WoodsWagon

The bigger the tire, the higher the car, the easier it is to get in and out with a bad back. I did a bit of looking around and saw a few reports of 215/75r15's fitting with minimal rubbing on outback strut only cars. With your additional lift, they should fit fine.

EJ205 is DOHC and will not fit between the framerails of an 84 wagon. You can notch and reweld the framerails to make it fit, but it doesn't just drop in. Rear suspension is completely different, so none of the legacy parts will work. Front parts can be made to work, but it's a hodge podge of hybrid axles to get the width right, lower control arm reaming, and tie rods to make it fit. If you want 5 lug disk in the rear, your only option is XT6 parts. You'll also need nissan 200sx rear calipers and cables to switch to rear e-brake. If you're running a turbo motor, you need a turbo wiring harness and ECU. I'd run with the EJ22 you got from the 90 legacy. You'd be suprised how well it does in the lighter 84 wagon body. It also fits without having to hack up the framerails. Do the motor and transmission swap first without touching the suspension. Drive it that way for a while before you tackle the 5 lug swap. You can also use a carb and distributor with the EJ22 1990 legacy motor, which would simplify the swap into your wagon. The factory parts to do it are available overseas, or you can modify an 83 ford escort distributor and weld a carb mounting plate to the FI intake manifold.

205/75r15's will fit fine, and are a little bigger than stock. You have a lift on Blu, so I'd go bigger if you could. 215/70r16's will also fit on a stock wheel WRX with Outback Struts with slight rubbing on the rear rocker, easily fixed with a couple hammer taps. So I would assume 215/75r15's would fit the same way. With your lift they probably won't rub at all. The geolanders are reasonable tires. The 215/75r15's are a 27.7" tire, but blu being an automatic would have 4.44 final gearing which will be fine with the larger tire.

Drive in a couple tight circles in a parking lot to check for binding. The 5spd's are pretty rugged, but if run with a spare or different tire for a while you can burn up the center diff. If it hops and bucks when you do tight turns, you can use that as a bargaining chip. You don't have to pull the trans to swap the center diff. Take a good look at the rust. Where the rocker panels meet the rear wheel well is the most important area, make sure they're solid inside the wheel well too. Only downside to these cars are the strangler seatbelts. You can get normal ones and pillar trim from canada if they bother you.

A write up with pics would be great. EJ dual ranges were never sold in north america because Subaru figured people were too stupid to work an extra lever, and the bigger motors would make up for the lack of gearing. So the only way to get an EJ d/r box is to import it from NZ or AU, and most people won't pull and export transmissions because the buyers here flake out on the sale. It's a damn shame really.

The stainless steel clips that go between the pads and the bracket can get bent and rub. You also said you had a hard time getting the pads in, so that could have bent them. Pads should slide in and out of those brackets easily. If they don't, you will get bad wear. Take the stainless steel clips off and clean the bracket behind them. Rust often builds up in there, pushes out on the clips, and wedges the pads. Cheapo aftermarket pads often have poorly finished ears where they fit into the clips. Sometimes you have to grind the ears to make them fit in easily. Coat with grease to keep the ears from rusting.

If you're on good terms with a Subaru dealer parts dept, you can get a front 5mt 4.44 ring and pinion set for $300. I'd do that before I went through the trouble of dissasembling a 4eat, welding up and machining a shaft. Plus I'm not a fan of his annealing step. Seems like a good way to end up having the pinion twist off the shaft.

Measure the height of the subframe drop blocks on the forester, then make strut spacers the equal height. We know you can lift impreza's to forester height using just the struts, and that doesn't cause ball joint or axle problems. So putting strut spacers on the forester would end up with the same net effect.

Here's a comparison picture of the ground clearance of a legacy brigton with Outback struts only, and a Outback with the factory subframe spacers ect: Both are on the same size tires. There are no axle or ball joint issues with running just the taller struts. You can bring it into alignment specs too. If you're picky you can put in rear camber bolts, but it really isn't an issue. Swapping the rear trailing arm mounts where it bolts under the back seat to outback or forester ones will help re-center the rear wheel in the wheel well, but again, that's optional and not necessary. It does help keep bigger tires from rubbing on the rocker panel though.

Here's how the Mitsubishi truck wheels tuck on an EA82 with 235/75's: If you use the subaru plain steel lugnuts, you can use the hubcaps from the steel rims like so:

One of my friends had one with really bad delayed engagement. She was pissed one day waiting for it to catch and had it revved way up. Well, after a bit, it caught. The cop that saw her burning rubber out of a parking space didn't find it funny. Try the trans-X. You've got nothing to loose at this point.

Yeah, I can almost guarantee it's rotted through in the strut tower if it's rusting out on the quarters. You just haven't reached your hand into the right spot. You can't see it unless you stick your head in the wheel well with the wheel removed. It's the box that the strut goes up into, and it will only have 3 walls left. The wall that meets the wheel house crumbles to nothing.

The EGR light on the dash is a mileage tripped reminder light, it has no relation to anything on the engine. I forget how to reset it, but a quick search on here will tell you how.

The rear wheel well rust is just an outside result of rust further in. The problem starts because the outer wall of the rear strut tower rusts through. That lets tire spray run inside the quarter panel. It puddles at the rear corner of the wheel well and you get the rust through you see. You have to fix the problem in the strut tower before you try fixing the rear wheel well rot, or it will just come right back.

Propane is used in scrap yards all over because it's cheaper than acetylene. There's also an acetylene shortage and rationing right now because one of the two suppliers plant's blew up in the midwest. Now, like miles said, NEVER GO ABOVE 15psi with acetylene on the regulator. It can self ignite and blow up in the hose. Also, never drop or bang an acetylene tank, it can start a reaction inside the tank that causes it to explode hours later. Store acetylene tanks upright, and if they've been on their side for transport, store them upright for a few hours before using them. It's not liquid in the tank, it's gas dissolved in a substrate, so there's handling precautions. Now oxygen, never get any grease or oil in the hoses or on the couplers. It can self ignite and blow up in the hose. Open the fuel bottle valve only 1/2 a turn so it's easy to shut back off in an emergency. Store the torch with both tank valves off and the lines and regulators de-pressurised. Shut the tank valves off, then open the torch valves until the pressure gauges drop to zero. Close the torch valves. 3 knobs on the torch, 2 are oxy controls, one is fuel. Close all 3 valves to start with. Open the main oxy valve by the fuel valve a turn or so. Open the fuel valve 1/4 turn and light it. Adjust it so you have the longest flame, but still attached to the tip. Then use the oxy valve 1/2 way up the torch to adjust the flame to be neat blue cones. Heat the surface until it's glowing and wet looking, then pull the handle to blast oxy into it. The steel actually burns, it's accelerated rusting in fact. Keep the torch pointed at a 45 degree angle in the direction your cutting and take it slow. If you loose the burning section, go back to heating it and pull the handle again. With acetylene, I usually run 10psi and 25psi on the oxy when cutting. When using a welding tip, the acetylene psi I adjust to match the number of the tip. Not precise, but it works. Adjust the regulators with the torch flowing gas.

There's often instructions on a yellow sticker on the upper radiator support next to the battery on how to reset the alarm.

EJ18's do not have knock sensors, so the computer will not retard timing to stop it from knocking like EJ22's and 25's will. Try premium gas for a tankful and see if it stops. If it does, then either the EGR system is clogged up or not working, or the pistons have too much carbon on them. Don't put 20w50 in any modern engine. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, the thick oil won't spread properly in low clearance bearings, so the bearing starves for oil while you have great oil pressure in the galleries. The oil starved bearing wears quickly, opening up the clearances, and now the oil can get in, so the bearing stabilizes. However, you now need to run 20w50 for the rest of the life of the engine because the bearings are trashed. Best thing is to just not go down that road.

I know you've had a lot more junker EA82's than me, but I've never seen a switch go bad. The click click no start is always the starter solenoid contacts in my experience.

I usually shift closer to 7-8k. It won't rev above 8,200 because the valves float. I really don't give a damn about this engine, and the ECU craps out into a default mode after about 30 minutes of running and then heals itself if you leave it with the battery unhooked for a couple weeks. So for that 30 minutes or less, I'm free. I keep hoping it will chuck a rod so I can add that to my wall of carnage in the shed, but the damn thing won't die. It won't stay running either, so it's annoying.

You walk them out with a sharp chisel, or drill the head off. But you don't need to worry about that because if the key turns, it's not the ignition lock cylinder. It's probably not the ignition switch either. I assume when you turn the key to the start position, all you get is a loud click in the engine bay? That's the starter solenoid, and the contacts wear out in it. You can either put a reman starter in, or buy the contacts and put them in your self.

The digi-dash, while cool and totally 80's, is pretty unreliable. It also takes different senders, like the fuel tank sender, an oil pressure switch, and some other things like an outside temp sender. The wiring does not plug and play, so you have to get the set of connectors with the digi-dash and splice into yours. I'm going the opposite direction, but I'm using the harness out of my loyale to switch my GL-10 back to analog. The only good thing about the digi-dash is it has an audible alarm when you go past redline. It makes beating the bag out of the EA82T that much more fun. Beep Beep Beep Beep.... and he hammers 2nd.

Wheels are 15" x 6" with 4.5" back spacing from the hub mounting surface to the inside edge of the rim.

The BFG a/t's are a reasonable all-terrain tire, but I wasn't too pleased with mine. They wore pretty quick with what I was doing, even, but quick. Ripped some big chunks out of them too, and had a sidewall flap hanging for a while. They suck in the mud, the tread won't clear so you end up with slicks. Same thing in the snow. I'd get stuck in snow without being high centered just because the tires would pack up. They were quiet on the street, did well in the rain, and performed OK in the woods. I wouldn't recommend them though. I ran a set on my Tacoma and had the same results as the subaru, so it wasn't a subaru only thing. I run whatever's round, used, and cheap on the truck. 3 sets of wheels with 15" and 16" give me flexibility in finding used tires.

Just a FYI, the final torque on the head bolts brings them all to around 90-95 ftlbs. If you have a digital torque wrench, you can watch the torque as you do the last 90 degree crank on the bolts.

I've actually had surprisingly good luck with a universal CV boot. You cut the old boot off, grease everything up, and stretch the new boot over the joint using a bunch of flat head screwdrivers. Once it's in place you fill it with CV grease, clamp it down with the bands and trim off the excess boot on the big end. They seem to hold up well, and you don't have to take the axle apart. http://www.dormanproducts.com/catalog/OESolutions2006/055-066CVJointBootsandAccessories.pdf