daeron

if you want a fun soob for rally cross, from what i have been reading, your best bet might be to get a mid to late 80s GL or rx.. i dont know alot about the RX model, but i know the curb weight on my 87 GL10 is something like 2400-2500 pounds. i have a partial 89 FSM that lists curb weights on all models of all the DL/GL series between 2240 to 2900 depending on model, trim level and engine/trans combinations.. with the FT Turbo GL-10 wagon being the heaviest (duh, the most of the most) and your 89 rx FT4wd turbo checks in at 2670.. where my 87 gl10 (lots of options, power windows and sunroof add weight) 2wd AT weighs 2465 (well the 89 did at least.) so you could easily shed a few hundred pounds in your specific model choice... IF youre looking for a really nice quick car to build yourself anyhow. Alot of people opt to swap the ej22 legacy motor into these cars for reliable power.. and they are very lightweight, probably better across the line for weight than any contemporary japanese car... civic, sentra, camry, etc (well corolla came in at the end of the 80s but you get the point) so its a great option for a lightweight conversion chassis. any car you come across, you should be able to determine what the factory curb weight was, at least.. the door sill VIN plate lists the GVWR, which is the maximum weight of the vehicle, including passengers and cargo.. it might list it as separate axle weight restrictions..(AWR) but you get the GVWR and then go to the glove box. there should be a sticker in there that lists the maximum load capacity and the tire size.. although this info may also be on the vin plate. anyhow, the capacity for the model is a given, like 400 something pounds, or 600 or whatever.. i forget right now.. but the GVWR is printed on there as a unique number, unique to that car.. and as far as i can tell its accurate (at time of manufacture, probly sans oil and fuel? i dont know) within one pound.... so that will establish that on any subaru at least that you find. any car should have both bits of info on it, but different makes and models differ as to how accurate the GVWR printed is compared to the actual rating listed.. (unless an inordinate number of cars i have seen actually weighed in increments of large quantity.. like 25 or 50.. some just seem like they fudge it, you know? theyre stamped on in the same type of paint as the rest of the mass produced vin plate... some are printed on in a manner you can tell is unit-specific) anyhow, it seems like you might want to just find the right donor car and the right driveline.. that way the car could be had for a few hundred bucks, if youre lucky.. and then youve got a grand to buy a driveline with. and if you are going to custom make the car, then you can just find the body shape, features, and weight that you want... so you could just get a DL or GL with rollup windows and no power locks with zero options included, if you wanted, and then yank the motor and driveline (or whatever) and replace it with what you want to build yourslef a nice turbocharged 200 hp EJ22 powered GL/Loyale. that was my two bits.

you might want to go ahead and plan on doing a head gasket just for safety's sake if you put the IC on.. but i think it would be a good idea. drive it for a while first and make sure you know her, and that she runs well and cool. I have been told that an aftermarket water temperature gauge, and an oil pressure gauge, are to be HIGHLY recommended on a car with a subaru digidash, but have yet to confirm it as a problem for me... but apparently they are prone to electrical interference. the worse ones are older than our digidashes (mines green and totally different, as my car is 2wd auto at and its 87 :- ) but talk to general disorder about that. he was the one who recommended it so strongly to me. In my car the trip comp is next to the stereo, think it is in yours too.. so im thinkin about putting a three guage panel down in the little area of the center console in front of the shifter, but below the stereo and ashtray.. on the later cars (i think 88 and on) the trip computer was put down there in a little inset-cover thing that fit into the cargo box that we have.... just some thoughts. pay attention to this forum, it doesnt take long to learn alot :- )

five speeds not cheating! six speed, i guess, maybe.. but if turbocharging isnt cheating then a fivespeed surely isnt!

yah the loyales are dumb. GL and GL-10 is much cooler.. ESPECIALLY GL-10. it just SCREAMS "chick magnet." right?

yah, news bulletin dude.. these cars arent, for the most part anyhow, very flashy or noticeable... i live and drive in some crummy neighborhoods in a large city, and rarely roll up windows or lock doors... and i never get victimized because the thing just SCREAMS "i am of little interest to you, wrongdoer." Im sure people have had soobs broken into and stolen etc, it obviously CAN happen (and i feel realy bad for you, hopefully someone from the board will see it) but id bet fifty bucks if any statistical analysis were available that subarus would be on the bottom of the list as far as percentage of owners victimized.. you have to draw attention and be common to get stolen. people NOTICE a subaru. alot of people have known at least one person with one, and frequently associate the car with the person, for instance. its hard to get rid of, and easy to get caught in. unfortunately, the joyriders usually grab a car then crash it somewhere... or trash it and abandon it. :mad: HOPEFULLY that doesnt happen to you... but theres no commercial black market value for a subaru, and that is what motivates most car theft. its camrys and accords they want, not 81 EA 81 weberized hatches.... :- \

advice. actually, it also fixes a problem on my car. there is a main power lead into the fusible link block. that is an indisputable fact of the nature of the thing, right?? i am fairly certain that its only one wire, but there may be more than one. i know for a fact i have a large white wire with a red stripe going into the bottom of my FL block that is bad, its pulled out in the past and i have a hackjob solder connection holding it in right now better than it has been since i owned the car. you may have a similar problem, that would indeed effect multiple circuits. pick up a spare fusible link block in the junkyard, and take yours off the old fashioned way, (diagonal cutters) tear it apart and inspect what you find. i am going to do just that, because i think i can probably take it apart and repair it better than it is.. BUT the junkyard unit is to swap in just in case im wrong and i end up massacring my FL block.. you get my point? just kinda re-engineer the fusible link power feed to ensure that it is a good solid connection still. its not inconceivable that a PO was removing the alternator and somehow it dropped and tugged on the alternator wire.. because the shortest wire on MY alternator is connected directly to the FL block. thats happened to me, and it pulled my half-loose wire out... hence the hackjob solder joint, which hasnt failed yet. but it might help to inspect any large wire going into the thing on the bottom... wiggle it, with the power on, and see if at any point you can kill the car... becase you should be able to play with them all and not experience any of your symptoms if its in good shape. its easy enough to do on my car because you can pop the thing right off of the radiator overflow.

yah dont forget if you haev ID'd a pair of speaker wires but not which speaker, you can connect one wire to the bottom of a AA batt, and tap the other wire into the positive end, on and off, and it will tick the speaker. no harm done to speaker, either. easy ID.

sounds about right. im just proud of the 102, and honestly thats as fast as i have ever driven.. suspensions in my cars havent all been worthy of three digits.

excellent. will do, i can already see the gauges down in that spot and it looks good., im liking it more than the current setup.. i could do this NICE...

heh, i took my gl10 up to 102 on the alligator alley.. thats a highway across the glades from lauderdale to naples, so its a loooong flat grade.. but it was no struggle to get it up there. no WINGFOOT, i mean, i was laughing at it with my little brother (we DID grow up in sports cars, sorry.) but i wasnt quite topped out on RPMS or throttle... just ran outta stones. just as well, the hiway patrol pulled me over about fifteen miles later for doing eight over.. i came up on a pod of traffic he was in the front of, and instead of react to him, i played it cool and kept my pace.. so i got a written warning. but thats 102, with a 2wd 3AT, no AC, windows... i dont remember. probably up (thank god for the vent lever/knob!!) and it was in late march, so like 75 degrees out. but this AC man, she sure does suck up the HP. i just got mine working well earlier this summer and i dont believe how much it can make a difference in performance/economy ive never had an AC before tho, so i am kinda just now getting used to it. just one more reason to switch to a five speed!

i cant give you the breakdown on the procedure by heart, but it has been covered in the last 3 or 4 pages of posts in the forum, and it is in the USRM. There is a plug in the engine bay, or under the steering wheel, that you connect and then you read a flashing light for codes. the codes are all in the forum in threads, as well as in the USRM. there are two test modes, one of them displays codes that have caused check engine lights since the last time the memory was cleared (ie battery unhooked for >1-10? second, or cleared the right way after repairing the issue) the other test mode (as i understand it) is a general purpose diagnostic run over the FI componentry.. and there may be issues in all that which could cause overheating, but you could also have some sort of leak somewhere that is causing you to lose coolant, or failing to maintain pressure... if the radiator cap is open it doesnt work, right? if it doesnt operate at a higher pressure than atmosphere the the water boils and turns to steam, which doesnt cool as well as water. nowehere near. im having some overheating problems myself, so i am currently pretty well versed in this aspect of the motor... :- ) you might also want to look into a product called SeaFoam. It comes in a metal bottle in better auto parts stores, but its getting very popular finally. it is a petroleum distillate solution designed to soak into and dissolve all the crud built up throughout the entire cylinder head and vacuum system. it cleans injectors, valves, fuel rails, you name it.. it seeps pretty much everywhere. to use it you (well, read the directions, but in brief) pour a small amount into a cup, remove the vacuum line going to the brake booster, put a thumb on it, start the car, suck up the juice with the vacuum line, let it run for ~30 seconds, shut it off for like ten minutes, cut it on and drive around kinda hot for a little while.. or free rev it in your parking lot, but there will be ALOT of smoke and i mean a COPIOUS amount because all that crap just burns off...... and then you run mucho cleaner. you might also want to try a trick that my dad used to get our 4bbl 5.8l OHV ford van thru emissions several times.. go to the hardware store and buy denatured alcohol.. burn your fuel tank mostly dry, and pour half a gallon of that in.. go for a quick spin before the check to get it good and flushed, and see how she goes. NOTE.. the denatured alcohol thing is a trick i know has been used many times without negative results... but im not sure its kosher with fuel injection seals, etc. I know the issue with burning alcohol as a fuel in american vehicles is predominantly one of the wrong blends of rubber, and i do not know if this might cause harm to your engine... but i dont think so. any opinions on that? not as a long term thing, just to get thru emissions? one time we did that, among a few other things (rebuilt carb, manifold gaskets, radiator, tranny flush) and the thing was almost the cleanest vehicle theyd seen that month!! it was a GREAT feeling, panicking on the way in, hoping wed pass, and getting this virtually zero emissions report!! i dont remember what was scheduled, but the limits were lax in south florida compared to cali, im sure. anyhow, some more thoughts.

like i said, im just singin' i just bought a ne can the other day, to be honest, and im still finding things ive been wanting to hit with some white lithium grease. kinda, kid-in-a-candy-store like, but for a tweak-freak. (ie, one that goes to sometimes absurd lengths to make things work, or work better... a tinkerer, you know) but you did have a valid point i failed to bring up.. bad bearing cant be fixed by magic spray. meanwhile, we still dont know what the noise is. Those mechanics stethoscopes work very well.. they usually have about a one foot long SS tube thats about 3/16 inch inner diameter that you probe around the engine bay with. GREAT tool for finding vacuum leaks, once youve used one to trace a leak down you never do it the hard way again, given a choice. Piece of tubing in the ear works good too, but it would be better if you had a plug for the other ear. you could easily rig two pieces of tubing together side by side for a ways, say a foot, then let them split to go into each ear.. kind of a macgyver, doit yourself stethoscope. doctors scopes come both ways, some of them have a union right at the neckpiece and go to the head as a single tube, some are stereoscopes that dont join until a small manifold entering the head.. so you could even plug the two tubes into a single pipe somehow and make it complete.

eh, i was brainstorming without having an image of the cam gear in my head. sorry, i forgot about the little screwholes. but i actually envisioned using a 10mm six point box wrench and yah, a bit of a hammer tap. hold the cam gear or get a partner to, and give it a good sharp tap. it helps alot sometimes in awkward situations.

well, congratulations. I motion this thread for the USRM! even if for nothing else, he figured it out himeslf in five hours or less.

have you checked your relay? i mean, there is a wiper relay isnt there? i dont know alot about the wipers on the old soobs, but it sounds to me more like a relay problem than a mechanical failure. you might want to try a junkyard switch too.

okay, i dont know what kind of engine you have in your hatch, or if it bears ANY resemblance at all to my engine and wiring, but i have a strange fusible link problem.. sometimes, car goes totally dead. it seems to happen mostly as i turn the key from on to start, and then its totally dead.. until i pop the hood and go jiggle the wires around the fusible link block. I think i finally traced it down to one link which had a loose terminal on it.. but it hasnt Not happened in a long enough time for me to say i think i fixed it. anyhow, ive clicked and read this thread about 3 times and each time i wondered what i thought i was going to find here of ANY relevance to me.. and i bet its your problem. ive had similar difficulties with other vehicles. on the forum at zcar.com, my signature is "fusible links blow..." when i read what you said about total failure.. i started thinking fusible links, and when you said it just came back on i thought it sounded like it for sure. give it a shot, you probly have what my brother calls a magic wire.. theyre the source that the gremlins enter your car from. (his words)

well, see, yah... Im sorry, i didnt read that very thoroughly. i was tired. i blame the internet.

i figured out from the subject what this was gonna be.. and thought it was gonna be bad.. but i thought i meant literally. that thing looks mind boggling, and i bet it wasnt even a subaru nut who did it, it was probly just some metal guy with a subaru, wasnt it? somehow it does scream desert camo.. and i HATE camo..

okay, no type of spray lube can fix a bad bearing.. but shooting white lithium grease into a tensioner is going to have more lasting positive effects than WD 40. thats all :- ) the stuff fills an important niche in a good supply of shop lubricants, and it is frequently overlooked. I was just singing its praises:banana:

uhm, consider re wiring the entire thing if you are installing an aftermarket stereo in an 87 GL... even if just for the speakers, you need to alter the factory setup to wire in an aftermarket deck anyhow. if you look thru the USRM, or do a search on stereo installs, you can find much lively discussion that was rather informative.. but between small wires, and common grounds that need to be divorced anyhow, there are good arguments for just re wiring it. Maybe use the stock power wiring, because thats easy, but the speaker wire at least would greatly benefit full replacement.. and its not SO hard, because you can use the old wire to pull new wire thru its existing channels.

i honestly hadnt thought of just, tucking them away.. im about to put an aftermarket stereo in, so what i think ill actually do is put them in the large bay underneath the entire radio area.. in front of the shifter console. the top half of that compartment has already been hacked out, so the piece of plastic is already half gone.. no harm no foul screwing a gauge cluster there. im probly gonna get an ammeter for it, too.. just to fill out the bunch. i was talking about it on the Wonder Brumby post.. function over form. this is my pizza delivering machine, and i need to care properly for it. Plus, the parts are probably already there for the taking. dare i ask, the stock oil pressure and water temperature sending units are part of the flawed aspect, right? so i couldnt just hook them up to a better gauge.. it couldnt be THAT simple. im sure the gauges are paired with sending units.. but (if you hadnt noticed) i havent paid too much attention in "Aftermarket Gauge Class"

at least you are often an encyclopedia.. and the people like you make for lots of information dissemination. I try as much as i can to be a middle man, when i KNOW i know what im talking about.. but im just often a babbling fount of semi-unrelated symptoms :- )

the quick fix is to make a jumper wire to replace your thermoswitch with. This will have your electric fan running whenever the key is on.this shouldn't pose any electrical difficulties, but if you still arent getting good clean 12 volts at the fan plug after jumping the plug for the thermoswitch, then there are more problems. edit about a year after I got my first car, gov. jeb bush abolished the emissions testing program in florida.. which had only ever been enacted in palm beach, broward (ft lauderdale) and miami-dade counties... so i had to pass in my geo to get the tag, then again the next year because i missed the cutoff day by like three weeks. then, no more. Now, I kinda feel guilty.. because i have never given much mind to the emissions my cars let out.. and as such, I cant provide any help at all with the emissions side of this thread.. but overheating is always bad. If you can jump a wire from one side of the thermoswitch plug to the other (this is the plug in the wiring harness of the car), then you will have simulated the thermoswitch saying "turn on." recheck for 12 volts at the fan plug then. i bet that you get it, because you got some voltage before, for a second.. and lost it forever. my two bits.

oh and im REAL sorry im so long winded. every post is a book it seems.

yah, so i was playing games with radiators and fans, and looked down at a module behind my air filter box.. two wire harnesses going to it, and some vacuum lines looks like.. hmm, it must be my cruise unit... I am assuming that I was correct, because i unplugged the one wire harness i could find a plug on.. it felt and looked like it hadnt been unplugged since Japan... but it was pristine. I blew it out anyway, with a wry grin on my face ("yah, get all that crap outta there.. ") and plugged it back in. It took me a couple of days before i remembered.. turned the button on, hit the set button on the steering wheel.... pull my foot up, and i was still goin fifty!!!! i dont BELIEVE i fixed my cruise control. i know i did next to nothing... but this soob has taken my opeinion of myself to another level. I used to think that cars, as a whole, were maybe just a TAD more than i could really grok in fullness.... old outboard motors, piece of cake, any power or air tool you could throw my way, ill have at it, home audio/stereo equipment.. ill tear it up. but the cars.. i did great with.. but there was an almost romantic air about it, as if it were more than the sum of its parts.. but the soob has REALLY shown me what a tool an automobile really is.. its got the centrally located power plant that provides inertial energy to all of the accessories needed for the job in question: transport.. and once i really started thinking about it like that, it all fell apart into subsystems i already understood.. and this mystique is now gone. my point is, somewhere in my head there is some deeply written code that says that if i get a car with a bad AC and a non functional cruise control, those are two things not to worry about fixing.... because its blah blah effort versus payout blah blah.... but now ive fixed both of those on this car.. both were simple fixes, but my mechanic brother never checked that cruise box in four years just thought id share some joy with the folks here.