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My GL would always run around 1/4 on the gauge, pretty normal. If let to sit and idle or driving in traffic until the fan came on, the gauge would read around half. Sounds like you're in the normal operating range of an ea82. The oil and temp gauges are pretty terrible in these cars, just take note of where they usually hang out, and if they deviate from that you have a problem. If your engine gets really hot before the thermostat opens and starts to cool off, you should replace the thermostat with a new one FROM THE DEALER. Don't use aftermarket crap, they'll fail. But as it is, I wouldn't worry.

Ugh, that sucks. Just went through something similar with my forester. Someone turned in front of me and I didn't have enough to brake. I bought my replacement car 1000 miles out of state, talked to the guy, had him send me pictures of everything I wanted to see, etc. Once I decided it was going to be a good deal some friends and I got a one way rental, drove down and picked the new car up. Depending on your insurance, they might actually pay for a few days of rental, and if going through an insurance company you don't usually have to pay the one way fee. If you don't fully trust the seller you could ask him to bring it to a dealer to have them check it out (on your dime, obviously). The dealer is likely to give you a good overview on the car, unlike a private shop that may be paid off, etc... If it checks out, go drive it home. Get some friend together and make a roadtrip out of it. Also, don't be in a rush to buy your new (used) car... Being in a rush to buy a car is the best way to get screwed on a deal.

Only thing I'd add to that pretty good list are that you can drop the exhaust as one piece to avoid dealing with the cat converter bolts. Sometimes I find it easier to do this, then I can drag the whole exhaust system out from under the car and it's not in the way anymore. Also, there are steel alignment pins that press into the bellhousings between the engine and trans. Sometimes they stay in the engine, sometimes they stay in the trans. Make sure that your new trans and engine will line up in terms of those, ie. don't have no pin on one side or two pins on one side, it's extremely annoying to remedy this issue when the trans is 90% installed. Take some emery paper and clean out the alignment peg holes so it slips together easier. When you unbolt the 4 flexplate to torque converter bolts through the access hole, take a screwdriver and push the torque converter back away from the flexplate. Sometimes they can rust together just a bit, enough to pull the torque converter out of the transmission. This isn't a huge deal since you're installing a different trans, but it'll dump atf all over you.

I dunno where you live. As my location states, I live in northern Maine.

You can't, they're entirely different. The fronts MAYBE if you also swapped the strut, drilled the tophat mount, found a balljoint that fit the control arm, and made a custom axle... The rear, no chance.

I find the throttle response really obnoxious on the CVT, it's super touchy and jumps off the line and there's no sport mode. Which means if you're hooning around it "upshifts" all the way when you let off, then takes forever to "downshift" again when you want power. I suppose the gas pedal thingy annoys me more that I drive a diesel (not subaru) now and kind have to mash it...

jdgmbi1, where are you located? If you were near me I'd probably stop by on the weekend and give you hand getting in the right direction with it. That's how I learned to work on my cars, a few forum members gave me a hand doing some service on my car and got me in the right direction. I'm sure someone local to you would take a day or two to teach you how to work on it.

I thought all 84's had the ea81... And yes, the ea82 has a terrible oil pressure gauge, too. Mine always read consistently the same values for the same conditions, but when checked with an actual gauge it read on some sort of log scale or something completely random and useless. Ie. inaccurate garbage.

I've driven a crosstreck quite a lot, actually. I'm with JesZek, I'll take the hatchy. The crosstreck CVT makes me angry, it's BAD. Maybe a manual one would be better...

First off, ea82 oil pressure gauges are really inaccurate and shouldn't be used for anything other than "it has oil pressure". So for any useful readings there, install a good aftermarket gauge. You really shouldn't have that much crankcase pressure, you probably have a clogged PCV, the crankcase vent thingy, you have an ea81 in that car so it's on the back of the intake manifold right in the middle. The ea81 with 125k miles should run for another 100k miles if taken care of, I say do the headgaskets on it. They're an easy, forgiving engine to work on and you'll learn a lot about cars.

Nice! I'd love to find one of those or a brat with no rust, what a lovely little car!

Couldn't say, however the correct bearings are really cheap at machine shops in the US, you could try there. Just stop into any machine shop and ask about 6207 bearings, they should be like $5 each, for that I'd rather not do the job twice. That said, front wheelbearings on a GL are ridiculously easy...

If you're gonna test for bad diodes with a volt meter it has to be a true RMS meter, that is, the meter measures the frequency and calculates the RMS voltage. If you use a cheapo volt meter it assumes any AC voltage is 60hz because that's all most people ever use it for, since the ripple coming out of an alternator is more than 60hz you'll get inaccurate readings, usually way higher than what's actually there.

If it's charging fine and you didn't fix the knock sensor, it's probably the knock sensor... Just go to autozone or VIP or something, they'll usually scan the code for free.

Don't use any of the random mixes of different oil in your transmission. There are huge threads on NASIOC about it, and the result is a lot of ruined transmissions. If you want the very best oil for the transmission, get subaru extra-S and be done with it. Or use a good quality GL5 gearoil and it'll also be fine. A lot of additives to different oils are bad for soft metals used in synchros, there's one way to find out... I live in Maine and it's also freezing cold in the winter, I ran napa premium GL5 gear oil in all my manuals and never had a problem.

Don't use anything besides GL-5 gearoil with a hypoid differential, like the one inside the transmission.

I find craigslist a lot safer for buying used things, especially. Craigslist is pick up only for me, I'd never trust a craigslist seller to ship something, that's just asking for it. At least with ebay the seller almost always wins a dispute, so even if you do get ripped off, you usually get refunded.

Buying parts on ebay can get you some really good deals, but you have to be careful. Make sure the seller has a return policy so when you get the wrong part or a defective part it's a painless process to return it. I recently bought a part for my Mercedes on ebay that looked really good and listed as new, however I was sent a used, defective part. I had to go through an ebay claim to get the seller to refund me, pita all around. Then I bought more parts for my hydraulic suspension and they actually sent me a different, more expensive brand than I paid for. I guess you win some, you lose some.

I only buy OEM subaru thermostats from the dealer. They aren't very expensive and the aftermarket ones cause all sorts of issues.

Huh, mine always run at about 180-185 when I'm driving, as checked by the scangauge. The fans kick in around 190 or maybe a bit above when I'm stopped (and AC isn't running, obviously).

You should probably have the fans come on before 200 degrees, it's a 180 degree thermostat, so 190 degrees would be a good setting.

Start with the basics. Do you have spark at all the cylinders? Do you have fuel flow to the carburetor? If the engine got hot and/or the fuel lines are poorly routed it's possible you vapor locked the fuel system.

You can get a transmission that isn't from the plagued year range, with a 60 day warranty for LESS money..... and you're considering buying a car with 200k that has a tranny from the plagued year range for double scrap value... That one is one you, good luck...

No, I think it's the seal around the reverse actuator rod. Either way, it's an internal issue that happens to all 99-01 automatic transmissions. They start out slowly engaging into gear, then usually lose reverse followed by not going into drive. I would avoid that year range. A friend of mine used to work at an indy repair shop and said they really aren't hard to rebuild, but I've never actually fixed one so I can't comment there.

You don't want a 99-01 transmission, they have an issue with the seals, lose pressure, and stop going into gear. Mileage aside, you want an 02+ transmission.