zyewdall

How did you get an '88 Ram 50? Here in the US, they switched to the dakota in '86 (big mistake IMO). I've got a '84 with the diesel and both the dodge dealer and the mitsubishi dealer deny any knowledge of my truck. On line is the only good source of parts. On the head gasket issue, if the gas engine in the Ram 50 is anything like the diesel, it looks MUCH easier to do the work than on a boxer engine. And remember, a boxer also has TWO head gaskets, not just one. But still, it's not that big of a deal. Took me a week of evenings and a weekend to do the ones on my old subaru, and about $300 for a complete gasket set.

Hmmm? When mine was out of adjustment, it was the left front wheel that was locked up, not the rear one.

Actually, the mitsubishi sounds like it's going to blow by 4,000. I usually shift at 3,000, or 3,500 if I'm really revving it. The VW can rev to 4,500 okay.

I've owned two of each (all 4wd wagons), and they all seemed to be about the same. I think the SPFI EA82 is a little better, but it also has more power so you go faster on the highway, which drops it again.

Our '61 Landrover doesn't make it out much any more, it's true. But there have been times that it has been crankstarted by hand (fired right up on the third try), then driven around through the snow to jump start all of our other vehicals that wouldnt start because of dead batteries... I'm not sure if it, or my old '82 subaru, leaked more oil. Or which had more electrical gremlins.

Yeah, I won't fit in the back seat of a forester (6'2") too comfortably but I will in a Legacy. If you can find a '96 outback wagon with the manual tranny, it still has the 2.2 liter, which doesn't have the head gasket problem. My dad got one of these recently, and is pretty happy with it. Funny about the Honda Accord. I had an '89 accord for a while. I thought it would be a good car, and by most objective measures it was. More power and better gas mileage than my old subaru, and it didn't leak any oil. But I couldn't stand the automatic transmission, it was hard to work on (starter motor died, and it cost $120 and took 4 hours to replace it -- my subaru I can replace the starter in 20 minutes and $25), it wasn't a wagon so I couldn't haul lumber easily, and it turned out it had been wrecked and bent the unibody, which made the tires wear unevenly. I eventually sold it to someone who could appreciate it more than I.

Does it still run okay? My GL has had the check engine light on for the past 6 months, and I suspect it's the O2 sensor (haven't checked it yet), since it still runs fine. Is that the code you're getting?

Yeah. I know a number of SUV haters who wanted a subaru, but bought the liberty in order to run biodiesel. Even people who are buying Passat wagons (which you can get in awd diesel) instead of subaru's.

I thought that California ones had the SPFI in '87, and rest of N.A. had carbed. My '87 GL 4wd was originally sold in CA, and had SPFI. I dropped in a motor from a '91 Loyale and it was almost indentical.

Yeah, but you can still trash them pretty good if you are that clueless...

Subaru's don't really have any power below 2,500, so yeah, shifting at 4k is good. If I'm not trying to accellerate, I shift at 3k. If you think that subaru's have high shift points, you should try driving something with a real rubberband engine like a honda civic -- first time I tried to drive one of those I kept stalling it because I was used to an EA81 that actually had torque at 1200rpm. When I first owned a subaru, I thought the engine was going to blow up over 4,000rpm too, but it hasn't happened yet. They're not old american V-8's... On gas, my carbed ones used to ping going up hills on the 85 octane, so I'd get 87 for them. My SPFI seems okay on 85 octane in the winter (low grade here), but likes 87 on hot summer days.

Well. I really like old rovers too -- my Dad has a '61 Series 88 that I want him to give to me to fix up. But unless you are doing serious offroading, the subaru is better. The Rover (I assume you are talking about a discovery series rover) will get maybe 18mpg if you are lucky. Probably more like 15 around town. A good subaru will get almost 30. Mid 20's at least. The rover, even in stock form, will happily drive over stuff that would high center or tear the suspension off the subaru. It will have low range 4wd and a locking center diff, which the new subaru's don't have. And it could tow a full size pickup while offroading if you were so inclined. On the other hand, on an icy or snowy paved road, the subaru will be way better -- lower center of gravity and longer wheelbase so it handles like a car instead of a truck. If you are used to driving an Accord, you might not like the suprise when going to an SUV. I see alot of people roll them (SUV's in general, not Rover's in particular) in icy conditions because they don't realize this. And for some reason, my friend's '98 discovery won't start at 0 degrees without being plugged in. My '89 subaru starts just fine. Might just be different vehicals, not anything inherent in the manufacturers, but he still finds it annoying. As far as reliability, I haven't heard really good things about the newer rovers. He can probalby fix it easier, but he'll HAVE to fix it more too... Subaru's will usually go for at least 250k without major issues, except for one: the 2.5 liter engines used in '96 - '99 had some issues with the head gaskets -- right around 100 to 150k miles for alot of them. I'd definitely ask if they have been replaced yet. And if not, budget another $1200 for it. Other than that, just all the normal stuff -- has oil been changed regularly, might need a new clutch soon if it's the original, etc.

Yup... I've got one. Mitsubishi made the whole pickup, not just the engine. The same engine was used in Ford Rangers from in '86 to '88. My friends 1.9 liter diesel jetta likes cruising at 90mph, and gets about 42mpg at that speed. He said that he's had it to 120mph and it still had more... Driving that car blew away my conception of diesels as slow.

My '89 GL consistently sits a tiny bit over 1/4 on the guage. The '87 GL consistently sists exactly at half the guage.

Don't know about dashes, but I stuck an engine from a '91 Loyale into a '87 GL. It all matched up, except the GL had a big square plug for the wiring harness where the Loyale had a round one All the wires were the same color, so I cut off the wrong plug and soldered the right one on there, and it worked.

I vote for lose wire somewhere. My '84 GL used to not have a tach till it warmed up for a few minutes, then the tach would start working. But it never had trouble starting or running, so I figured it wasn't the distributor or coil.

Uhhh, do you really have to ask that question? No, I've never hit anything seriously enough to do more than dent the bottom pan and remove my exhaust system. I bet other people on here might have though.

I never realized how slow my '85 GL was, cause I drove it every day and was used to it (and it was a little faster than my '82 GL). But then I drove my friends new diesel jetta on a road trip for a week. Come back to the GL, and my first reaction was "what's wrong with my car????". Nothing... it just won't go 95mph with power to spare like the jetta would... Jetta hated even mild unpaved roads though

Yup, when I did a head gasket job I forgot to tighten the crank pulley bolt sufficiently. Lo and behold, 25 miles later I loose alternator, temp starts to go up.... I reamed out the inside of my pully so bad rattling around I had to buy a used pully to fix it.

Excessive clicking is usually a bad starter/starter solenoid. I lived with one for 6 months till I finally bought a used one for $25 and replaced it (after I had to roll start it a few times). Took half an hour to swap out, and the used one lasted another few years. Don't know what took me so long to give in and do it.

To bad they're all V-8 things like Ford Crown Vics, and pickups... If I could buy E-85 here I might put a tank of it in my subaru just to see what would happen, though. My O2 sensor is already dead anyway. The studies I've see show a lot more promise for the cellulostic ethanol than the current stuff made from corn starch/sugar. From a getting out more energy than you put in standpoint, that is. Biodiesel's a bit better -- somewhere around 4 times as much energy out as it takes to grow/refine it. That's why I switched to diesel vehicals for now.

Pretty much all of them except subaru. Take a look at any manufacturers website for the south african or thai market and look at the specs. Not just the trucks, but the cars, suv's, everything. When I was in Mauritania, I think the only gasoline powered vehicals I saw were some chevy cars the US embassy had. Everything else was old diesels. And some nice new diesels. Much as I like my 22 year old Mitsubishi diesel truck, I wouldn't mind a new Mazda Drifter either... Citroen even has a diesel hybrid that gets 80mpg in France. But remember, as a good US consumer you must remember that all diesels are like the GM350 diesel -- belching black smoke, and making lots of noise, but not actually accellerating, and good luck getting more than 75k miles out of it. The US diesel market is still trying to recover from that fiasco.

But does that take into account the transmission input shaft position? It sits really high on a subaru compared to most tranverse engined cars.

Depends on which diesel you put in there. The old 1.6NA's are only 52 HP, about 80ft lbs torque I think, and are pretty slow if you hit hills, but the 1.9TDI's are 110HP and 180ft lbs torque. They are way faster in the mountains than any honda civic I've driven -- stays in 5th gear going up passes at 75mph..... (the same pass my '82 GL dropped into 2nd before the top of....)

Yeah, when I stuck a diesel VW into a gas VW body, I had to rip out about 40 wires, and hook 4 up to the diesel. If you make an adaptor to hook a VW diesel up to a subaru EA82 or EA81 tranny, I'll buy one. I think it'll have to tip the VW diesel over at a 50 degree angle like the VW vanagons did, in order to clear the hood. The adaptor is what finally stumped me in my project -- didn't own a good enough machine shop to make the adaptor plate. I like my VW rabbit, but I'd like to have a diesel in my GL wagon even better....