zyewdall

Well.... the broken timing belts are quite common, because no one ever seems to replace them at the recommended intervals... especially on one you don't know the history on, assume that the timing belt was last changed 150k ago and will break two days after you buy it... Easy to change though, once you dig down there. Also, you might want to check the idler pullys and idler gear for the timing belt... I had the idler gear seize, and shred a belt that only had 35k miles on it. If the engine has 200k on the original idlers, it's probably time for new ones.

I've noticed that a '91 legacy 2.2 automatic feels sprightlier than an '06 legacgy 2.5 outback automatic.... the new ones are getting quite heavy compared to the older ones. Drive an '82 4wd GL wagon for a while, then even the new outbacks will feel quite quick

Down on BLM land just outside of Canyonlands UT. I thought I was following a jeep trail around the canyon rim... but jeeps are usually a little wider than the Justy, not a foot narrow It made it fine. With two people, three dogs (one being 150 lbs, and one 50 lbs), and a camps worth of camping gear crammed in it.... the VW bus that brought a bunch of it left early so I had to stuff it all in the Justy on the way back.

LOL. I have a friend who used to have a goat skull and a rubber aligator on the hood of his landcruiser... someone pulled out in front of him and that's what they saw coming in their side window when he couldn't stop in time...

I remain skeptical that it ever did the revving quite as described.... it never did it for me, and idling very LOW rpm is more the issue that I'm seeing... as in so low that it won't start unless you rev it with the accelerator. Which, could also be the idle air control valve, and maybe it did stick open at some earlier time and make it rev somewhat and now it's stuck closed..... I did see a bit of oil deposits in the intake, so it could be a bad pcv cycling oil back up there and gumming stuff up perhaps?

Well.... I went and looked at it today. It's leaking coolant out of the water pump (I think... coming out of the bottom of the timing cover). steady drip drip... that explains the overheating. When filled back up it does not overheat (until it runs out of coolant again, of course). We got it about 30 miles back towards my house. It did not do the revving thing for me... it does, however, run terrible. Won't start unless you give it gas, unlike most fuel injected ones I've had, and idles very low till it warms up. And, it just doesn't sound right -- some extra mechanical noise that I'm not using to hearing I think.. maybe disintegrating water pump? Runs pretty nice at higher rpms on the highway though, with normal power. Just bad at idle. Wonder if some seafoam would help it... this one is really holding up the bad reputation of EA82's, unlike other EA82's I've had that always ran great. Anyway... should make it the rest of the way back to my place in the next few days, and then I can have more time to poke at it and diagnose problems.

It seems that no one has picked up on the original post saying that the car didn't used to do this, and now does? So... what changed? New tires? Anything else? Z

Well, there was the time on my Justy that I had a thumping noise from the back... sounded like a broken axle or something. I inspected everything and couldn't find anything wrong. A half a mile later, the back left tire came off -- oh... lugnuts, eh? Hadn't checked that. Had to steal one nut off each of the other wheels to put it back on. Didn't tighten up the crankshaft bolt on my '85 GL tight enough one time.... so the crankshaft pully fell off while driving... Another time with the '85 GL, I changed the water pump, then a mile or two later pulled onto the freeway, and something a little larger than fist sized fell out of the engine compartment on to the on ramp behind me... I still don't know what that was (the car kept on driving for another year or two). Guess it wasn't very important whatever it was. Then there was the old rusty beat up '82 GL wagon I had in grad school -- not really a wrenching adventure, but I was driving back from skiing and it started making a horrible noise behind it. I pulled over, cut the one remaining rubber hanger that the muffler was dragging by, threw the muffler in the back, got back in and the entire door inner panel fell off when I closed my door so I threw that in the back too, then I pulled back onto the highway and kept on driving. Much to the consternation of my two passengers who didn't know much about cars, but had just seen me take a rather large chunk of metal out from under the car, and yank another large piece off the car myself and then act like nothing was wrong.

Sounds like either the fan came off the front of the water pump (which grinds the fan into the radiator... how do I know that ), or the water pump shaft massively failed.

All of the doors except the driver's door automatically lock themselves most of the time -- it seems that the lock control on each door is quite biased towards the lock position so if you slam the door, or open the door using the handle, it pops it into lock, even if you left it in unlock. The drivers door is not the original, and it doesn't do it (luckily... a friend has a '91 legacy and it does it with all four doors... has locked the keys in the car many times...) Is this a common problem? And what's going on? I'm suspecting there is something misadjusted or binding inside the door that makes it want to shift the to the locked position, or a spring that's getting weak or something. I'm going to yank the interior panel off one of them and investigate when we get a decent sunny day...

The plug where the power for the blower motor also plugs into the bottom right corner of the fuse box right where your left foot can stomp on it if you're wearing big snow boots... I just had to fix that on my '90 legacy -- the wire was all mangled going into the plug... hopefully it's fixed now.. if not, then maybe it's actually up in the controls, but it would go on and off as you moved your feet around... Z

That's whats getting me too... all of my theories apply to carbed vehicles but not SPFI... injector sticking open sometimes maybe?

LOL. Better than the states that cover those roads in rock salt. I'd rather buy studded snow tires every two years, than buy a new car every 10 years because the metals rusting away.... I've never noticed much difference either... in snow handling at least. I can't stand the automatics in the mountains because they are shifting gears instead of me and are always in the wrong gear (unless I just manually shift them, which is what I end up doing).

A friend's car... I haven't looked at it person yet, but she says it revs up to 4 or 5000rpm randomly and often, and also overheats quickly (I suspect unrelated, probably a blown coolant hose lost the coolant, as she said it was leaking more coolant and oil recently (oil is the front cam seals or oil pump seals (no TOD though) I think..., plus the power steering pump. I did some work on it a few months ago, all new ignition parts and it ran much better after that. I did notice the temperature spike once back then -- bad thermostat was suspected, which I replaced. Any ideas on what would make an SPFI rev up like this (other than a stuck throttle cable... which is not completely out of the question) About 260k on it, and it's on it's last legs in alot of ways but I want to get it running enough to get it back to my place (about 50 miles including 4000 feet elevation gain) where it can be a parts car, instead of where the city's going to tow it at her place. Or... if it's a really easy fix... just fix it.

I know several people with over 300k on their EJ22's. I personally got around 250k on several older models and could probably have gotten more -- when I redid the head gaskets on one of them at 220k, I could still see the original hatch marks on the cylinders. It was peripheral stuff like rust, carburetors, etc that eventually killed them.

What sort of price? I might be interested in buying one for my impreza... I've thought about building it myself, but never seem to have the time. Z

I just got to McGuckins -- they have a good selection of metric bolts, and have had most of what I needed for my various projects. If you're not near Boulder, I don't know what locally might have them other than the dealer though... ACE and home depot have pretty lousy selections of the more exotic metric stuff.

I think the closest thing to a "manufacturer" are a couple of board members on here that make them and sell them. I know a few people showing them off in the off-road thread have said that they'd sell them.

I'd be suprised... I took apart an EA82 with 230,000 miles and could still see the original cross hatching on the cylinder liners... maybe it needs new rings, but in my, limited, experience, subaru bores don't wear out like some other engines do. Z

Probably better... the legacy outbacks have a bitbetter ground clearance than the impreza outbacks. I'm guessing about two inches more??

Not all german... the 60 and 70's landcruiser engines are very very similar to the 30'a and 40's chevy engines. And most japanese pickup trucks use the same 6 bolt pattern as chevy trucks.

I hate working on rusted bolts.... and I've been apalled at what I've found on NE vehicles less than 10 years old... I like the 35 year old new mexico ones better. For an engine swap though, the exhaust bolts are the only think likely to be that badly rusted... I'd be alot more concerned about doing suspension or brake work, but engine swap, probably not that bad

I could have sworn that I saw AISIN on a few porsche transmissions at the specialty porsche shop next door do our warehouse last year.... or maybe I'm hallucinating... Z

Yeah... I run synthetic in almost all my vechicles... I know some people claim it will destroy them, but I'm not convinced yet

I've never run a block heater in my subarus, as they've never failed to start at -10F... however, I have a block heater in my diesel truck (it won't start below about 15F without it)... and it is awesome. I'm sure it reduces wear on the engine. It'll start as if it's a 90 degree summer day, without the cloud of white smoke and other horrible sounds it makes if started cold without it. Putting it on a timer to turn on a few hours before you need it is a good idea... no need to run it overnight unless it's -10F out -- on 10 or 20F days two or three hours is plenty, even for the diesel engine. Like someone else said, remember the transmission will still be cold, so drive it gently till that warms up too.