MilesFox

Sorry, i must have read you wrong. We all know how the internet doesn't convey emotion properly. If you are missing a filter, it may have been deleted by a previous owner. By design, there would be a straight through filter on the fuel pump mounting plate, and a 3-fitting filter on the firewall by the brake booster with 2 out the front and one out the top.

There have always been 2 fuel filters in carbureted ea82. You may be thinking of 82 and earlier ea81's where the fuel pump is under the hood. As the title above says, 86 GL wagon is ea82 since ea81 were only made as hatch and brat from 85-98 and 87, respectively.

I can decribe to you what to look for with hoses 1. skinny 1/4" hose under the intake coming from the thermostat housing to the top of the engine block. 2. 5/8"coolant hose from the turbo to the thermostat housing. 3. 5/8" coolant hose from the turbo to the metal water pipe on the back of the head 4. 5/8" heater core hoses from the back of the engine. 5. 5/8" elbow hose from the water pump the the metal pipe that supplies the heater hose 6. OIL drain hose from the bottom of the turbo to a nipple on the back of the head. there will be some odd skinny hoses around the throttle body. And of course the vacuum hoses. There should be an emissions diagram under the hood. Use metric vac hoses.

All original with no maintenance. Probably sat for long periods of time. I could see both happening simultaneously in regards to old rubber and one stress causing another stress. I wish i could come save this car as it would not be much effort to fix beyond the cost of hoses and head gaskets. If you go through the trouble of removing the heads for diagnostic purposes, then by all meands do the head gaskets. What will happen is a mechanic will find cracks between the valves and tell you they are junk and blame it on the overheat, where in fact the cracks would have already be there and are a common occurrence and almost every pull -off head will have them. Ther eis no water passage where you will find this crack. There are TSB notices about them. So if you know this, and your mechanic knows this, he can go ahead and make repairs re-using the same heads successfully. You ,your mechanic, or whoever ends up with your car. What i am saying is the car is salvageable first before writing it off as junk. Junk it if it's crashed. Engines are repairable or replaceable. Old cars are not replaceable. We like old cars. Anyone who could not save it for you would wish to know it was saved.

The belt could have jumped a tooth if the tensioners are not tightened properly. This should only be suspected if the timing belts were recently serviced, and in a loose bolt that was forgotten to be tightened. Make sure all the intake boots are connectoed properly, no loose clamps. Try testing your fuel pressure on the return line as well and compare the readings. In theory the pressure would be lower after the regulator if the injector is indeed working. Everything grounds at the ECU, so i am now wondering if a resistor in the ECU circuit board could be failing. There have been instances reported here of resistors in the ecu overheating and failing, and even de-soldering themselves. anything 88 and up for an ecu wold be plug and play if you come to this conclusion.

Whoops, i missed that part when i posted although it says so in the thread title! The single wire you mention with the plastic molded clip fits on the spade on the back of the starter solenoid.

I'm sure you can winch up all 2 tons of loaded down subaru by its tow hooks if the winch can handle it, but this does not assume that the same car is going to hold 4,000 lbs of trailer in tow at highway speeds since tires and steering and traction play other dynamic roles besides the physical integrity of the mounting point. Towing capacity refers to all of this and the strain the driveline can take and the power the car can deliver to tow in a safe and controllable manner. Tow ratings are intended for this, but not intended to tell you how much you can tow before the hitch falls off.

Jack up the back of the car. Turn one wheel, if the other wheel turns opposite, you have an open diff. If it turns the same direction, it is an LSD. This is assuming ea82 hardware which is technically part time 4wd, or full time 4wd (awd with an open center diff) ..Unless you are telling us you have an ej trans in there.

Your appreciation is all i need. Thanx!

I have had enough 85 gl's 86, and even an 87 with a carb to know what i am suggesting. Conflicting information is born of those who are not certain in what they are referencing. Replace the fuel filter at the pump because those not familiar with subarus most likely don't know it's there. Starving for fuel under load is common of a bad fuel filter. Anyone else answering this thread would ask if both fuel filters have been changed. Why you be trolling my post. Your comments add no value to this topic, and overall discredit this forum as a reliable source of information about these cars. The OP is going to read this and dismiss the idea of ever coming here to ask about their problem. I meant under the hood when i typed dash, and i must have deleted what i posted in edit trying to play on your calling me out for a typo by referring to blinker fluid. I am sure you would have understood that i meant under the hood as we all can assume the fuel system is not internal inside of the body of the car. Don't expect to come into my posts and dis-validate any of my nuggets of info unless you have the same or better experience with subarus, such as better than 30 ea82's and more than 10 years on this forum.

How else will you run the parking lamps without leaving the key in the car? Some jurisdictions require that parking lights be on in certain environments. It's a good idea if you are parked near a public roadway at night if you are not running the car so traffic can see your car.

It's next to the blinker fluid reservoir.

If you think it may be fuelin issues, try inspecting the fuel pressure regulator. In rference to a fuel schematic, the regulator is AFTER the injector. It is mounted near the throttle body. Have you disconnected any fuel lines, as it is possible that they could have been reversed if so. Also, just for troubleshooting's sake, have you verified the timing belt alignment? Ypu can test the fuel pump by connecting the test connectors under the dash near the ECU. for 1988 the test connectors may be near the windshiled wiper motor. Ther ewill be apair of green connectors. When these are plugged in, it will cycle the fuel pump relay for 2 seconds at a time so you can test the circuit or the pressure.

Because people want to tune them like modern day imprezas and cry when they fail. Leave it stock, replace all the old hoses and you will have a reliable engine. My opinion is they are not all that bad if you already had experienced them. If you have ever done head gaskets on one, then there is nothing to be afraid of having to keep one up in maintenane.

Aside from having to swap out most of the drivetrain, it will be pretty much bolt up. you will be able yo use parts from 95-98 for your body style, but even the 90-94 is mechanically identical in regards to driveline and suspension components if you have to source multiple cars for parts. The strut tops in the rear will be different between the 2 bodies, but all you have to do is mix'n match the parts

Consider replacing the fuel filter(s). Assuming the car has a carburetor, you will have the filter under the dash, ut there is also one at the fuel pump. This is easy to get to. The fuel pump and filter are located just ahead of the rear tire on the passenger side under the car. You will find a triangular plate with 3 bolts thet the filter and pump are mounted to. I would assume the 2nd filter was missed and never changed, so i would resort to this measure first.

I am quite fond of the ea82 as it has been the bread and butter of most of my wrenching experience. I have done countless timing belts and head gaskets, and all of my repairs to these engines so far have been reliable. Aside from the engine itself, the car that they come in are great platforms regardless of engine, for a simple, practical, even modular car. I have had several 200,000= mi engines, one 300,000 plus engine. Generally i see them go 150,000 mi before anything breaks, aminly from lack of maintenance (broken timing belt, bad hoses, old water pump, etc. I have rescued some pretty shagged ea82 cars and really, it didn't take much effort or investment to make a reliable car out of one that otherwise would have gone to the junker. If you are trying to go fast and furious gran turismo, then just get something newer like a legacy or impreza. But this lightweight ea82 sure is fun to throw around and rev the snot out of. Think of it as a cafe racer motorcycle cb350 compared to a modern crotch rocket. Driving a slow car fast os more fun than a fast car slow. Moral of the story this is a simple car to keep arpund. Don't be scared of timingbelts since there is no damage when they fail. Ditch the covers and you can repair one off the side of the road with 2 tools in 20 minutes.

I would install a deep cell(marine/rv) battery of some sort in the trunk to power the winch, using a battery isolator to charge it. I have run a marine battery as the main battery in my old subarus. Suppose you use a higher capacity battery as the main battery, but install it in the trunk, so that the winch doesnt have to draw through 14 ft of wire the length of the car. Really, you could just carry around an already charged deep cell battery in the trunk not connected to anything, and just connect the winch to it as needed. And when not in use, plug it into the 12v socket in the trunk to keep up the charge. The battery should not overdraw the socket if there is no load on it.

ditch the muffler and advance the timing, run premium fuel. have fun. If the car had 200 hp, it would still run out of gear at 95 mph. If the car feels slow, rev it up more. Powerband is 2500-55-- rpm. If you are short shifting and cruising below 1500 rpm you're doing it wrong.

Change the timing belt.

I have made that mistake myself....had backfiring out of the throttle. Happens to the best of us.... Experience is the best teacher.

If you had loose nuts on the rear axles, the washers may be on backwards. Something to know to prevent further trouble. The washer is conical spring washer and should be installed with the dish side facing the hub and the dome side facing the nut. If installed backwards, they will not hold torque and will compromise the bearings and or the hub splines. These engines can see well over 300,000 miles with normal wear provided there was no neglect or abuse. You are better to keep the tires aired up more as it will have less camber wear since these cars are way positive with front camber. The recommended lower pressures are most likely for traction purposes in multiple road surfaces considering the 4wd.

Don't forget about matsushita. If i remember right you get the panasonic compressor with spfi/carb (round compressor, inboard mount), hitachi for mpfi/turbo/xt's(ea82 square compressor outboard mount) and matsushita as dealer add on (round compressor looks like it was installed with hardware store components). I am not sure which one is named what, but this is how you find them packaged.

Turn the nut with the red arrow. The larger nut is simply there to hold onto with another wrench to prevent the line from twisting. Be sure to use 2 wrenches to not cause damage or distortion of the line. You will also find this at the pump end as well. The o-ring will be on the flare of the make end. As long as you don't lose the o-ring you will be fine.

This part is located on the coil mounting bracket with blue and yellow wires. It looks like a transistor heat sink. Another part to consider is the engine temp sensor for the ECU. It is located on the thermostat housing and has 2 wires with a green pigtail. This also causes warm fail to starts, particularly with MPFI models. "optical disty' is the distributior. Disty is slang for it. Optical means that is is electronic and not mechanical points or hall sensor. Inside there is a disc with 360 slots and an infrared LED counts the rotations. This part acts as a sensor internally for the ECU, which pulses the ECU, which in tirn pulses the Ignition Amplifier module, which energizes the coil and breaks the field circuit to induce a spark. The top half of the distributor serves to distribute the spar to the plugs, In an analogy, the ignition amplifier module acts the same as points do in an old system in regard to the coil. the schamatics you want to look at would be labeled something like "typical 1988 and later engine management" The haynes book borrows a lot of diagrams from the factory service manual, but some of the text reads as if it is european english/british translation. The electrical schematics are pretty good in the haynes book provided you know electrical troubleshooting techniques.