zyewdall

This should be in the old gen forum -- '94 is not pre 1980.... It is 4wd -- with the button pushed in, the front and back are locked, and you get 50/50 power split. No center diff, so don't do this on surfaces where the wheels can't slip a little. With the button out, it's front wheel drive only. You can shift in and out of 4wd at any speed (putting the clutch in briefly is a good idea on the manual transmission ones... not sure on the automatics)

LOL Sanity?

Also, if the rear shoes are too worn, or not adjusted, they'll take up alot of pedal travel before they engage -- even if the fronts are adjusted properly. You didn't mention if you'd checked or replaced them. Z

I say lift it. Z

I put this size tire on my '89GL with no lift, and it was okay... little bit of rubbing on the front of the rear wheel wells, and on the front of the front wheel wells on turns -- just barely.

Nope. That's way newer than what you're looking for. A regular old 1st gen Legacy -- EJ22, not 4wd dual range (might be all wheel drive, but for that price, probably not even that). You want a wagon from '81 to '84, or a hatch from '81 to '89 I think. Or a brat.

I've seen people asking twice that for cherry brats... it seems they command twice to three times what a hatch or wagon of similar condition would.... so, yeah, it's actually a pretty fair price.

Nice brat. I like the colors. And the topper. Very nice price too I've heard sluggish applied to EJ25 legacies even... which are alot faster than old brats... so I wouldn't put too much stock in that unless you find an actual problem

How far do you have to go? And on what sort of roads? If you don't have coolant in the oil, and you make sure the oil and coolant is full, and keep an eye on the temperature gauge, and drive it easy, you probably won't break anything more than's already broken. Low on coolant sounds kind of bad -- could be more than just a bad turbo, but do these use an oil cooled or water cooled turbo? If it's a water cooled turbo, then it's possible that it's not the head gasket.

Didn't used to be. I kind of like my old 70's Mazda's (even though they do say Ford on them

I have to disagree.... the EA81's are easier than the EA82's But, you are right...compared to most new cars, and even alot of other cars from the 80's, the EA series are a joy to work on. I'll only work on subarus, or 70's and older trucks sometimes. I tell my friends that... you can buy whatever you want.... but if it's not a subaru, I'll just sit back and watch in amusement when something goes wrong. If it's a subaru though... I might even have a spare engine I could give you for it

Ah, I get it now

Holy freaking brand new hatch !! Not a spec of grease or grime in the engine compartment. Looks nice

Huh... I may be rembering incorrectly (quite possible), but I thought I remember both the 4 speed and the 5 speed having the clutch lever at the very top of the box.

If you can't drive it, after you take the engine out, just jack up one wheel, and manualy turn the input shaft one revolution in 4th, and see how far the wheel turns. Then do it again in "5th" and compare. I believe the 5 speed is shorter than the 4 speed... but I do not know exact measurements. IMO, low range is a much more desireable feature than AWD -- so the 5MT D/R is what you want, not the 5MT AWD that mates to the EJ22. But... if you aren't doing bumpy off road stuff, then maybe the AWD is a more desired feature.

Sometimes the 4 speeds can get really sloppy... it might be 3rd that you're finding. There is a way to tell the 5 speed and 4 speed apart... but off the top of my head, I'm not sure.... perhaps some other folks can chime in. Z

Not except to the hub -- which was already stripped. That happened on my '82 wagon on a trip to western CO -- I had to drive another 60 miles or so to get to a junkyard to get a replacement hub. Then... it was going so well in rear wheel drive, that I drove another 40 miles or so to get to a nice sunny field with a beautiful view of the colorado mountains where I swapped the hub and regained 4wd Z

I wasn't trying to say that timing belt failures were overblown. I was trying to say that EA82's don't inherently fail any more than any other car (which is what alot of people think). -- it's just that people don't bother maintaining them properly, and that's why they fail alot. So... it sounds like we are in agreement. I just didn't write my original post very clearly.

I don't deny that its quite an inconvenience -- I had to change mine in a snowstorm on the side of the road about 300 miles from home. So - did your failed timing belt occur despite changing the belt and tensioners and idlers at recommended intervals? If you did all those, and it still failed, then maybe there is a problem. If, not, then I think you actually prove my point that it's people not paying proper attention to maintenance that causes these cars to get this reputation, not actually because they inherently blow timing belts more than any other cars.

I think the timing belt thing on these is a bit of a overblown problem. Yes, they do tend to break alot... I've had it happen to me. But, I think it's partly because no one takes a broken timing belt on an EA82 as seriously as on other engines.... break the timing belt on most engines, and you are talking new heads/pistons/etc.... all the EA82 does is stop running. So people don't take it as seriously either to change them when they should, or to change all the idlers and tensioners when the change the belt. Z

For a non-snow tire, the good year triple treads seem to be pretty good in the snow -- not nearly as good as a real snow tire, but if you are not driving on snow every day, pretty decent. Plus, they last longer and are quiter than studded snows (if WA even allows those any more... we needed them on the east side, but on the west side they are probably unecessary). We switched our company cars (2006 outbacks) to the triple treads after the factory potenzas wore our after 20k miles. The factory ones were also terrible in the snow. If you spend enough time in the mountains and east to want snow tires, my current favorite is the Hankook W409 Ipike, either studded, or not -- not sure if they make those in that size though (my cars take smaller, higher profile ones).

Probably. It's suprising how many people don't know that subaru's have the boxer engine (even here in Boulder, where probably 20% of the cars are subarus). It's kind of fun to have people look in the engine compartment and freak out because they can't figure out what the hecks going on Especially the older ones with the spare tire in there too

Knocking sounds different than mine... but when i swapped my EA82 recently, I accidentally bent that sheet metal piece that completes the bottom of the bell housing... rubbed on the flywheel for a little while and made kind of bad noises... then went away after about 20 miles... Z

Does it have a set of pugs or something? If they're regular steel wagon wheels, I'd do more like $10 if they're really nice.... or free otherwise. That's not too bad price for a set of alloy pugs, especially considering you don't have to pay shipping.

Yeah. Every store I've gone to except for the dealer has the wrong stuff in their computer. You have to buy by spline count, not what type of car they think it's for.... :-\