WoodsWagon

Broken springs or worn out struts will not cause tire rubbing. The tire should have clearance from a fully compressed suspension to a fully drooped one. If you tire was rubbing it was either bigger than stock size or you have a bent/broken/worn out linkage or bushing in the back that's letting the wheel move in ways it shouldn't.

DON'T BOTHER WITH SWITCHING SPRINGS AND TOPHATS! The problem is that the threads on the newer strut rods don't go down as far as the old ones. So when you tighten the nut, it's bottoming out on the threads before it actually clamps the strut cap. So that leaves the strut rod loose to rattle over bumps. With new struts there's usually gas pressure holding them extended. So you can take the nut off with the struts installed in the car with the weight of the car sitting on them. Then grind a washer to fit or flatten out a lockwasher so it can go under the nut. Zip the nut down with and impact and you're done. I delt with exactly the same problem on a 94 turbo wagon with outback struts

The full time 4x4 transmission isn't worth swapping, the rear LSD certainly is. You take the limited slip carrier out of that diff, grind a bit on the housing of your loyale diff, and put your ring gear on the limited slip carrier. It's not complicated work. If you can pick up that diff cheap, do it. They sell for $300 on ebay to the datsun guys. A dual range 2wd/4wd transmission out of a 86-89 gl wagon/3dr coupe/sedan is what you'd want.

The 200 rpm rise/drop while cruising sounds like the torque converter locking and unlocking, which is the TCU's first step before downshifting when going up a hill. Could something else like a failing throttle position sensor be causing that? Is the check engine light on?

You need to reach up inside the rear wheel wells, way up into the tower the strut goes into. So with the back of your hand against the coil spring, curl your fingers in so you can push against the outer wall of the tower. If it's still there, it will crumble, if it isn't, that's where the water/salt is getting in to rust your doglegs from the inside. Use a wire wheel to clean the bubbled paint down, then coat it with a rust converter primer and after that cures, paint. You're just buying time after the rust starts, but you can prolong the agony quite a while with rust converter and paint. You can also use wax based sprays to soak the inside of the panels to help keep rust from spreading. Bondo actually holds moisture, so it will rust the metal out around it if it isn't completely sealed with paint from both sides.

Reverse is often the first to go, and it will still work cold because the fluid is thicker. 5 minutes later, no reverse. I did a manual conversion for a friends turbo-wagon. He lost reverse and it sucked parking in the city he lived in. Used transmissions are a pretty good gamble and it's cheaper than having it rebuilt.

Sounds like seized slider pins weren't letting the caliper move over enough. When the rotor was loose on the hub it could center itself in the caliper, when the wheel was bolted down it was pressing against the inboard pad because the caliper couldn't move over.

A seperate heater box in the bed is the best way. If you duct air from the front it won't get nearly as warm because you're venting the air out all the leaks in the bed. With a heater back there the hot air will recirculate and get hotter instead of being wasted. Many SUV's and vans have auxiliary rear heaters that should be cheap and easy to find in a junkyard. Run some insulated copper pipe to the back and you'll be toasty.

Yup, or seized slider pins where the bolts hold the caliper to the bracket.

The outback steering coupler is longer between the two u-joints because they have spacers between the body and the crossmembers on the outbacks. Last one I bought was $75 new from the dealer, so they're not too expensive to replace. Just don't spin the steering wheel while you have the coupler removed, the clock spring connector for the airbag will break and that's much more expensive to fix.

Make sure it's a flat washer anti-fouler, they sell tapered ones too. 18mm flat washer anti-fouler Help brand 42009

Look, it is just not that complex. You have a plug under each seat. Those wires run directly to the switches in the center console, and then you have power, illumination and ground coming from those switches. Once the harness is unwrapped it becomes very obvious what is necessary and what isn't. There's 3 wires to each seat if I remember correctly. A common, and a lead for each element. High vs low is running them in parallel or series. That's also why if an element is broken there's no heat on low, but the good element still works on high.

The wiring harness you cut out of the donor car is the clean and simple way. If you un-wrap all the tape from it you will have the wires going from the center console switches out to each seat plug, and a long pair of wires going to the passenger side for the power, ground, and illumination. Once you have it all un-wrapped, you get rid off all the extra wires in there and keep just the ones I mentioned. Keep the ground wire on the passenger side, but run the illuminaiton and power wires up to the cig lighter.

You can change out 5th gear and you may be able to do it with just removing the transfer housing from the transmission in car. The GT's came with a .78 overdrive while your outback has a .82 overdrive, so 5th out of a GT would drop your cruising RPM's a fair bit. Easiest would be to swap in a transmission from the same year GT.

It's not nay-saying when there are obvious consequences for actions. If I tell you slamming your fingers in a door is going to hurt and you call me a nay-sayer and do it anyway, it makes me wonder about your mental condition. Building an EA82t and trying to squeeze power out of it is the financial and emotional equivalent of intentionally crushing your fingers. There's a reason no one else is doing it, and it's not because they aren't pioneers. JWX and WJM especially used to be into the ea82's. WJM passed away recently, but he probably pushed harder to build the best ea82 than anyone else. The story again and again was "the next engine will hold together because we did this to it". His power was 165hp/225tq to all 4 wheels. Then they had the "miracle motor" #5 which held together for a surprising amount of time (80k miles) until a coolant hose blew off and it cooked. Just like every EA before it and a couple after. I have an 86 EA82T that runs great when the ECU works and floods itself to the point of dropping valve rockers out when it goes into failure mode. When I get around to dealing with that car it will come out and be replaced with a real engine. There's no reason to stay with a troublesome and archaic platform when swapping in a much better one is so easy.

I looked at the stock wiring in my dad's Brighton for a while, and went a different route because nothing was there in the dash harness to support it. You need the floor harness between the two seats and the switches, then strip out the power and illumination wires that went over to the passenger side rocker wire bundle. Run those up the center console and tap into the cigar lighter wires. Ground it on the stock screw under the passenger seat. I also cut the plastic trim backer ring for the e-brake boot. That let me put the switches in without having to mess with the boot. You'll see what I mean when you have the two next to each other.

Yup, my speedo was 20% low, so I'd multiply the odometer reading by the correction factor before using it for MPG calculations. I also had number stickers on my dash lined up with what the real speed was. Didn't work at night as they were opaque, but I had a good feel for what rpms in what gear were by then. I do the same with my truck, the speedo reads high so I multiply the miles by 0.96 to get the actual miles traveled.

With it idling in park turn the A/C on full blast. The idle speed should jump up a couple hundred rpms. If it doesn't, you need to take apart and clean the pintle in the idle air control solenoid. It's on top of the throttle body.

Most autocross doesn't have speeds over 50mph, so you'll never be close to the speed limiter.

A mechanical governor controlling line pressure and shift points, no. It's a fully electronically controlled transmission. Top speed governor, probably, but that's a function of the ECU not the TCU. What's the problem you're having with it?

There's the hatch: And there's the 3-door coupe: Parts do not interchange between the two.

It's not that bad if you have no mercy for the engine. My SPFI EA82 wagon wouldn't quite break 100mph with 30x9.5 mud king's on it. I did a run where it held 85+ for an hour and burnt out the exhaust gaskets where the Y pipe attaches to the head. Also set an 02 sensor code. It was a good time and I was lucky I didn't get caught. I've done a 4 hour trip averaging in the 70's with a EJ22 running on 3 cylinders in the same wagon. Equivalent power to the EA82 at that point. Don't be afraid to let it rev in a lower gear and get good at fast downshifts.

Try cleaning out the idle air control valve with carb cleaner. It's the thing bolted to the side of the intake next to the throttle body that the 1" rubber hose goes to from the intake tube.

It can last a while or it can break quickly, it depends on how abusive you are and if the car has much wheel hop. I lunched a couple sets of rear transfer gears in the d/r 4x4 boxes. A friend bought a wrx with shredded rear transfer gears. They are the weak link, but it's not too bad to replace them especially on an EJ transmission where you don't have to wongleflute with the shift pills to pull the transfer housing off. If you had a gsl-se it would be worth fixing, but the 12a in yours is meh anyways.

If the duty C goes bad, the a/t temp light will flash 16 times when you start the car. If the fluid is dirty, putting in the FWD fuse will make the bind go away. Change the fluid 3 times with a bit of driving in between each change. If the bind doesn't go away with the FWD fuse in but the a/t temp light isn't flashing, you may need to replace the clutchpack as the tabs sometimes wear into the splines of the drum and get jammed.