zyewdall

Well..... I see alot of SUV's flipped over, but that's usually in snow, and most of them are AWD now anyway... I've heard the flipping over thing too, but it does seem rather strange. I guess if you try a tight turn in 4wd, the front wheels would want to roll just a bit farther than the back wheels, but can't, which could be equivalent to hitting just the front brakes, while turning. Which in a high center of gravity vehical might not be good. Were they putting the trucks into 4wd all winter, or locking the front hubs? I can see keeping the hubs locked all winter, but keeping it in 4wd just seems silly.

clock spring? I know that caravan's are american made, but I didn't think they were that antiquated to run off of a clock spring. But seriously, it sounds like the wire to the set button is missing somewhere. Taking a look at a wiring diagram might be in order, to see if it's got it's own connector under the dash, or if it's in a big monoblock connecter where everything goes to the steering wheel at once. Once you have access to the connector, you can test for continuity while pressing the buttons.

I concur with Snowman. If the unibody isn't rusty, the "frame-rails" are great. Is the back of the brat a unibody? The one that I looked under was a ladder frame just like any pickup -- I think it was a '79 brat though. Tow hooks are pretty stout on the EA82s and I've used them too. Unlike on a 90's Volvo that I pulled the tow hook off of, towing it with my truck... As for jack stands. I usually set the bumpers on some big pieces of firewood. I guess those same points on the front of the unibody, and in the back, the subframe tube at the front of the swing arms?

Yeah -- the old series 88's (before the defenders) didn't even have any plastic on them... Even the discoveries are pretty capable offroad, but the defenders... they're something else. Don't know about the V8's but the old 4 and 6 cylinder ones ran forever (my dad's '61 is still runs great, aside from some lucas electronics... and of course, it leaks more 90 weight gear oil than even a subaru. I've seen a defender TDI running around town here. Wouldn't mind having one of them... Z

Nice. Maybe mine will look like that someday.... picking some pugs up in a week or so for it. Maybe the lift and the 5 speed in there by next summer. And an SPFI swap, yeah. Z

This is a great thread on doing a 4wd conversion on an EA82, but, what if i wanted to do an EA81.... '82 2wd wagon. Parts coming from an '84 dual range wagon (except tranny, which is from an '82 dual range wagon). Rear axle and subframe, shifters, driveshaft. That'll do it??? Will the dash from the '84 swap into the '82 2wd?

For my '89. Sadly, not for the '82 any more. Z

Less stress on the axles if you use four of them instead of only two. The old landrovers from the 50's had the same issue, that they produced so much torque in low range they would break the rear axles, so you could only put it in low range if you also had it in 4wd.

You shouldn't be in 4wd on dry pavement no matter what the speed (well, except when the front axle splines strip out, and you have to put it in 4wd to get it to move... ) I often keep mine in 4lo if it's snowy, just because then I don't go faster than 35mph or so. Nothing wrong with 4hi, but it tempts me to drive faster than I should on icy roads sometimes.

Well, we never got carbed loyale's here. But we had all kinds of other carbed stuff here.. I'd recommend getting a big canister filter (the kind that looks like an oil filter). That's what all diesel vehicals have. Typically, it's about $6 for a replacement canister. I've gotten ones from Northerntool.com

Because the doors that direct the flow are vacuum controlled, and under hard accelleration, the vacuum produced by the engine is not sufficient to keep them in the defrog position, and they spring back to the bilev position which is the default with no vaccuum. That's how both my EA82's have been -- if I go up a steep hill the defrogger switches back to the bilev vents (which don't make as much noise on the same blower speed). I suspect that you could fix up the old vacuum system to keep this from happening, unless it happened even with new ones.

Ah, but the low top is better for going through really overgrown forest roads -- snags fewer branches... Nice looking brat, BTW.

Well, after a winter of using Blizzaks, I can say they perform pretty well.... overall I like them better than studded snows -- must quieter and better grip on the road when it's dry (which is so much of the time here). I still run studded snows on my 4x4 pickup, because it doesn't handle as well and needs all the help it can get in the snow. But I drive the subaru too fast on dry roads to have studs. I did completely wear out my front blizzaks over the summer (drove it maybe 3k miles). So I put Hankook Ipike ones on the front -- very similar, but not quite as soft a rubber. So far, i really like those too. Cheaper than the X-ice at my local tire store ($65 each installed, vs $80 or so)

On the gear grinding issue, it MIGHT be just a clutch cable adjustment -- sounds silly, but I've bought subies that "needs a new clutch", took 5 minutes to adjust the cable, and driven it for another 35kmiles. if it's stretched a little bit, it will be very hard to get into first and reverse till you tighten it up a tad. But I concur on the price -- with that many miles, if it's the original engine, no more than $600 or so.

That's not that bad. It used to be considered somewhat normal on engines from the 50's, 60's once they got broken in.... mine is about a quart every 1000 miles now, at 214k miles. My friend had a VW rabbit diesel that burned a quart every 100 miles from leaking valve seals. It would go 500 miles on a 10 gallon tank of fuel, but you'd better put oil in every 150 miles or so....

I have a manual EA82, but I try to keep the RPM's between 3k and 4k in general driving. 2.5k is about the lowest I let it go if I'm trying to get power out of it. So... given that, the rpm's given for the auto trannies don't sound out of range. It doesn't seem to hurt the gas mileage to keep it at higher rpm's, and it actually has power.

Hmmm. I was just thinking the same thing last night. My old pickup truck has a 1.8 liter carbed engine, and I was thinking how nice it would be to have SPFI on it. Not that the 70's carbs are anywhere near as bad as the 80's ones, but it would be nice to start immediately even when -4F outside, like my '89 GL does, and reduce the unburned gas smell a little too). I guess getting the distributor to work would be the hardest part since it still has points and condensor ignition system now, and I doubt you could swap the actual EA82 disty into a Mazda engine, but electronic ignition would be nice too. The TBI unit would go right where the old carb is, put in the SPFI fuel pump, stick a few sensors on there... couldn't be that hard, right? Maybe I should do the '82 GL first though.

I just got some Hankook Winter iPike tires in 175/80/R13 -- a directional snow tire that can be studded, though I didn't. $65 each installed at my local tire store. I don't know how they'll fair long term, but they certainly do well in the snow. I can still get them to skid on packed ice (since they're not studded), but in any sort of snow, it's pretty hard to lock them up, and I've only gotten stuck once with them (if you call having to shovel for 20 seconds before pulling out of the drift I backed into stuck). They're still a soft rubber, but he said they are harder than a studdless snow like a Blizzak, which I wear out really quickly. Zeke

Well, at the beginning of the snowstorm last tuesday, I took my friend's 2wd '82 wagon out in the snow (she had asked me to adjust the clutch cable for her). Went up the hill to NCAR's giant parking lot on hillside and spun it around a few times. I passed an SUV of some sort on the way up that couldn't make it up the icy hill. Wonder if he realized it was a 2wd suby that passed him Later that night I switched to my 4wd suby and drove about 20 miles home on an unplowed road with 6 to 8" of snow on it. No problem.

Looks like fun. I should've come I guess. I was just driving around in the snow here in Ward, but forgot that yesterday was the day. I would have especially liked to see the side by side comparison in performance between the old dual range and the new outback, since I'm a dual range fan, but I have seen the outbacks do some amazing stuff in snow sometimes that I don't know if my GL could have handled.

Ah, I know several people who have had to switch from manuals to automatics for that reason. It's the tranny constantly changing gears itself and not letting me control it that bugs me on twisty mountain roads -- and the lack of effective engine braking. To be honest, the new automatic subaru's are less annoying than the the honda or my friend's new ford exploder (which does have a true transfer case and low range, but still sucks for some reason). But I'll keep driving the manuals as long as I can.

Ah, for conditions like that, we have on old bulldozer with studded tracks. It will happily go through 3 foot of packed snow and ice. On the other hand, top speed is 5mph, and handling isn't so great at such "high speeds". Subaru wins hands down above 5mph.

It's probably different in an automatic, but there is a definite difference in 1st gear hi and first gear low in a manual. Since I will never own another automatic (or honda either, probably), it's sort of moot point for me whether it's equivalent to having low range.

I gather that they are pretty rare. I don't see many of them besides mine -- an '89 GL. Little more cargo room seems to be the only big difference.

Yup, I saw the two subaru's first. Well, identified them at least. The 4runner sticks out a lot bigger, but it's just some stuck SUV... I see those all the time in the snow. How does that work anyway? I mean, my subaru still only has four tires too, so why can I downshift a gear and floor it to accelerate around a big SUV which is slowly sliding sideways into the ditch whenever he touches the gas? Maybe because my flooring it is still less horsepower than him giving his 20% throttle And my tires cost as much as my car, and he invested more in his last tank of gas as he did in snow tires....