robm

I tore into the left rear brake Saturday. (1992 Loyale.) It turns out the shoe hold-down pin on the leading shoe rusted off, and the noises were due to the shoe cocking and rubbing on the inside face of the drum. It was fun to get off, had to undo the other pin, then it all came off. $20 for a new set of brake hardware. Dear old Canuck Tire were the only ones that listed it, so here comes another 2 weeks with funky brakes....

Flushing rads has a poor reputation on this board. I would check the rad for cool spots, indicating poor flow through it. Lots of good info here, that might answer your question: http://www.aa1car.com/library/retrofit.htm

Just condensation.

What HAVEN'T I done to my Subaru recently? Christmas time, I smell coolant in the car and it is getting steamy, so I put in a bypass on the heater core. ( I am too far away from tools to fix it...) A few days later I find the problem was actually a leaky heater hose, when the engine overheats due to a lack of coolant. The headgaskets survive this escapade, but the thermostat does not, it fails wide open (could be worse). I still do not trust the heater core, so I drive it home, 1400 km, in -10 deg. C temperatures, with no heat in the car and a piece of cardboard across the rad to keep the engine temperature more or less off the lower peg. A few days later after returning home, in the middle of a cold snap, and in the process of trying to find a heater core, the timing belt strips a dozen teeth. Between the cold, trouble shooting and waiting for parts, the car is down for 2 weeks or more. I have no idea why the belt went, it had only 80,000 km on it, 90,000 is the (usually) safe change interval, and all pulleys, idlers etc. were replaced with the last belts and are still free running and in good shape. Next, I notice the front passenger side wheel bearing is starting to make noise. I obtain new bearings from the local bearing house, and pull it apart. I discover the reason the bearing went bad is because the inner seal is gone. I don't absolutely trust the seals on the 6207's, as this inner seal gets the worst of the mud and water, and fortunately, the local Canadian Tire actually has a couple in stock!! Miracle!! While working on the bearing, I find the caliper I replaced last May has frozen. The inner pad is worn to nothing and the rotor is pretty much gone as well. Thinking I would be nice to CT, as they had the seal I needed, I order caliper, pads and rotor from them. They claim they have them in stock, 4 days to get them in town. 2 WEEKS later I finally get the parts. And the caliper is not right. In fact, it has "TOYOTA" cast into its frame. I take it back, and they give me my money back, and don't even ask any questions. So down the road to the independent. He can get me one, for a very good price - but it will take 2 weeks! NO, NOT AGAIN! So further down the road to NAPA. They can get me one in 2 days, but it will cost $100. Ouch, but I am tired of driving a car with only half a brake system. The caliper arrives, and it looks like the right one, but it is totally bare, no handbrake bracket or carrier. It is a hacksaw job to free up the old carrier, and then I try to bolt on the handbrake bracket. The bolts do not fit, the caliper is drilled and tapped M12x1.25 instead of M8x1.25. Hell with it, I want to drive a car with brakes, even if there is no handbrake until I can find bigger bolts. I return the core, and get no sympathy from NAPA, nor do they have any bolts. Down the road to the industrial supplier, who has bolts that fit, sort of. All I have to do is cut off 10 mm of length, and file the 19 mm heads down to 17 mm so there is clearance between the 2 heads for a socket. I go to bolt the bracket on, and discover that only one hole is tapped! And I don't have an M12X1.25 tap. So today, I try to find an M12x1.5 bolt, so I can put the last bolt into the bracket. At least the brakes work better, and there is a hand brake, even if it is held on by a single bolt. And now, the rear brakes are making noise. It started while driving around with the frozen caliper, etc., waiting for parts. It is the left rear, the diagonal buddy of the front right, so I had hoped proper parts and good bleeding at the front would fix it, but it seems not. It is a rubbing noise, that eventually gets really loud, but goes away if I just ride the brake a bit. At least the heater core is OK.

Yep, there are. Not sure about Carquest. I think they are all back east? I have a Subaru dealer, Napa, and Canadian Tire, and another independent to talk to, but even so, I live 2 days - 2 weeks from their warehouses. (Also 2 - 3 wreckers, they make the stealership look cheap!) Ivan has a couple of places where he lives: Lordco (a BC chain), maybe an independent as well, and even a wrecker (He might own it! I dunno.) He has a couple of dealerships within an hour or so drive. Again, he will be waiting at least 2 days for parts, maybe one day if he gets the order in before noon. And shipping from the US won't be much cheaper. As for CT, there is no way their shop can use their parts supply chain. They probably buy their parts from Napa! Lucky guy to live in Newfoundland! It is kind of like Canada's version of Alaska, on everyone's bucket list.

Probably not cheaper from the US. For instance, I ordered caliper, pads and rotor from Canadian Tire. Total cost is about $130, not counting core fees. The same parts from RockAuto are about $60. Woohoo! Let's go! But then shipping will cost another $60, so they are only $10 cheaper. Then, if Fedex charges for customs brokerage, any savings are completely wiped out, or more. Online parts from Canada may be cheaper than this, or not. In this case, Canadian Tire was the best bet because the online houses didn't have the calipers, and only had expensive pads. Delivery is typically 4-5 days, which turns most projects into 2 weekenders, no matter what. The biggest drawback to CT is they are SO SLOW TO DELIVER! Other parts places in town take 2- 3 days, CT is getting on towards 2 weeks! The dealer is just about as bad, it can take 1- 2 weeks to get parts, but that is because they only get 1 truck a week, and if you miss the ordering deadline, you are hooped. Believe it or not, some things are cheaper from the dealer, like rear window wiper motors ($230 vs $400 at Napa, and no one else had a listing). But there is no reason for CT to be so slow. The bits I want have been "on the truck" for 10 days now, and it only has to come from Calgary (2 days tops).

Anyone who capable of welding in rocker panels is capable of cutting them to fit...

Lucky! Where I live, I pretty much have to take what they have, as it took 2 to 10 (!) days to get here and there won't be another on the shelf across the street. I try to make sure I get the right stuff the first time.

You missed that intake gaskets should be dealer only. The Felpros are often crappy paper gaskets. It is not worth the risk, even with silicone. They might cost a few bucks more, but compared to redoing them.....

Just to help a bit more, the cap is quite small and is built in to the antenna wire connector, on the antenna side. Removing it seems to affect AM reception somewhat. It still works, but there seems to be some reduction in range, so the reception gets crackly quicker as you travel away from the source. FM reception seems to be unchanged.

But what is "octane" in this case? Research, Motor, or the standard at the pump, (R+M)/2? My bet it is Research, because I can't see why a low compression engine like an EA81 (8.5:1) would need (R+M)/2 = 90, which is a midgrade or even premium, depending on the market.

Dunno about off road, but on snowy roads, the conventional wisdom around here (northern BC, in the snowy bit between the wet coast and the cold, dry interior) is narrow, studded tires to bite down to find something to grip. I run studded 155/80-13's (at 35 psi) in the winter, and have never had traction issues, even on unplowed, 8+" deep logging roads. Going out snowshoeing, I lead the pack of vehicles, figuring the F250 behind is more likely to be able to pull me out if I get stuck, rather than me pulling him. We usually run out of places where the F250 can turn around before I run out of either traction or ground clearance.

35 is plenty, as the tires you are running are way bigger than stock. Oh, and the 35 PSI max. might not apply to LT tires. That is the standard for standard car tires. But it looks like from the General website, that these are standard, not LT's.

The tire sidewall only shows the maximum pressure you can put in it, not how much you need for a given installation. To make it even murkier, I understand that the load rating is at 35 psi, even if it says the tire is rated for more (some up to 50!). You can put 50 psi in, if it says it is OK, but the load rating is the same as it is at 35. You might get better gas mileage at higher pressure, but worse tire mileage. (I tried it, and gas mileage was not noticeably better, but the tires did wear in the middle. Traction was not affected for what I was doing with the car. Michelin X-Ice snowies, 155/80 R13) The pressure recommended by Subaru was for a (probably, look in your owner's manual or on the door jamb) 165SR-13, which had a maximum load rating at 32 psi, so that figure is almost useless to you, running modern tires of a completely different size. It does tell you how much capacity the tires need. If you can get a chart that shows the load rating of your tires at different pressures, not just at maximum, you can choose a pressure that gives you the same capacity as the original tires at recommended pressure. This one of the hardest things about these old cars, re-engineering the tires to match what is available today, as 165's are almost extinct, and there are darn few 13" tires of any size still being made.

I did that once with a Corolla: big bump, and no idle. It had an Aisan carb, very similar to Hitachi. I could fix it by hitting another bump, just right. It got to the point I could almost turn it on and off on purpose, by hitting railway tracks or whatever while turning. I eventually fixed it by replacing the carb. I never did figure out what was going on to cause it. Try hitting another bump, see if it helps. Is there a fuel shutoff solenoid on it? Maybe it is sticky?

I am not certain what kind of a tester you are using. Can you describe it, or tell us the make/model? Is it a fixed gap? The voltage at the gap will only be high enough to make it jump. If it only takes 20 kV to jump, that is all you will see. In other circumstances, like a bigger gap or other change in conditions, the same coil may produce a lot more voltage. What counts is if it has enough capacity to make the spark jump at the spark plug inside the engine when it is running under all conditions. The best way to test this is with one of those oscilloscope type engine analyzers, that will actually measure the voltage at the plug while running. Without that device, all you can say is if the engine isn't missing, runs well, gets reasonable gas mileage, passes smog for HC, then it is probably OK.

That would be the O-ring leaking. Can you ditch the mechanical fan safely? I am not certain, as my Loyale has a much simpler setup (single electric fan, not dual mech/elec) but I understood that the mechanical fan is the main fan on cars so equipped, and the electric fan comes on with the AC, which it sounds like you are removing? Or is it the other way around?

The only thing it can be is the plug wire.

Aren't XT's a bit different? If EA82's are all the same, why does this one have that set of marks on the front pulley? Backing it off 2 degrees makes sense if you are going to overboost it. Still no guarantee the engine will survive the process, though.

GD's idea has a lot of merit (as usual). The water idea also could be part of this. Multifactorial failures are the worst kind. It is so easy to check the CTS, it is worth doing. Bad idle is another sign that this could be still a problem.

When you replace the bottom hose, also replace the O-ring on the pipe that leads into the pump. If it isn't leaking now, it will be when you get through horsing around with the hose.

What source are you using when it stops working? The radio? Does the cassette deck still work? I have had the radio do this to me. It was the connection to the antenna cable that was the culprit. There is a capacitor right at the connector, and I think it gets flaky, but I am not positive. I fixed the termination between the antenna cable and the connector on the radio, without the cap, and it has been fine ever since.

Yes, the colour coding on the graphs is wrong. So is the LPG injected as a liquid under (very) high pressure or does the exchanger vapourize it? Here in North America, we figure 20% less power on propane using vapourizers, as that is about how much air it displaces. In practice, it was often a bit better than this, only 10 -15% down, especially if timing is adjusted and manifold heating is eliminated. If the engine can have its compression ratio raised, it was theoretically possible to have the same power output, but I don't know of anyone who achieved this goal. This was the state of the art 20 years ago. Today's engines are probably more efficient on gasoline, and it may be hard to get this sort of combustion improvement on LPG. 70 kW*.9/746 = 84 HP from your 1.6 l engine. My Loyale is supposed to produce 90 HP. On a good day, 20 years ago. I think I could live with what you have.

I hate to disillusion you, but that engine makes less torque and power on LPG. Look closely at the graph. Power is torque x RPM, so if it makes less torque at a given RPM, it makes less power, too. The bumps in the LPG power graph are matched by the bumps in the lower torque graph. Still, I would convert my Loyale to propane in a second if I could. As long as it was an injection system, not a vapour rig. (There is a limit to how much power I can do without!) During conversion, is anything done to optimize the engine operation for the higher octane rating of the fuel? Timing, manifold heating (more or less with liquid injection?) etc.?

Experts can do it in an hour. First-timers should budget a bit more time for the job. Getting a tight spindle through the bearings is a skill that takes time and many attempts to perfect. I know I haven't. Also, remember it takes time to wash the grease off your hands and take the old axle back for the core charge. There may be easier ways to get the hub to swing out than removing the pinchbolt etc. I prefer to remove the sway bar link and the pivot arm bolt on the crossmember. I have a suspicion that the pinchbolt etc will not come off where I have been driving my Subaru. Too much salt and water on the roads.