MilesFox

I would do something like splitting a section of radiator hose and securing it over the hole with hose calmps as a get-me-by until i could replace the whole part.

Eother way, if the rod bearing is shot, it would be more economical to source another block and use it as-is, as the bottom ends don't wear out until hundreds of thousands of miles. Rebuilding the block would only be necessary if you were building some sort of high performance hybrid with aftermarket parts.

I have never uses sealer on ea82 head bolts. But there is always corrosion on the to tob bolts in the center of the head where they thrad into the water jacket for hte intake ort. Usually the the bottom center wil have oil caked on them where they thread into the crank case. I suppose fluids can work their way up the thread, but not necessarily past the gasket.

One more.... the side trim on the 85-86 bodies are glued on with flat sheetmetal behind them. 87 and later have the trim secured by plastic clips that clip into holes stamped into the sheet metal.

wheel bearings. or possible stuck caliper slides. my car is doing this and i just rebuilt the whole thing. loose axle nut could cause it.

because 85 had sill mpunted mirrors, so there is glass whre the 86 and up mirror would be. I forgot to mention the placement of fixtures on the dashboard. 85-86 has the wopers where the fan knob would be on an 87 and up. the fan knob on the 95-86 is a blank plate on 87 and up. 85-86 have the headlights on a knob on the dahs, 87 and up have them on the turn stalk. there is o wiper stalk on 85-86.

in an ea82 yuo would run out of gear by 100 mph

If you look at your first picture, the channel inside the rocker is the structure. the picn weld ties it to the floor. the rest of the structure of the car is the roof line and the door frames. Your car is not too far gone to repair. If anyone tells you to get a car from out west instead of fixing this one, tell them that any car from out west will start to rust if the same measures were not taken. you will be into a project depending on how tedious you want to be, such as removing suspensions and body parts to get at it all. Ideally you want to seal up and prevent the existing rust frm getting worse, which a little bit os ok vs chopping and welding if you can stop its advancement. you are going to want to remove as much flake, scale, and any of the 'rustproofing' undercoating that has rust behind it. sometimes these applications trap moisture can cause more rust than they prevent. make it a rule to keep the car clean and dry and avoid road salts. By my standards of experience with subarus from the rust belt, yours is fairly rust-free.

adjustable struts came with 85 and 86 4wd. 87 and later would not have them unless swapped in.

2wd struts are longer since the perch on the 2wd trailing arm is lower. this raises it quite a bit. perhaps the springs are weak.

The question was asked. there are differences in brake calipers as well between 85-86 and 87 up. the bracket that holds the parking brake varies. one version has 2 bolts, and the other version has 1 bolt with a dowel pin. i can't remember which way this goes, though. one more... 85-86 had orage display and 87 and up have green display. Personally, i am quite fond of bot the 86 and 87 model years, and 87 would be the average year of all the cars i've had

If i can find my centercaps, i am going to try and mount them on 14" steeles 1st gen legacy wheels with chrome trim rings on my e 5 lug 86 3door. got to have the classic period correctness since i only have steel wheels to work with. I do remember that there is a slight difference in the retaining rings between ea81 and ea82 8spoke wagon wheels.

Body parts are swappable, but there are differences. The trans tunnel in an 87 is wider, designed for the 4eat, and will accommodate swaps from xt6 trans mounts. the 86 body is too narrow and thus a custom piece will have to be made. 87 is a transitional year with 88 and up style harness and body, but 85-86 style plugs and other miscellany. some 87's were carb and most spfi. 86 gl-10 were spfi with a breather hose going to the airbox. 85 and 86 wagons and sedans have defroster vents for the rear passenger door windows. these were eliminated in 87 and up. 1987 is the last year that the full line of subaru ea bodies were available at the same time with the wagon, the sedan, the 2nd year of the 3-door, the xt, the hatchback, and the last year of the brat. 87 is the first year for the smaller amber lens on the font corner lights. First year for straight bar grille on wagon and sedan. The loyale is identical to 88 and up. but the rear window quarter glass has a slightly different trim. I believe the windows are glued on, where the prior years was rubber gasket. maybe i am confusing this with ea81's for mpfi, 86 marked the end of flapper MAF and mechanical disty with external knock control, and introduced optical disty and hotwire MAF. The pigtail on 87 only is like the 88 design, but has the 86 style connector. The 85-86 mpfi schematic is very similar to 83-84 ea81t. Spfi had the mechanical disty in 86, and this had the round plug thru 87, and went to the square plug in 88 and up.

lifter tick or piston pin slap?

87 was stamped out for the 4eat with the wider trans tunnel. Giveaway clues would be D, 3,2,1 and a pmanual button on the shifter for a 4eat

Look under the car and determine if it has a single port or dual port header as this will give a clue to what heads/intake are installed. The gaskets are relative to the head regardless of the block. If you know for certain the engine was swapped in whole, there is a stamping on the block under the alternator on the front of the top of the block with EJ22 or EJ25 dual port headers will be an ej22e or an ej25d. single ports would be an ej221. these 3 engines would be compatible with the wiring harness in the car.

What are these 3 Subarus? Welcome

rebbuild or not, any power gains are going to be external components aside from a cam. I believe i have read somehwere that there is a nissan throttle body injector with a little more cc's that fits the throttle body. run a glass pack after the y pipe flange and straight pipe the muffler. Run the timing a few degrees hotter. dont bother with ram intakes or what have you.

Easier done than said

I could imagine you can use an ej 4eat as a swap and therefore be able to go the ej engine route with no need for a bellhousing adaptor. you will still need to hybrid a rear diff. Nice find, especially for the rust belt.

Depends on your method and experience. I have don these either way. The last trans swap i did i had disconnected the suspension because i was swapping struts anyway. You can remove the trans without removing the suspension as you can get some wiggle room my mofing the trans back and forth, but this is easiest with the engine out (if you were removing the trans.) And yes, you can just move the engine forward enough to get at the clutch without disconnecting a lot of hoses, cables, or harnesses. I would only recommend this if you were already familiar with pulling soob engines so you know what to predict, and this requires a crane out of any of these options, pulling the motor is easiest, provided that space and access to an engine crane is not difficult. Vs just sliding the engine forward, it is only a few more steps to yank the engine if you wanted to put it on a stand and do all of the seals. Well worth it if you are considering the oil pan gasket. Do the cam tower o-rings if you are ambitious

The ea82 is anti-planned obsolesence. You can ubgrade it to new versions just like software. Ej it, 5 lug it, wd id, and then in another 10 years you will be asking 'why do i keep tinkering with first and 2nd gen ej22's", or "why do i keep putting gas in my car when i can get an electric or diesel" nd then you will find some way to stick electric or diesel in your ea car

oil on top of the block is either seeped steering fluid (which uses dextron II/III ATF) or oil from the sending unit under the alternator that leaks where the terminal is crimped on.

dont use stai nless in aluminum. go to the hardware store. thread is m6x1.00. get one that is the right length.

yest the trans will fit. but you will have to either swap out trans stubs, or hybrid axles. You wil need to part off and use the bits on the inner end of the brat axle and a 25 spline doj cup like that from a turbo mt, turbo 4eat or xt6 i don't know if anyone has found the magic recipie of oem soob parts to combu up and make a 25 spline ea81 axle. it may have been done. maybe check out the australian forums for that kind of advise otherwise using the xt6 trans will fit like any other dual range 5mt swap. the ea82 fits under the hood. use the ea82 carb intake on an spfi block. use the ea82 disty and wire it to the coil. an ea81 intake will fit on an ea82, buy tou will hae to flip some brackets around and block off the egr and get funky with radiator hose routing. use an ea82 radiator