zyewdall

I don't even have chains for my subaru. I get stuck frequently, but I've always been able to dig out (usually it only gets stuck if I get in deep enough snow to high center it). One time I had to use the comealong to pull it off a rock that highcentered it. Bumper high fresh snow is easy. 8" of windblown powder that behaves more like sand... tough. And crusty stuff is usually what gets me. Or ramming into a 2 or 3 foot snowbank when turning around somewhere. I've also learned that all-season's do not work in the snow anywhere near as good as dedicated snow tires. I used to think they were fine, but now that I've tried snows, I'll never run all-seasons in the winter any more.

Yeah. Though in Ward, it's sort of hard to NOT park next to an old gen suby. At one town council meeting we had about 3 EA81s, 4 or 5 EA82's, a legacy or two, one outback wagon, and a few old toyota trucks.

Yeah, there's more than one thread. I remember I posted a bunch of mine somewhere.... Here. http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=46066&highlight=paint My picture server went down though... :-\ Try these for new pics

Exactly. In deep snow, chains are a must. AWD or 4wd and good snow tires doesn't always cut it -- if you don't believe me, go find some snow higher than the bottom of your headlights and try going uphill through it. Okay, that's pretty rare. If you are not in deep snow, I don't see why you would have chains on AWD. Unless it's complete glazed ice, in which case maybe, but I've always had pretty good luck with the soft snow tires -- made it up my dad's driveway which was glazed ice (rain on top of packed snow) 20% slope.

The only way I've seen timing belts "slip" is by loosing few teeth. Get a new one. And like grossgary said, check all the pullies and tensioners. I'd personally replace the oil pump while you are in there too, if it's above 150k miles on the original pump.

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Haha. I bet he could. Few people realize the value of subarus. I was trying to persuade a friend to sell her new ford explorer sport, which handles like a overloaded boat parked on giant sponge, and get a subaru, and she asked me "but do subaru's do okay in the snow?"

Hmmm. Someone could have replaced the original rubber side strips. Or maybe they started making the '90 models a year early.

Ah, but have you compared the two carbs? I think it's safe to say that the subaru carb is four times as complicated as the '66 chevy carb, thus $600. Even a racing carb is simple compared to all the gizmos and solinoids and vacuum controls on a late 80's carb. I like the old carbureators from the 60's and earlier -- a giant flathead straight eight in a 5 ton dumptruck had a carb that was physically smaller than the subaru carb (with larger venturi's, of course, but without all the extra crap).

LOL like I say, not enough horsepower to spin the wheels even when you floor it on ice. Actually, I'm not completely joking here. Because subaru's are so low horsepower, they have little skinny tires -- no need for wide tires to transfer high horsepower to dry pavement. And in snow, the skinnier tires, the better. (the other car I've been really impressed with in the snow was a 52 horsepower VW rabbit with narrow little tires). Also, because the engine is so light (even compared to most car engines), the weight distribution front to rear is more even on a subaru than most SUV's, especially the V8 suv's. For a front wheel drive car, you want more weight in front, which most have with the heavy engines right over the wheels, but for a four wheel drive, ideally you want equal weight on all four wheels (think about it, if you have all the weight up front, great traction there, but you might as well not have power to the rear wheels if they can't get traction, so your V8 pickup truck with no weight in the back is at best sort of like a front wheel drive car, when it's in four wheel drive). Actually, if you are doing AWD for dry road high acceleration, you want more up front, since accelerating will shift some back, but at low speeds and low acceleration, like when on snow, you want about equal. And having a rear wheel drive with most the weight up front, just doesn't make alot of sense from a traction standpoint, unless you are accelerating very fast to transfer if backwards -- like in a corvette in the summertime. Combine the weight and skinny tires with with some soft grippy tires too, and you've got a pretty good combination for snow. I think there also is some sort of advantage from having a long wheelbase like subaru wagons do -- aside from the logical one that they spin around less easily on ice, I've noticed that in general the longer wheelbase vehicals do slighly better in snow -- extended cab toyota trucks vs shortbox ones, long wheelbase SUV's vs short wheelbase ones. I can't really think of a logical reason for that..... does that affect the weight distribution maybe? Or just make the vehical a little heavier total? Or just a better chance of traction by the front and rear axles being a little less likely to be on the same ice patch at the same time. Dunno. I've got a friend who just got a 4 runner that can't make it up his icy driveway in 4wd sometimes, but my subaru can easily make it in 4wd, and do a good try in fwd. I told him to buy some darned snow tires instead of the wide "all seasons" it came with.

Take a look underneath for anything obvious -- like a bent radius rod that's holding one front wheel an inch or two farther back than the other side. That completely screws up the alignment. I know it sounds like common sense to check that first.......but its possible to overlook it

My '84 wagon did that too -- on really cold days, you could drive a few miles before the tach would get above 0. Then all of a sudden it would work fine. I thought it was a electrical connection problem down by the coil getting moisture in it or something, but maybe lubrication or moisture in the tach head? Could it possibly be the same problem source as with the slow speedometer response? The speedo on my 89 GL only vaguely indicates road speed when it's cold out. And, always check to see if the pack rats haven't chewed almost completely through the tach wire -- that's what they did on my truck. One "solution" Drill a small hole in the y-pipe, then the engine will be loud enough to have an audio tachometer.... That's the reason I never worried about the tach on the '84 wagon -- I could hear it. The 89 is so quiet that I do need the tach though.

Don't tempt us. You know we never got those in north america. :-\

Ah, the eternal FI vs Carb debate. You'll never convince me. Seems like you've had good luck though. But every carbureated subaru I've owned has been so worn by 200k miles that internal vacuum leaks prevent it from idling anymore, and I've always been told about $350 for a rebuild, or $600 for a new carbureator. Same issue with other late 80's carbs on trucks. Now, 60's and early 70's carbs I like fine. And I don't like the SPFI system on 80's GM products. But I like SPFI subarus.

Nah. I hate golf. We use them for photovoltaic systems all the time though.

If you want something stock, I'd have to recommend an 88 or 89 GL wagon (or 87 if it was originally sold in CA). Those years have SPFI, and also dual range. Any later than that doesn't have dual range, so you'd have to transplant it in. The earlier EA82's were carbureated, which is a nightmare when they get old. The EA81's are nice for the woods driving (actually I prefer them to the EA82's), but not so hot on the highway for commuting. And they are all carbureated too. I think it is a better (simpler) engine design, but not much power on the highway. I currently have an '89 GL, since it's the newest one I could get with dual range. But I am working on putting a 5 speed dual range in an '82, and some sort of diesel engine. Alot of the older 4 speed dual ranges are missing third gear synchros, but I've never had trouble with the 5 speeds.

Might be some sort of legal thing. I've bought "parts" subaru's and driven them home under their own power.

Nice.... Most of mine blew away, but there's 10 foot drifts a few places around here. Only 3 foot or so on the flat. I'm hoping for more.

Mythical meaning it does not have enough power to break the wheels loose on slick ice -- so it moves instead of just spinning wheels.... I love it when the streets are so icy that everyone else with way more horsepower can't move because their wheels are spinning, and I can almost floor the subaru in 4wd and not spin. Of course, they could learn to give their V8 less gas, and buy better tires, but most never do.....

Nope, nothing less than a 5.9 liter diesel here. It sucks. Except the Jeep Liberty CRD, but it is only available with a very slushy automatic tranny. I've never tried the engine braking of it, but it does have a transfer case and low range 4x4 at least. I haven't seen any new Daihatsu's here -- only from the 90's. I'd second (or fourth or fifth) the suggestion to buy another GL wagon from the northwest or california. Especially one from west of the cascades. It truly is amazing how well they keep compared to Colorado even. And even being used to the amount of rust on Colorado cars, I'm still apalled by anything from the east coast. I mean, I hear of late 80's cars being junked because of rust, which baffles me. And I recently bought a 6 year old box truck from PA, which had already rusted through the diamond plate steel bumper in a few little spots. WTF??? Newmexico or arizona are even better places to look -- I've seen 70's and 60's trucks with no rust at all there. But alot of these are a bit sun-battered -- cooked dashboards, faded paint, etc.

Yeah, sunroofs were a factory option on at least the '85 year. I had a GL with the digital dash and factory sunroof, and very little rust... engine went and I got rid of it, which I now regret. I think that's more than 700lbs. I've had 1,000 lbs of batteries (14 golf cart batteries, 86lbs each) in mine, and it didn't squat down that low. Awfully slow on hills though

I thought the new H6 engines (EJ33?) had a timing chain? Obviously this isn't one of those though....

oooh, you are missing out. The low range trannies have a rpm divider on the input shaft, that when actuated, you suddently have 50% more torque from your engine -- nice for pulling out of snowbanks or up steep hills (and 33% less speed, of course)

Man, that's cheap for a loyale with 150k. Out west they'd be asking $1000. But I suppose it's probably not rust free either... I'll forward it on to my brother in Rochester and see if he wants it.

If it's a local car, it might be SPFI already. The California GL's were SPFI in '87, but none of the rest of the US till '88. He's asking a pretty reasonable amount given the new engine, if it's not rusty. $500 to $1200 is usually what I see. I almost never see the DL's for sale, which is sort of what you are proposing turning it into. Maybe a litttle less than the GL, but most people don't realize the difference between the pushbutton and dual range 4wd.