zyewdall

I've never had much trouble getting them to pass emissions, carbed or SPFI ones. Usually under a quarter of the limit here in colorado. Even a '84 GL that I just put a cheap aftermarket cat and muffler on and enough flex pipe to make MOST of the exhaust come out the back. Yes, they can be addictive. Drive it around in the snow a bit with those blizzaks on there and laugh at the SUV's spinning out. As long as you don't get high centered, you should be pretty unstoppable.

I was wondering if anyone makes a ladder rack for a subaru baja? I've got a friend who has an '05 or '06 Baja, and he's got the factory roof rack, but he wants to be able to carry a 12 foot ladder. So it needs a back bar at the back of the bed to hold the back end up. If it were mine, I'd get the welder and some pipe out, but I think he's looking for something a little more OEM. Any suggestions? Zeke

Does anyone have torque curves for the stock EA81 and EJ22? I'm swapping a different engine into my '82 GL wagon, which I understand is rated stock for about 90 some ft lbs at 2400rpm. The EJ22 is rated at 137 ft lbs (for an early one) at 4,800rpm from what I can gather. The engine I'm going to swap in is rated the same 73 horsepower as the EA81, but is specced at 130 ft lbs at 1800 rpm. I want to know how that compares to the torque from the EA81 and EJ22 at 1800 rpm, because that's more the speed I'm going offroading. I suspect it might be more than even the EJ22 at that rpm, which I'd love (having driven some EJ22 conversions), but I'm not sure because it seems to be hard to find full torque vs rpm curves. What can an EA81 or a EJ22 give at say 1500 or 2000 rpm, compared to the peak torque that is published for them?

Hmmmmmm. It's a regular old '89 GL touring wagon, but I'd probably lift it two or three inches, put some 15 inch outback wheels on there. Sort of a sleeper design like Beefarus, not a real radical off road one though (surprise people, but not have them confuse it with a jeep cherokee). A lockable rear diff and LSD front would be nice. Probably keep the part time 4wd with low range, though if I could get full time AWD with a locking center diff and low range I'd go that way. A nice welded grill guard and roof rack, and a small winch on the front. For the engine I'd put in one of the new 2 liter turbodiesel engines they're developing for the european subies next year (probably at least twice the torque of the stock EA82 I bet -- some new driveline components might be in order) with a full straight vegetable oil system on it so I can fill up the tank behind the local restuarant. Or barring that, perhaps one of those new horizontally opposed diesel airplane engines. Get a decent stereo system (but nothing crazy). Maybe a new paint job and nicer seats. That's about it I guess.

A scout nut huh. I have a friend who has two of them. Both get 10mpg on a good day, but could pull a house (actually, he did pull a trailer with two 8 by 12 sheds on it, from east Denver back up to Ward). Actually, he's selling the 1968 800A if you're interested... But back to subaru stuff. Yes, the old four speeds do get pretty sloppy sometimes, and seem to loose 3rd gear snycros too. I'm going to put a 5 speed dual range in my older wagon too. I've never had trouble finding parts at Checker auto or Napa. Maybe because every third car here seems to be an 80's subaru. Superrupair is decent (though they seem to be getting out of parting out the EA81 and EA82 cars :-\ ), and someone on the board usually has stuff. 1stsuburuparts.com is good if you want new dealer stuff. Rockauto.com also has stuff for good prices, although it's not always the right part . Zeke

We never cut the tree till the afternoon before Christmas, and took it down on New years day. So, it'll last a week at least.... I think it'll last about 3 weeks if you keep water in there. Actually, I'll just get one right next to my house since I'm in the mountains, but I'd be up for driving through the snow for fun. Should probably remember to take shovels and a few tow chains so we can unstuck rigs from drifts, because snow here in CO tends to drift, and you'll get stuck in a drift even though the rest of the road isn't deep, unlike those roads in Washington that have more uniform snow depth. On the positive side, we don't have the concrete-like wet snow they do there.

Okay, got it. I googled the address.... Noonish.

See you around 10ish or so. Did I miss the address in this post somewhere? Since I've never been there before......

Hmm. why do you suspect a tranny problem? It seems that if it turns over fine without the plugs, the tranny can't be binding up. Is the starter okay, or maybe it needs replacing (again) - -maybe it's not on there straight and is binding? Or the battery? What voltage are you getting at the starter when you are cranking? Can you turn it over by hand with the plugs in there? (with a breaker bar on the front crank).

I'd put red or blue racing stripes on the existing white, I think. Nice rust free hatch.

How exactly did it get in the river there? It looks like you would have had to back in, as I can't see it getting over the logs behind it on the bank. Or did it?

My old suby wagon had the muffler come off on the highway. Lots of noise as it drug behind by one rubber hanger. I cut the hanger and threw it in the back and continued on. It didn't even get any louder when it came off, so I guess it had been rusted off for a while, and finally came loose.

Come on, it's a subaru meet.:banana: We aren't scared by a little snow. Although if its snowing, there's no sense in staying indoors -- I'd like to find a good trail through the snow to drive on. Anyone want to go up Fall River road perchance? Z

I'll be there with the '89 wagon. But since I'm picking up the '82 wagon from Bill and Russ (hopefully) I'll have to leave one there till later when I can take the bus down and pick it up again. Unless there's an extra driver going back Boulder way... Also, I could throw in the wirefeed welder for those exhaust flanges... Zeke

Well, FWIW I had an '87 GL wagon that had the hill holder disconnected, with just another spring hooked onto the clutch fork. It felt terrible, and wouldn't return very well -- I think I had to put a bungee cord on the clutch fork to make it driveable. I put a new clutch cable in (even though the old one seemed to move okay), and it made a world of difference: felt great, still with no hookup to the hill holder.

Good for changing dealers. It sounded like classic too tight of hillholder to me from the beginning. I don't know about the new hill-holders either, but the old ones could lock up anytime you hit the brakes and clutch at the same time if they were too tight. I pulled into my driveway once, and locked the front left and right rear wheel so tight that I stalled the engine in reverse and low range the next day trying to leave (going downhill too). And it would go just fine with the parking brake full on, so that gives you an idea how tight the hillholder was holding those brakes after sitting overnight.

Okay, both my old '82 GL and my '85 GL both had loads of electrical gremlins, the dash and elsewhere. But so far my '89 GL hasn't had any. Till today. I finally got the new axles and clutch cable and everything put it, and take it down to town for the day. Suddenly, my voltage gauge is sitting down on the 8. I figure the wire fell off the alternator (happened to me before), or the alternator finally went (bearings have been growling for 15k miles). I turn off the headlights and fan to preserve my battery, but it doesn't come up any. Odd. It was 13 volts half an hour ago, and that's a little fast to bring it down to 8 volts with only the ignition for load. I stop at the gas station and take a look at it, but the alternator seems fine. Belt's still on there, wires good, bearing still only a little growl. It's almost out of fuel, so I fill up. But the gas guage doesn't move either.... And it starts right up, cranking at full speed, dispite the guage reading 8 volts. So, it seems the two right most guages are dead, but all the rest of them (oil pressure, temp, speedo, tach, 4wd indicators, turn signals) still work fine. WTF???? Do they have a different grounds for those two guages?

Aha. So it's the original suspension.

Perhaps this is the same "pourous block" issues that '90 to '94 2.2 EJ22s are rumoured to have? I still don't actually believe that it exists, except in one car that a friend of mine has put 3 engines in in 3 years... and I think that has more to do with voodoo and her personal karma or something more than anything else. I switched my GL to synthetic as soon as I got it, at 189k, and nothing's exploded yet, 210k and two years later. Still leaks a little, same as before.

work = diverting.. uh, yeah, fixing my fleet of cars keeps me from doing what I really should be doing instead.... Although, I really do enjoy wrenching on cars. Brakes on subaru's are pretty easy to do yourself, especially if all you need is new pads/shoes. I bought all new rotors, pads, shoes, one caliper, and master cylinder, from JcWhitney I think, for my '82 subaru for only $350 a few years ago. Two shops told me over $1,100 for this, on a car I only paid $50 for. The gas tank might be the more expensive part, since all the junkyard cars back east probably have lots of rust too.

True, the foresters look a little more like a truck cab, instead of the front of a streamlined shape. I didn't think about the rear springs, but that's a good question. I wonder if there are leafs in there now, or how you would even do that. Z

What do you think of this? The local subaru shop has turned an outback into a flatbed truck. He said they're going to do it to an H6 too. EDIT: sorry, it seems only the thumbnails show up, and not the images. I'll try to fix that....

Manual or automatic transmission?

Yeah, my old GL was burning almost a gallon of water every 30 miles towards the end before I redid the head gaskets, and never saw any exhaust (I was using straight water at that point instead of antifreeze). No change in performance either... just sucked in the coolant somewhere. Could have been intake manifold too -- I don't actually know. But overheating it to the point that oil was dripping out of somewhere was what precipitated the whole thing (temp gauage didn't work, and thermostat got stuck on a 0 degree day when I didn't expect it to have problems).

It seems that this is different whether front or AWD or rear wheel drive. If rear wheel drive, it seems downshifting could help, because it would free up the front wheels to steer again instead of braking. Unless you are already sideways, in which case your front wheels could be your back wheels.... ?