zyewdall

Yeah, when I was in France, there were tons of little wagon/van things which looked like station wagons with a tall roof -- some more like a foot of roof instead of just 4" like the subaru touring wagon. It's what they seem to use instead of SUV's, which is what America went with . I love them. Those and the four door toyata and nissan pickups which are all over Africa and South America, but didn't come to the US till about 2000.

Really? -- If that's true, I'm firmly convinced that '89 is the best year to have then. Late enough for SPFI, but still early enough for the dual range tranny, and has the touring wagon option too!

Welcome, fellow Spokanite. Okay, I moved to Colorado 4 years ago now, but I grew up in Loon Lake, so I sort of identify with eastern Washington. And yes, this is an awesome resource.

Seems a little expensive for an '81, but not beyond reason. I was quoted $500 for a new carb for my '82:eek:, and $250 just to rebuild the carb on my '85 (more complicated carb than the EA81). I don't know of a good source for a rebuilt one -- superrupair might have a used one if you need a core, but they don't rebuild them.

If it's only $250, and the engine runs okay, then the rust situation is the only remaining question in my mind. The clutch is pretty easy to replace, and shouldn't have done too much other damage -- maybe flywheel like a few people have mentioned. I'd get underneath and try moving various drivetrain components to see if you've got any loose bearings, U-joints, etc. Stationary test might only find really bad ones -- but if you do find something loose, it could be a warning that maybe more than the clutch was run into the ground. But seriously, unless the body rusts away, you can fix just about everything on these cars fairly easily....

Don't know, except that my '89 is the touring wagon too, and it's one of maybe two or three I've seen in Boulder, which probably has at least 100 of the old EA82 wagons. So they must be fairly rare, or few of them made it into our population.

I may be making up stuff here, but from what I know of the MAF it is a hot wire anemometer unit, which means it's actually measuring the velocity of the air flowing over it. If you put it in a larger pipe, the velocity would be smaller, and it wouldn't give enough fuel unless you recalibrated it somehow. This is the general theory of hot wire MAF's -- I'm just not sure if this is how the subaru works or not. You are right, it would be nice to have less restrictive opening to get a little more volumetric efficiency.

I agree, and that's most likely what I'm planning on doing. But Kubota also makes some pretty nice turbo diesel engines, and the bigger ones are around 1.7 - 1.9 liter. Three cylinder so they might fit better in the length department, but I don't know about height. They usually redline at 3,600 though, so you'd have gobs of low end torque, but nothing on the highway....

You could, but the diesel guys recommend against running too much boost if you do that, and to especially watch the EGT's. The turbo motors have oil cooled pistons which the NA ones didn't. You can apparently melt the pistons....

Wondering if anyone knows if you can get a metal skid plate for a '90 legacy wagon. My friend tore the plastic one off last winter charging through drifts on her driveway (about half a mile long unplowed mountain road). Since snow's coming back soon, we figured we should put a new one on, but I'd like to get a metal one like my GL wagon has. Oh, it would also be great if it's like $20.... Did they make any metal ones we might find in a junkyard for this car?

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. Here's the verdict... The rotors are indeed warped -- after some driving you can see that they've worn the rust off in two quadrants, but not in the other two. So I'm going to swap on the good rotors from the parts car. But that wasn't what was causing the vibration. I put a different set of tires on there, and it's gone. The tires were permanently flat. They had sat in the same spot with about 10psi in them for too long and developed a flat spot that didn't go away even when pumped back up to proper pressure.

Yup, they're just tilted over on their side about 35 degrees to fit in the vanagon engine bay.

If it's really badly stuck, and you don't have any non-paved roads or ice handy to unstick it, just jack up one wheel and it should free any tensions int he drivetrain. Unless it is an adjustment problem on the lever and not just driveline tension.

I think this is the one you have to put the one belt on, then rotate the crankshaft a whole turn, and then put the other one on... At least on my '85 EA82 it was. The chilton's does mention this if you read carefully (I didn't, and it ran like crap on two cylinders......). If you follow directions well, it's not as difficult as it seems at first.

Ohhhh....... Sounds exactly like what happened my '85 GL a while back. Shortly after the white cloud episode, it started burning coolant pretty bad, and by the end of the summer, I was adding a half a gallon of water every 20 miles. I never did notice any loss of power. Finally did the head gasket before winter came (because I couldn't use plain water in the winter and it would get expensive, plus water doesn't make bad smelling smoke) Has it badly overheated recently? Mine was really badly overheated when the thermostat stuck closed about three months before it started blowing smoke. I think that's what initiated it. If it is the HG, don't dispair. It's a relatively easily fixed problem (compared to throwing a rod or bearing). If the rest of the car's worth it, fix it, and it'll run another 150k. Zeke

Yup, I'd say you lost a piece of your gasket. One way to check is get under there while it's running and see if you narrow the sound down to where the gasket is missing -- maybe even feel it puffing out. Often, even when these nuts are completely seized on the studs, the studs will unscrew from the engine block, so you can still take it off. But I am not sure where to get a new gasket. If you can get one, it should be a 20 minute job to replace it.

'82 GL wagon, white (original), rust, galvanized ductwork screwed over holes, and green paint brushed on. '85 GL wagon, light blue '84 GL wagon, light blue '87 GL wagon, light blue '89 GL wagon, gray-brown (I added two tone dark green to this)

I'm getting a distinct wobble in the front wheels on my '87 GL. At about 20mph you can feel the wheel alternately being pulled to the right, then the left, and feel the car shake. Not so noticeable at higher speeds (I think because it's higher frequency), and it still tracks really good. When you hit the brakes, it feels like the rotors are really warped -- real pulsating feel through the pedal. So, tonight, I'm going to look at the rotors, and maybe put a different set of rotors and wheels on it off the parts car. But I'm wondering, what could make rotors go bad like this? (if it is the rotors) It's the first time I drove it, and the previous owner had let it sit for over a year. The rotors are rusty, but I figured driving would wear that off pretty quickly. Is there anything else that could cause this feel?

Ohhhh. So true.... Yet all of mine have managed to have their own personalities...

This does give a very nice finish. The steel rims on my truck look better than most alloys. Glossy metallic gray. Minimum if you want it to last, I would definitely do a wire wheel to clean it, and a clear coat finish of some sort over a high quality spray paint (like the $4/can type). I paint murals on various outdoor things (giant propane tanks, mailboxes, fences) and have found that for these, the wirebrushing and clear coat lasts alot longer than just slapping some paint on quickly. I have also just quick spraypainted wheels, and it lasts a year in white, maybe two in black before you need to redo it. That's in Colorado where it's pretty dry most the time.

Around here the snowplows take them off the edge of the road and you can find them at the bottom of embankments often. But, I really don't think the average road sign is strong enough for a skid plate anyway. It's rather thin aluminum, and most importantly, it's flat instead of currugated or formed for strength.

Try the pacific northwest, or colorado. They seem to be the subaru capitals of the US. I typically see 2 or 3 EA82 wagons a week for sale around here, for between $300 and $2,500 depending on miles and how well they've been taken care of.... Not as many of the D/R ones as there used to be unfortuneately. My particular recommendation for a good everyday driver is a '88 through '89 GL -- they still had dual range then, but also had the fuel injected engine (my experience with the '85-'86 carbs is that they are insanely complicated, and by the time they've got 200k miles on them, they need rebuilding). '87 came in both carbed and SPFI versions.

The problem will be when the front is at 3.9, and the back is still at 3.7. It won't take long for the front wheels to have turned quite a bit farther than the back ones. Just like having bigger tires on the back of a 4wd pickup won't fly.....

Is that a two tone paintjob on that? I like it!

Yeah -- I had three nests in mine when I parked it for two months to rebuild the engine. But none in the other two non-running cars... funny.