zyewdall

Postponed.... car isn't done yet, and I've got a work trip to south carolina so I won't even be here.... but soon....

My dad's '96OBW came with heated mirrors from the factory (the cold weather package, with the heated seats too) so, it's got to be prewired to some extent...

I suspect they are too large... but try them on the spare and see. If they have an adjustable link where they connect you may be able to connect them for a smaller diameter tire. Outlawed? Here in Colorado, you can get very hefty fines for NOT having chains if you are commercial vehicle. I rarely use them on the pickup trucks because studded snows work pretty well in most circumstances and you can go faster than 25mph, but in certain conditions (deep snow usually) they really work well. Or if you have a 2wd truck, it makes it not completely undriveable when the roads get ice packed

Yup, Rockauto has a pretty good selection. Also, the '84 should be the same as the '85-'89 EA81's ??? as well as the late '82 through '83 (early '82 had solid rotors instead of vented) not completely sure on that though, so it's best if you can find one listed for the '84. I know I got them from Checker Auto about 5 years ago when I owned an '84 (bought it as a "parts" car simply because it needed brakes)....

Urk. I've let people send two good (okay, snapped timing belt on one, and bad starter on one... but perfectly repairable) EA82 wagons to the crushers over the years -- wish I had them as parts cars now.

Do you have an engine hoist, or a car lift? The thought of trying to do it from underneath sounds like an awful pain if you don't have a lift, but then again, I've only done it from the top... and that was a pain to have to remove the whole engine first if you didn't have to otherwise (though, I was doing ian engine swap anyway). But... once the engine was out, it was pretty easy doing the transmission. Z

No I've got a '87 GL (a friends) that needs one too, and even with the gazillion old EA82's here in Colorado, I had a hard time finding one, and it was $100 for a junkyard one a two hours drive way.

If that was in Colorado for that price, it seems pretty decent. But Subarus seem to go for more here than back east.

Why? Mobil 1 in particular, or any full synthetics?

Yeah... DOJ failure can make the whole engine and transmission buck, especially under load. I had a bad one on my '89GL, and it got so I'd have to put the car in 4wd going up hills in order to keep the vibration to a reasonable level (halving the torque on that particular front axle). I thought it was something in the transmission for sure, but replacing the axle fixed it.

I generally don't run less than 40 weight (5W40, 5W50, etc) in my subarus, but most of them are close to, or over 200k miles, and that keeps down the oil burning it seems. I run full synthetic in them all, and I haven't had problems switching them to synthetic.

I've got a 1st gen legacy wagon ('90) that I did a bunch of mpg testing on this fall. When it bought it it hadn't had an oil change in about a year I put in a new air filter, new oil filter, and 5W40 full synthetic oil, along with a can of Restore in the engine (it was burning a quart every 600). 140k on the engine, 5MT, with 185/75/14 tires running at 44psi Commuting up and down the canyon (30 to 50mph, no traffic, but lots o hills, and I drive it pretty agressively): 23 to 25mpg Highway, 55 to 65mph, with hills and all: 29 to 31mpg Highway, 40 to 50mph (following a VW bus ) 34 to 36mpg Highway, flat out (80mph-ish), 26 to 28mpg And, its only burning a quart every 1500 to 2000 miles now.

Only experience I have with bad trannies is on a '97 OBS, and it was definitely coming from the transmission -- driving you could heard it more from under the car than from either window with the windows down. It was alot of grinding gears too (finally blew it up last week completely), so maybe bearings sound different... but, your description sure sounds like a wheel bearing. It might only make noise with weight on it, which is why you can't detect anything with it jacked up. Seems like subies often get diagnosed with bad transmissions, when it's really something else. A friend's '87 GL supposedly had a failing transmission... when it was really the plugs hadn't been changed for 150k miles, and the engine was just hesitating and surging something awful. I put new plugs and wires and cap and rotor on and the "transmission" was all better

Tirerack brings up a bunch of snow tires in 225/45/R18. For around $190 each before installation..... I agree though, a subaru without even all season's standard ? The potenza RE92's that the 06 and 07 outbacks came stock with sucked pretty bad in snow or mud too.

It's nice when you can take it back from barely running to top condition like that, with just some changing of parts and fluids. I've done that a few times -- put real oil back in the engine, stuff like that, to "parts cars" and drove them a few more years.

Beautiful. However... that would not even qualify as having snow on the road in my book

Oh.... of the 10 vehicles I have, NONE of them get bad enough gas mileage to qualify

I don't think the EA82's are quite as bad as people make them out to be. I've put 250k on some with nothing but routine maintenance -- oil changes, new hoses, belts, timing belts, water pump occasionally, etc. And, I have had some bad ones that I had to do head gaskets on, that never ran right, too.... It's still not in question that the EJ is still a MUCH better engine -- way more horsepower, longer lived on average, and about the same gas mileage. If you can fix your engine, or swap in a different engine, it's not a bad car... just not as good as some other subarus. I'd still rather drive an EA82 subaru, than most other cars on the road. I had to choose between an '85GL wagon that needed head gaskets and a carburetor, and a nice fuel injected '89 Honda accord once... and i chose the subaru, because I liked it and was mentally able to handle the idea of having to fix it, but I just didn't feel like fixing anything on the honda. The dual range 4wd is really what the benefit of the EA series cars is, and why so many of us keep them. And... alot of people put EJ22's in the older EA's, or, like I'm doing, put the dual range transmission in the newer cars.

Superrupair in Boulder still has some EA parts in storage, but they've shifted mostly to the EJ cars in the last three or four years Whats a C4C vehicle?

Not to quibble over minutia... but it's actually 1.46 for the 4 speed, and it has a slightly lower 1st gear, so it's really only a tad different than the 5 speed -- 5.315 vs 5.636. 4th gear is different for the '81 and '82 4 speeds, but it looks like the later ones actually give you about the same highway gearing as the 5 speeds, just wider spacing because you are missing one gear.

Might want to pull the axles off the stubs and see if an output bearing for the passenger axle stub is bad. Also... if you do this, you could take out the front axles and run it in RWD and not put any stress on the front diff. At least temporarily. Z

have you tried taking off the tires and seeing exactly where the thumping is coming from? Is it a transmission problem, or is it one of the hubs/brakes? That is more common on these.

Anyone want to do a snow run on the switzerland trail two weekends from the coming one. I should have my impreza back with the dual range transmission by then, and want to try it out. It's about 15 miles of route through the woods around peak to peak highway north of Nederland -- some steeper side roads to play around on and some forest service roads that parallel parts of it with more fun terrain, but mostly old railroad grade. Parts of it get pretty wind drifted depending on how much snow we have by then. Mostly forest service, though it goes through some private property at points. I'll have to give an update when it gets closer and see how the snow level is, but in the summer I've done most of the route with the stock subaru justy -- pretty much any subaru with snow tires should be fine. The very end half a mile only lifted subies will probably be able to do -- I've done it with my truck a few times and it gets pretty bumpy (lots of football sized rocks) I might take the impreza up it though -- we'll see. If you don't want to, you can turn around and backtrack about 3 miles and get back to the same ending spot. Lots of good spots for photos with the continental divide and such.... Z

Urkkkk..... I don't like heights

You can buy 6 lug 15" rims new for about $35 (for 8 spoke white steelies). Summit Racing on line is where I got a set for my truck. I've never had trouble getting 15" tires in just about any size I want (both my pickup trucks have 15" rims), but I generally go for snow tires... haven't tried looking for the off-road type tires. I think those are a bit harder to find than snow tires. EDIT... I'm not sure what size the 15" tires I'm getting actually are in inches -- 205/75/R15 up to 235/75/R15.... you can convert them though and I bet the skinnier ones are near 28.