The Dude Abides

Is there a way i can bring the hatch closer to the body of the car. It seems that since ive been jaming something into the hinge to prop up the hatch it has separated from the body a bit. Bout a quarter inch gap fromt he hatch to the weather stripping. I tried looseing the bolts that teh hinge attaches tot he hatch but they wouldnt budge. Any hints would be great.

So finally Guido will get a break from daily life. Free to me 1995 ford taurus, my sisters old car. Needed lots of front end work. We replaced stabalizer bar links, and both struts. Ive never seen a bent or broken spring before but oh well. Really warm and cozy. Power everything im spoiled. The only thing i might do in the future is replace that miscolored bumper with one of the green ones i saw at wrench n go the other day. Only 35bucks for a fully color matching car schaaaa. So now what to do with Guido. Welllllll ill let ya know. This is Luigi (my sister named this one)

Yea and you should, i dont remember which door on your brat was fooobarede but these are good replacements. Actually the whole front clip seemed pretty good as well. Driver side was really good, passanger side had some rust on the bottom but no dents.

More on the newer car latter.

Actually that was me that put that tire on there but sadly that car is long gone.

So im there looking for parts for my newer car and i happen to find a couple subys that would interest some of my iowa and maybe you east coasters. Looks like they must of found some field full of cars cuz there are some old beauties there. 1980s Subaru 2dr Coupe EA81 2wd 5 speed. Good fenders, hood, drivers door and rear quarter skin. Decklid looked good as well. I couldnt get the hood open but i dont think anyone else could either, but i was able to peek inside the busted headlight and see a complete EA81 sittin there. Bumpers arent rusty but alittle dented up (sorry connie). No glass and interior has sticks and leaves in it. Center counsle is buried so i cant verify its condition. 1986 Subaru GL with complete EA82 Carb engine. Had a really good brown or dark maroonish type interior. Good Doors and Fenders. It was 4wd but sadly it is a automatic. You will need to pay me serious money to get this crap cuz i froze my butt off today.

Im not sure about that but mine is a 3.9

I got this............ Remember when i told you about the few options we have for these cars for wheel choices. Well you are looking at the 15inch peugot wheel. And you are seeing the result of not useing the specific peugot lug nut. They take a special recessed lugnut that fits over the wheel perfectly. I believe mr (one eye) was useing subaru or somewhat like lugnuts. Its ok and they work fine for a while. But sooner or latter the aluminum gives way and the smaller lugnut rips through the hole causeing the wheel to detach from the vehicle. So like i said, if you want other wheels get the peugots just makesure you get the lugnuts with your wheels.

Ok i like finishing off threads. I kinda figured out my problem. I check my tires every few months for air pressure but its been so dam cold i havent done it since the snow started flying. Both passanger side front and back tires were down to 10psi:eek:. The driver side front was down to 25 on front and 18 on the rear. No wonder its beel pulling so badly. I still get the occasional bang out of 4wd and it still seems to bind up a bit but im no where near having the problems i was having. That just goes to show ya that you need to keep up with these things. The thing is the tires didnt even look that down on air. I was just going buy a visual until the weather warmed up. Sure showed me. Thanks all for your replys.

This reminds me of my favorite story. I was driving my super nice 73 monte carlo around when all of a sudden it started grinding terribly up front. I pull into this Tires Plus and tell the tech. Hey somethings up can you throw it up on the lift and tell me whats wrong. He throws it up on the lift I go into the shop. About 2 minutes latter he calls me out and says nothings wrong everything looks ok. So we shoot the crap about my car for a bit because it just turned 30 years old and had reached CLASSIC status. He says, hey if you ever want to get rid of that thing let me know. So im driving the 10 blocks home and i keep hearing the noise over and over. I jack the car up when i get home and low and behold the front wheel is slumped over and flopping around. I had blew wheel bearings. The friggin mechanic told me nothing was wrong with my car so when the dam wheel fell off i would sell it to him.

LOL yea if your gonna camp in your car, make sure its tick o death free.

We really need to organize some kids of midwest wagon train to get out there so Midwest can represent.

Thought they didnt use Fuel Injection till 88

Isnt there a tendency to bash the quarter panels on rocks or tree stumps.

I didnt mean dirty as unclean, just dusty. I found my NGK stuff at napa. When you get to cooling problems stick to subaru only. RockAuto.com and 1stsubaru.com are excelent places to get parts online. Yea sorry about your cv shaft problem. Thats 1 MORE thing. Yet another thing these cars like is a brand new axel. They remanufactured ones tend to be not as good of qualty. Theres a guy in colorado that rebuilds them to better then factory specs. Prices are good also but i dont recall the name off hand. Good luck to ya, atleast you have backup. When mine brakes down its all i got.

I was going to say a hood scoop but that is awsome. I think it would look best on the hood where it raises up.

UH OH im anticipating a good story.

Im glad you made it home with out a tow. Let me answer a couple of your questions. These are very basic, non high performance motors so whatever stock NGK replacements you can find will be perfect. The motors are only rated at about 98hp brand new so over time that gets alittle worse. The reason i recomend NGK is because folks on here recomended NGK to me. It is the OEM essential brand for replacement parts. I dont know what kind of automotove experience you have but your basic plugs, wire, cap, rotor is a good start for a tuneup. If you were at the front of your car faceing the motor, the fuel filter is in the upper right hand corner next to the firewall. ITs about 4 to 5 bucks to replace and should be done when doing a tuneup. Your maf is the electronic box located after the air filter. It measure airflow onto a sensor. If its dirty (which being in vegas it should be) it will not allow your car to selfadjust it self for airflow whatnot and not get as good gas mileage and run poorly. Just another tuneup thing thats easy and cheap to do. Remove the air box and look inside the tube you will see alittle wire hangine inbetween the tubes. Clean that with Maf Cleaner and your good to go. Your CV shaft is a different issue. I have had mine clicking for 3 years now. Its on borrowed time when it goes but im told that if it does go and your in the middle of nowhere, you can pop it into 4wd and it should get you home. As far as what you paid for it, i still think thats a good price. The lack of A/C system sucks in your part of the world and im sure you might be able to add it on but it would probally cost what you paid for the car. You could always try to find the parts in a bone yard and have someone else install it and charge it. You can narrow down your fuel issue then ask for your replacement part on the board here. There are folks on the board who have a yard full of cars. And parts are cheep. As far as your tires go, your in luck because 13inch tires are mega cheep. But if you wanted to lift it or lower it there are some other wheel options but none extremely easy. Subaru uses 4x140 bolt which is used only buy only one other car company Peugeot. This wheel requires no modification but wheels are hard enough to find let alone the special lugnuts that go with them. You can always redrill 6 lug truck wheels but that again has its drawbacks. Though you havent mentioned anything about wheels i thought you should know anyways. You have a very special car. I believe 89 was the last year of the touring wagon, last year of the dual range, last year before they got cheap. That should be it for now.

Ok i have a question and be nice because this is coming from a guy who is old school. When i was discussing redrilling the wheels with him because he has a drill press he said it was stupid and dangerious. He said (and this made sense) that the factory holes on the 6 lugs were beefed up and had more metal around where the lugs go then the metal around that and it would in fact be extremely dangerious do drill them like this. Now i know many many of you have driven, and wheeled with these like that but i was curious as to what you though of his less then metal theory. I understand you can flip the nut or taper it down alittle bit but i think his question had valor which is why i ask it to all of you.

How much did you pay. It looks good but you should be paying less then 800 bucks for a semi working non ac car in arizona. You have a touring wagon which is somewhat rare. Tuneups are pretty standard on these things. Use NGK plugs and wires and all will be well. Replace the fuel filter, air filter. Cap and Rotor, they like OEM stuff. Clean the MAF up. Could the timeing belts be out on one side boys, is that why it will idle but not really move. As far as the engine if its was a turbo then you would have problems. But its not, so you should be ok. Make sure the cooling system is toped off. Is there a way you can rent a UHaul Dolly and haul the thing back. All you would need to do is remove the rear driveshaft for safety sake and you could do that. As far as AC goes. Your car doesnt have it. It might of had it at one time but looking at your engine pic i dont see the compresser or the lines. There were 2 types of AC systems for these cars. One before and after the alternator. Looking at your alternator it looks fairley new. Ive never seen that pully system before. You should hose out the engine bay, typical arizone dusty car. Other then that stuff good find. Dont worry about the miles thats not a huge deal. Im jealous your car is in great shape. Just get the fuel issue straightned out and you should be ok. If you have a leak in the fuel system wouldnt that cause it to have idle problems. Good luck and keep us informed. Great place here you might not know alot about these cars but alot of people on here do.

You need dual range in this park.

uhhhhhhhhhh thats me.

Mine isnt rusted but i think there was something wrong with this one before. The pipes look like theyve been welded on before. There are welded marks and bigger pipes so it might of been rusty at one point and was fixed. I dont know.

Sweet, rock the DL. The only mechanical difference you can have is DLs have a single range 4wd system and GLs have a dual range. 88 and up all have Fuel Injection. You can upgrade to Rear Disc brakes which drasticly improve stopping power. Depending on what you want to do with the car there are areas you can go. I will say that restoring these cars isnt to expensive but kinda a waste of time. I mean i like my car but its just a cheep econo box. If you want to go that route like people have said check the local junkyards, and look on the forsale sections here because people part these cars alot. You can lift, you can lower, you can put just about any subaru engine in these cars. People are jealous of our headlight setup because the GL headlights suck for viewing. You cant exchange the Instrument cluster for the ones with the tach without alot of work. Look up various upgrades and whatnot in the serch function. You never did say if you had 4wd or 5 speed. Try to check out where the oil leaks and coolant leaks are coming from.

Really messed up my exhaust saturday. Still trying to figure out how to repair it cheeply.