edrach

Just a question. Did you buy private party or off a dealer lot? The reason I ask is, can you go back to the seller and get any idea of the work that's been done in the past and the mileage it was done at. GD is giving you good advice; hard but good. Too bad your car is not an Impreza Outback since I have a spare shop manual for a '97 Impreza. Motor and transmission info should be the same; not sure about the wiring. Body information would certainly be different.

Ask them for a detailed estimate and what kind of guarantees that the car will be fixed properly. Then decide if you can afford it. If it were up to me...I'd take it home and use it as a learning experience. Down the road, you'll be glad you did since you'll never have to depend on a dealer or unscrupulous shop again. Trust yourself and you'll do fine.

You're near Portland, OR. That's lucky. www.fixmysuby.com has two shops locally to you (and is a USMB member) as well as GD who's already chimed in.

Welcome to the Board. You've come to the right place. So far, I can't disagree with either of the two replies you got. Nothing wrong with dealerships except: they are generally the most expensive to do a repair to your car; they aren't necessarily the best service you can get even at their higher prices; and lastly, they have a vested interest in getting older cars off the road and selling you a new (or newer) car. There's no indication of where you live. I'm in the Seattle, WA area and there are at least four independent shops I could suggest that I would trust more than a dealership. I even know a shop in Portland, OR where I take my car when I'm there on business (he's actually two blocks away from the dealership). Lots of options for second opinions. Let us know what area of the country you are in, and maybe someone can suggest a reputable independent shop you can get a second opinion from.

Update on other weekends for this: Jan 15, 16 Feb 19, 20 The ASNW Rally-X forum, http://www.autosportsnorthwest.org/f...wforum.php?f=5 , will contain any annoucments or changes being made to the schedule. I will try to make sure I get them updated here as well.

I have watched this club's winter activities for the last three years and was never able to match my schedule with theirs. Either it was too little snow so I couldn't justify the 5 hour drive out or my schedule had other comitments. One year, they had so much snow they couldn't run because they couldn't get a plow out to the airfield they run on. With the current La Nina predictions, this might finally be the year I make it out there for a weekend.

Front and rear diffs are both open. Center diff is viscous, non locking. I believe that a rear VLSD was available as an option, but I'm not aware of anyone who has one that came with the car when purchased new.

Yo'j is correct. Don't rush into anything if you can afford to wait (a cheap beater on the side is helpful). Our '82 Brat got the first offer of $400 and the insurance company eventually upped it to $1100. They never offered to look at comparables and we just collected a ton of them over a 6 month period. Two days before the 3 year statute of limitations would occur we filed a claim in small claims court. We had some good comparables and the judge averaged them out to $3750. When she asked the other side for comment they had none. Since they had no counter argument available, my son was awarded the $3750 plus court costs. Hopefully it doesn't come to that for you, but if it did, you don't sue the insurance company; you sue the person who caused the damage. After the judgement, it's up to the insurance company to pay the judgement.

Copied from another forum: Ladies and Gentleman, It is that time of year again. The Auto-X guys are putting away their sticky tires and slammed cars and retiring to the garage for another winter of project building. Meanwhile, us rally/snow oriented drivers are getting jazzed about the prospect of speeding around the track in the snow and delicately dancing with frozen cones . Autosports Northwest, http://www.autosportsnorthwest.org , is again holding our snow Rally-X with the first race scheduled for Dec. 11/12. For those are not familair with ASNW, we are a strong club that has been around for 20+ years. The strongest portion of the club is our Auto-X racing during the summer, with several memembers competing at Nationals. During the winter we pull out the cones, lengthen the slaloms and elements, put the snow tires on the cars, and rally. We race on an old runway and have a minimum of 1,400' x 150' of track to work with and we typically have a dog leg taxi/runway we use for beautiful high 2nd gear sweepers. We only have four classes - 2WD, 4WD and Novice/Amature seperation in both 2WD and 4WD. Our turnouts are typically low, sub 30 drivers, which results in lots of runs. A typical run is around 90 seconds. After the timed runs are done, we typically keep racing just for fun if the course/people can support it. Tech inspection requirements are pretty straight forward and follow SCCA guidelines. Ultimately we have to make sure that the vehicle is in sound racing condition, i.e. wheel bearings/suspension is tight, the battery is secure, no major leaks, and nothing in the cabin that's loose. We do require a DOT certified helmet but have plenty to lend out (no cost) if you don't have your own. Our rallycrosses will be on the asphalt whether it's dry or covered in rain, ice, and/or snow (the more the better, up to a point). If there's too much snow for a safe, fun event, we'll cancel with as much notice as possible. If there is no snow, studded tires will not be allowed. Run times will be calculated by dropping your worst run and adding your best times for a total time. After the track conditions deteriorate and we stop gathering scores, we usually keep running fun runs for a while. Racing fees are $25 for club members and $30 for non-members, per day. We'll race on Sat and Sun. There is a $5 discount if you pre-register and pre-pay for both days. If you come out to race, you will be expected to help work the course when it's not your run group (we only have two run groups). We do our best to make the course open enough that shagging cones is kept to a minimum and often you can work the course from the warmth of your car parked off-track. However, this is a winter sport and you should dress appropriately. The people are very friendly and our competition, while fierce at times, is very much in good nature and everyone's there to have fun. This is a great opportunity to bring out your daily driver or a winter beater and play. You will have the ability to throw the car around in a safe environment and at speeds/conditions that you simply cannot find on the streets. We need a minimum of 15 drivers to pre-pay for each event in order for this to work. If we don't have enough paid entries before the event, we'll have to cancel that weekend. Aside from lack of participation, the only reason for event cancellation I foresee is too much snow/ice for a safe, fun event (not everybody's in a $200 car). If an event is cancelled, refunds will be issued promptly to all who pre-paid. The refund can be applied towards the next event through the ORM Bank, or you can request a check. If you just show up to an event without having pre-registered and pre-paid, we won't turn you away, but please just pre-register if you think you'll come. It's no problem to unregister if your plans change. Pre-registration through the AXWare ORM is requested and strongly encouraged. It really helps the event start smoothly and you won't make someone type all of your information into a computer with frozen fingers. You'll need an account and a rally car entry in your ORM garage, and pre-payment will be mandatory to keep track of how many people are seriously planning on showing up. Here's how to do it - http://www.autosportsnorthwest.org/f...pic.php?t=2272 . There is help available if you have any troubles getting registered but the system is fairly straight forward. For anyone traveling, there are hotels in the area we can point you towards. Or, for the more hearty individuals, camping is allowed at the track. This is an exciting event and all skill levels, car performance levels, and ages are welcome. Please spread the word to your friends. I would like to emphasize though, if we don't have 15 people pre-paid by the Wed. before race weekend - we will have to cancel the event. Therefore it is very important you pre-pay if -payou're interested. We do accept on-site payments, but only the Axware pre-payments are considered when making the decision to hold the race or cancel. If an event is cancelled and you already paid, you will be promptly refunded or you can apply the money to the next event. Our club takes pride in handling your money with respect so you do not need to worry about losing your money if an event gets cancelled. I am the VP of the Rally-X portion of the club so if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. We want you out there and having fun!

Well forget about www.autotrader.com. I did a search for 82 to 84 GL within any distance with a WIDE range of price. Not one hit. Not bad news, good news since it indicates your car was quite rare and will be very difficult to replace.

Before you replace the alternator (it likely is at fault). Make sure the alternator belt is properly tensioned. A slipping belt will cause the alternator to drop in speed even without making noise.

By the way, are you collecting from your insurance carrier or the other person's? It also helps if you weren't at fault. If you like, drop me a PM with a phone number and I can get you some more information. Judging from your original post, you've already thrown in the towel with your thoughts on a low valuation. Get that out of your system. A reliable wagon that doesn't quit on you every other week is worth more money even if it has 240K on it. Finding an equally reliable wagon might be pretty tough. Another thing, when the adjuster comes to look at it (if that hasn't happened yet), make sure it's clean and looks like a reliable daily driver and not like a "beater." First impressions do make a difference.

Lynn, Sorry to hear about the devise of the wagon. Your lawyer is correct, you are entitled to fair market value along with sales tax if needed along with costs to re-title and register the replacement vehicle. That being said; do your homework. Establishing fair market value: Find any an all ads for a similar model/year from the newspaper (you don't have to look at them and they don't have to match yours exactly) and document the information and keep copies of the originals. Search Craigslist and again document everything you find. Here's one from our CL/ebay forum: http://seattle.craigslist.org/oly/cto/2056602908.html And by the way, anything within reasonable driving distance is legitimate (I went to Portland from the Seattle area in the search for both my Impreza and our Forester). Lastly, do a search on www.autotrader.com. Since it's an '83 you might have to expand the distance of the information collected. Again, document, document, document. When you are done, select the 10 most comparable to you (throw out the obvious "low ball" values). If your values are too high, the insurance carrier will tell you, no need to throw in the towel yourself. Let them do the legwork if needed. Lastly, try the services: www.nada.com, www.edmunds.com, and www.kbb.com. These are NOT fair market values but will give you some insight as to what the value of your '83 was prior to the accident. I found out something interesting when researching values for my son's '82 Brat. Even though my Brat had an NADA valuation of $1700, the same year valuation for an '82 wagon came out to $3100. I didn't quite understand that, but that's what it was. When you select the information from here, don't downgrade your car by giving it a poor or fair rating. Give it an average or better; don't do the insurance company's work for them. Find the best values you can live with and submit them.

You can disable the HH by adjusting the spring so it never actuates the function. But that won't stop the leak that you might have.

If you have a leak here, you should probably know by the fact you're out of fluid the first day! The HH is not a common failure item. My three sons and I have been through a dozend EA81 cars over the years and every one of them had a working HH. Most common failure is improper adjustment because most mechanics don't know how to adjust them and then quote an unreasonable price to fix it.

No you have one, but it's either broke or mis-adjusted (usually the latter).

Just a thought, but any magnetic material anywhere close to the compass that might interfere with where it's pointing? Roof mounted antenna base perhaps?

I picked up a '95 JDM WRX transmission from 96WRX when he bought the engine and I was looking for a transmission for my Impreza. Front clip had 77,000 km on the odometer and now after 30,000 miles in my Impreza I'm inclined to believe it. Transmission is the best I've ever had in my Impreza; shifts smoothly and no ugly noises.

That is an exceptional wagon. I've always felt this model was the most bullet-proof Subaru built. Enjoy it for a long time.

Part of the difficulty would be that I've not heard of anyone doing that with a Brat, so you'd be alone in exploring what needed to be done. That being said, an approach to that would be to find a turbo brat at a junkyard and use parts from it. Turbo brats (extremely rare) only came stock as an automatic and would make the conversion easier if the parts were good or repairable.

If you don't mind mail order I'd suggest Jason in Parts at 1-866-528-5282. He works for a Subaru dealer in Auburn, WA and is never too busy to attend to getting parts for the older cars. His internet prices offer a pretty decent discount on cost. Only downside is shipping, but a clutch cable doesn't weigh much.

From the old USRM repair manual: http://www.indysworld.com/80s/general/USRM/mick-usrm/weber/weber-all.html Somewhere there's a drawing of how the hoses are hooked up. If I can find it I'll post the link. Here's some more: http://www.redlineweber.com/html/Tech/Table_of_contents.htm I'm still looking for the drawing.

I've had one of each on two Brats. They both worked just fine and I didn't notice any difference in performance.

I'm parial to MWE drive repair in Colorado if you have the time for shipment.

I'm with GD on that, but a front axle from pull a part will likely cost less than the tow dolly rental.