edrach

EA81 cars have the two filters; one a true filter down under the car near the fuel pump and the other (actually, called a separator with 3 fittings instead of two) located in the engine compartment next to the master brake cylinder. I think they did away with the separator with the EA82 cars.

I believe the tranny cooler inlet / outlet lines are on the side of the Subaru radiator, not the bottem. Adding an auxillary cooler is quite easy and not too expensive. I just installed one on our Toyota Dolphin motorhome; total cost less than $60 and about one hour of work.

Just a bump to the top to remind myself of the new date. Less than two weeks to go!

I have a used one ready to rebuilt. Free if you can pick it up or just for the cost of shipping. FOB, Bothell, WA.

Air flow error; when's the last time you changed the air filter?

Thanks Josh. --ed--

Search ebay for the factory service manual; amazing what you can sometimes find there. Also www.books4cars.com is a good source for FSMs. I can't help you out too much on the wiring, but I would suspect that you might have a faulty switch in your overhead light...it should be a 3 position switch; one for always on, one for always off, and one for on when the door is open. I think you're correct that the doorjamb switch is okay; I'd suspect the overhead light myself....pretty easy to replace if it is bad....easy to find at the local junkyard.

I'm getting an intermittant "Check Engine" on my dash. Going through the USRM and searching for how to read the codes, I keep coming up with "page not found" errors. Anyone have the procedure somewhere; it seems to be lost. For example, http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/article.php?a=44 is no longer active. I have a '91 Legacy wagon; even the factory service manual is no help for this. Thanks.

Turbone and I exchanged the complete front dash on my '84 Brat some time ago; it was a direct replacement out of an EA81 wagon. It is a tedious job and I don't know anything to make the job easier other than to be sure you have lots of time. It took the two of us a good 10+ hours to complete the job. This was a GL into a GL replacement; I suspect a GL dash into a DL dash would work but I've never done one.

I might be off base here but on the EA81 cars, you have either an oil pressure guage or oil light (GL or DL models). If you have a GL you have a pressure sender; if you have a DL model, you have an idiot light; you don't have both. Any possibility that's the same case on your '85?

For the cost of a working alternator you can get at Pull a Part, you'd be better off going that route rather than trying to replace the voltage regulator in your current alternator; besides I suspect your alternator may not be putting out from the symptoms you describe. A voltage regulator will only control voltage by limiting the upper range; it can't make up for drops in alternator output.

When the exhaust pipe falls off the muffler, gases collect under the driver's side rear corner and combine with moisture to form acid which eats out the area around the bumper mounting pretty well; you really have to get under the Brat to check out that area. Besides the area mentioned by Flow, check the rocker panels, doors, and front of the door frames for rust. Price? I've seen two fairly rusty but driveable Brats with much higher mileage than the one you're looking at and they are not selling for the $700 to $800 they are priced at; I just bought a totally rust-free '84 with 115K on it for $2500. I would check with carfax on the one you're looking at to see if the 80K is correct since that's pretty low for that year car.

I think there might be a difference between the chrome and yellow Accel coils. I installed a yellow one (it was cheaper than the chrome one) three years ago into my brat and it's still running fine (the coil, not the brat--head gasket problems). I don't have any experience with a MSD coil.

Pat, catch qman sometime and he'll fill you in on the cause of the "tick of death." Actually, it's not really deadly....annoying as heck, but I've yet to see an EA82 "die" of it.

For those of us running the ORG rallycross series, here's some interesting news I just stumbled across: Information on the Rally School can be found at: www.get-primitive.com Information on the Rally Cross - In a way, we have exciting news... There will be TWO Rally Cross events in September. John Elkin, our illustrious Rally Department Head, has pulled off an 11th hour deal with the track management at PIR for a Rally cross NOT on the 25th... but on the 18th of September. This will be the next event in the ORG Points Series so if you want to keep your totals growing, DON'T miss this event! In addition... There will be a Rally Cross on the 25th of September to continue our pledge to support and grow our Rally Membership through the School. This will NOT be a points event but should be alot of fun. So you have a choice of one, the other or (best option) BOTH events in the merry Month of September! For more information on either event, you can send an email to rallycross@oregonrally.com and I'll make sure it gets to the right people. Best! Scott Kovalik - Humble Rally Servant & Human Hat Rack - As much as I like the fine folks at ORG who work very hard at putting on these events, their publicity does seem to be difficult to find occasionally. Just my 2 cents on that.--ed--

They are pretty; I'm just not sure I'd trust aluminum to hold on the wheels.

I stand corrected. Hondasucks posted this: yeah HC is unburned fuel. High HC + High CO would indicate a rich mixture, high HC w/ normal or low CO would indicate a lean mixture. High 02 would confirm this. You could have a plug that's not quite firing at low RPM, or something to that effect that's causing it to misfire at idle, maybe not enough to detect but enough for it to not pass smog. We just covered emissions in class, our AllData software doesn't even HAVE the data for California, it says that since it changes so often it's best to call CARB lol See, it's not too late for an old dog to learn new things.

Hooray; glad to hear it's up and running again.

Do you have one or two pins coming out of the temp sensor? If only one pin, the circuit is depending on a proper ground return and that might be missing. Same thing happens on the temp switch to the fan if there's only one pin; the little grounding wire for the radiator is gone and the fan doesn't work because it too needs a ground to work properly.

I think I still have the mapquest directions.

I think SuBrat84 has the right idea about the timing. It's not unusual in our older subes for the vacuum advance unit to fail. Aside from causing a vacuum leak that's not easily detected, it often causes the timing to be advanced (by a mechanic who's tuning by ear) at idle so the car will run better at cruise (didn't you say it failed at idle but was okay at cruise?). Check the vacuum advance to see if it's working; use a timing light to set your advance to 8 degrees BTDC with the vacuum line to the distributor disconnected and blocked; then re-connect the vac line and see that the timing advances about another 20 degrees as you rev the engine to about 2000 rpm.

Rob, thanks; I'll pick up the batteries so Corky doesn't have to deal with them. I'll bring the pallets down to your place as I can over the next few weeks. ---ed---

Brownish is good. Did you fail HC's at idle or cruise?

Get a new mechanic; lean does not equate to high HC's. Also, if one cylinder is mis-firing all that unburned fuel goes out the exhaust as unburned HC's. Interesting that squeezing off the PCV gets the HC's lower.

Rob, if you're bringing the trailer, I have 5 pallets for you. I can only get 3 in the Brat. Let me know your time frame. I'm available after 2pm on Saturday; or if the trailer is definite, I'll arrange with Corky to bring down the pallets sooner. Also, bring the battery cores; I can still use them.