robm

EH?? Grease on splines is good. Prevents them from rusting to the hub, and acts to cushion the drive. The spline is kind of like a gear that is meshed with in a another gear. Lube is a good thing here. If the spline strips, it is because it is the wrong one,(23 in a 25) or because corrosion and fretting (due to a lack of lube) has reduced the dimensions and allowed too much play.

Sure, Colorado, Minnesota, etc. Lots of snow, I know. But I also see lots of cars mentioned on here, that say they have never been put into 4x4, and they don't even know if it works... They don't last well here in Canada, either. The bodies rot. So a good one commands a premium price. EA-81's are very rare indeed. I have a suspicion the older Subarus weren't as popular, here, either, so there isn't the number of them there is south of the 49th. This also puts up the price.

That would be about market price for that car in Vancouver, B.C., if it had the original engine and only 150,000 km. Two years ago, I paid C$6800 for one with 134,000 km on it, and a METICULOUS maintenance record. You can get them cheaper, but the cheap ones are often beaten on, and still expensive for what you get. Too many klicks on the body. They will probably take $5k or less. Subarus are much more highly valued in Canada, because we actually NEED the 4x4.

I think a chain or two would be a good idea if you want lift vehicles with forklifts. It is doable, but it requires some thought and care.

Problem is, 185/80 won't fit in the spare tire holder. And it is way taller, so the speedo is way out. A good bet for minor offroading, as it improves ground clearance. Not the greatest for what I want, which is the cheapest highway vehicle I can get, with decent logging road capability for the odd weekend. I will have a look for the Kumhos. They seem to make a pretty decent tire. The 185/70 Hankooks I have on are just about shot, at less than 20,000 miles!

165SR13 was the stock size on the wagons. It was replaced by 165/80 R 13. This tire size is getting very hard to find in Canada. Most manufacturers do not make them. 185/70 is also getting hard to find. 175/70 is commoner, but it looks rinky dink in the wheel well, as it is 1" smaller in diameter, which also upsets the speedometer noticeably. This sucks. It may be an idea to get some 14" Peugeot wheels, just to get a decent selection of tires, but 14" tires cost more. (I am a real cheap bustard, you bet!) 4x4's run high aspect ratio tires to keep the wheels away from rocks etc. on the road. High aspect ratio tires also have a better load rating than low, so a tall narrow (cheap) tire can carry more than a low wide (more expensive) one. This is probably why tall narrow tires are found on 4x4's: cost and ground clearance.

165SR13 was the stock size on the wagons. It was replaced by 165/80 R 13. This tire size is getting very hard to find in Canada. Most manufacturers do not make them. 185/70 is also getting hard to find. 175/70 is commoner, but it looks rinky dink in the wheel well, as it is 1" smaller in diameter, which also upsets the speedometer noticeably. This sucks. It may be an idea to get some 14" Peugeot wheels, just to get a decent selection of tires, but 14" tires cost more. (I am a real cheap bustard, you bet!) 4x4's run high aspect ratio tires to keep the wheels away from rocks etc. on the road. High aspect ratio tires also have a better load rating than low, so a tall narrow (cheap) tire can carry more than a low wide (more expensive) one. This is probably why tall narrow tires are found on 4x4's: cost and ground clearance.

A friend of mine was running a Holley water injection unit on his high-compression Camaro. It worked pretty well, until the day the control box went nuts and hydro-locked his engine by dumping the entire contents of the reservoir into the engine at idle. There was no long term damage to the engine, but what a pain! Holley supplied him with a new controller under warranty. Just keep an ear out for the pump motor running when it shouldn't, like at idle.

Sounds like a decent deal. I paid about 10x as much for one with good headgaskets.

I always thought Tasmania was a bit wetter than those photos showed. Or is there a dry side to the island? Are your 'recommended speed" signs incredlbly conservative, like ours are here in B.C.? Around here, we take the recommended speed, divide by 10, and use that gear. ( Unless there is snow....) If it says slow to 50 km/h, back off the throttle, if it says slow to 40, put it in 4th, etc. So, that 40 km/h sign, were they serious, or is it just a signal to wake up and start turning the steering wheel?

There is a weird glue called "Seal-All" that is also gas-proof. I used it, along with toilet paper, photocopy paper, and duct tape to seal a BIG hole in a gas tank. The technique was to make a slurry of the glue and TP, and jam it into the hole, then cover it with several layers of glue and photocopy paper. Sort of like fiberglassing, only I used paper instead of glass, and glue instead of resin. Duct tape over the whole thing, so it would be sure to be waterproof, and to act as an abrasion guard. I drained all the gas out first, then left it sit for a week to cure while we went off canoeing. This was way out in the backwoods of British Columbia, I was lucky the car was still there when we returned. The plug held up well for several weeks, until I plugged it with a more "conventional" repair, of epoxy putty and fiberglass/epoxy over all. I learned at least 2 things on that trip: 1. Carry a tube of Seal-All in the backwoods. 2. Don't take American cars into the boonies. No ground clearance! A Subaru wouldn't even have bottomed out on that rock.

Great stories! Useful to know. This website needs a semi-permanent "quick fix" post, where useful tips like this can be sent it for all to see. If there was only one place to post, then it would stay current, and wouldn't get lost in the traffic. It could rival the "You might be Soob owner if..." thread.

Setright wrote: <The planet is FINE! If mother earth doesn't like us, she'll kill us off. It's just human arrogance that leads us to believe that we are in control of the environment. > So, what do you call AIDS, SARS, bird flu? Climatic changes that are reducing the viability of the agricultural system that feeds us, not mention kill us off outright? You think mother nature packs a rifle, maybe? Remember, we can't CONTROL the environment, we just screw it up. Like a little kid who kicks over the table.....If we could CONTROL the environment, we wouldn't have any problems. One consolation: 500 million years from now, there will be lots of oil, lots of coal, and thousands of species of animals and plants living on this planet. But they won't be much like any we have around now, and we won't be there to enjoy them.

A 1275 cc engine can be fitted to the MM. Did the later Midgets come in this size?

Because he had a forklift at each end of his trip, but no friend to help him lift it out of the back? Maybe no forklift or friend, but he could just heave it up on his shoulder and slide it onto the roof - a big guy, but not big enough to put it inside by himself? Didn't mind a dented roof, but didn't want a greasy interior? He was probably going slow because he didn't trust his tiedown job.

It is second order. Unbalanced 1st order multi-piston engines wouldn't be a very good idea. Like, why bother, when there are so many better ways to build one? Whoops! Justys are 3-bangers, they do have a first order imbalance. I guess that is why they have the shaft, to get rid of it. Sorry I can't help with the timing though.

The vacuum hoses from the solenoids to the trannie might have slipped off, or be cracked. You found the solenoids, check the hoses. Usually the 4WD just slides in and out easily. Sometimes, it needs a bit of help, like coasting (clutch in or gas off) for a few yards with the wheels straight, backing up, etc., driving on a loose surface (snow/ice/gravel) There should be no problem about using the 4WD again.

If there is any difference, manual racks will be SLOWER than a power one.

Pardon my ignorance, but where the heck is Bucaramanga?

Of course, dumb mistake. "Spridget" is from "sprite/midget", same car, different badge. At the time, it was hard to tell the difference. BMC had Austin, MG, Morris, and a bunch of other names under their umbrella. Then they were absorbed/reorganized into British Leyland, along with Triumph, Rover, etc. Hard to keep track of, especially 35 years later and thousands of miles away. It was a dynamic time in the industry in Britain, the dying gasps of the industrial revolution. MM's had a good reputation for toughness among my relatives who had them. But they were designed for lower overall speeds, and roads that had been around for a long time, even if they weren't always paved. And this was relative to the alternatives available at the time. At that point, the Japanese were assiduously copying these cars wholesale. They didn't start to design their own, and start the improvement process we are benefitting form today, until the mid 60's. That Lotus engine would be a Ford Lotus, I suspect? Pretty darn good engien, for the time, but a pain to work on. I hear you have to pull the intake manifold to work on the points. I understand the Ford is a fairly common swap for the Minor.

The original Mini had the same engine as the Morris Minor, but adapted for transverse installation and grafted onto the gear box. It was known as the "A series BMC" engine. The same engine was used in the MG Midget and similar Triumph Sprite. Tuned to the nuts, they would produce 100 HP for the race track. Sir Alec Issigonis designed both the Mini and a substantial portion of the Minor. Subaru power for the Minor would be really cool. Let's hope it will work. I bet Sir Alec would have approved, both of this conversion and the Subaru itself. Rob.

If your timing belts are loose, the tensioners need to be adjusted. If they can't be adjusted, then the tensioners may be stuffed. Check the idler at the same time. It sounds like you did this as a quick fix at the side of the road. Is the belt routing, over the tensioners and idler, correct? Check this first! Rob.

I have had similar problems. Fiddling with the door latch inside while manipulating the handle outside can clear it. Pulling off the door liner with the door closed is not easy. I tried, but I don't think I managed it. It wasn't required in the end, anyway. To prevent this from happening, never lock the car. Rob.

Fuel pumps these days measure mass flow, not volume, then correct it to volume at 15 deg. C. That way, you get the same summer and winter. Rob.

That DAIR-100 does look nice, but the price might be a bit steep. The deposit is 2500 GBP, about $5k Canadian. I can only imagine what the final cost is going to be. It might not be as economical as we would hope either. It doesn't look too great at low loads. Mind you, I don't know what our gas engine curves look like at say 2600 RPM and 15-20 HP either. That is about what our cars run at 90 km/h. In any case, to get good fuel consumption , we would be looking for 3.00:1 final drives to get the RPM down. This thing likes to run at 2000 rpm. Rob.