I might consider parting with it.

From the sounds of it, I'd think it's fuel related. I note that you already replaced BOTH fuel filters. However, considering the weather and that it's been sitting four years you might do the filters again; especially the lowere fuel filter. But before you replace it again, drop in some "dry gas" and Seafoam with a full tank of gas and wait until you're down to half a tank before installing the fuel filter by the fuel pump. You might have some crap in the bottem of the tank that needs to be filtered out before it will run normally at speed.

I'm very fond of Subaru's AWD system, but I think propper tires are really more important. A quality SET OF FOUR Hakki's or Hankook iPikes will do more to help the traction situation on any car out there. I know other quality snow tires are out there but these are the only ones I have personal experience with. I drove through a worse storm than this with my Mazda RWD pickup with four Hakki's and was passing 4WD cars stuck in the snow or spun out on hills. I'm also partial to studless snow tires since most of our Seattle winters are rainy rather than snowy.

Weird. I know I replied to the midwest couple I met at the Primitive Rally School last year. But I apparently dropped this into the wrong thread. I'm not sure how I did that. Sorry. Really cool thread regarding your rally car rebuild. Best of luck for this year's season.

True. Yesterday we needed to get to downtown Seattle from Bothell. Uneventful trip for us in our Impreza with the Hankook iPike snow tires. But we saw three spinouts along the way (one just in front of us as we were approaching the car). No problem with any of Seattle's infamous hills. Climbed up Madison Ave. toward the radio antenna towers without issue even when stopping for the traffic light 2/3rds of the way up. Never an inkling of loss of control. The amazing thing is that there were so many cars out there without real snow tires. Delightful that there was so little traffic.

Welcome. Nice to see a good looking east coast Brat. I like the paint job.

A while back we had a friend over with a stock Baja. I don't remember the year. However, he was to ford a small stream and got deep enough to suck water into the engine. Hydro-locked the engine and destroyed it. Reason we had him over was to replace the engine. Not sure if going through water is worth it.

I've modified my early Brat with an old aluminum license plate mounted between the cat and axle boot on that side. Positioned so that there's good airflow over the top of the 'plate and it keeps most of the heat from the cat from destroying the inner boot. Seemed to work for me since I never had to replace that axle again. Not sure if it's still working since I sold that Brat last year.

As far as I know, the stub axle on an '82 don't come out without transmission disassembly. Someone else might confirm this. I'm still not picturing why the pin (or whatever) is in there isn't coming out.

Are you using coolant or water? If you have a small leak in the cooling system, water tends not to leave a trace. Coolant will mark a small leak pretty well.

Odd, the OEM thermostat is a 180 degree version. Strange that it should overheat with a 160. It's conceivable that it's a head gasket issue but that's pretty unusual for that engine.

Early EA81 wagons ('82 to '84) used the same axles (except for the turbo versions). '82 to '87 EA81 Hatch used many of the same parts (fenders, doors, engine, wheels, transmission and rear diff). More parts are interchangeable. Just need to be specific and ask.