l75eya

Miles, you definitely seem like an interesting person to go hit up a bar with. Or a junkyard. With a hacksaw.

Don't get a chance to get a shot of the two together!

Brother drove around in his impreza with BLOWN rear struts for over a year. Hit a bump on the highway and the car would slide around for the next 60-70 feet. When we finally did replace those struts the shock absorber on the pass. literally fell apart when we flipped it upside down and water poured out of it. Pretty crazy. I remember making a drive from jersey to pa in a blizzard (it's FWD imp.) in that car with it in that condition on tires with steel belting coming through. On 1/4 of a tank. ...oh the stories..

Definitely recommended that you use a breaker bar with a nice long pipe on it. Idk the bumping the starter idea always scared the * out of me. If you do bump the starter, make sure that wrench is on that bolt good haha. And yeah, disconnect the coil. Wouldn't be good to have the motor running with a wrench attached to the crank pulley bolt. Look out!!! lol

On the top of the transmission, where the spare tire goes, there's a little rubber plug. Pull off the plug, rotate the crank a bit until you see a bolt on the flywheel. I threw a box-wrench on the bolt, slowly turned the crank until it was up against the transmission housing, and then went to town taking off the crank pulley bolt. Worked like a charm.

I WANT VISUAL EVIDENCE!

Just so you know, London, (I think that might be my nick-name for you, Nick, if you don't mind =P) the text at the bottom of the page is still black and a bit hard to read. Little FYI. Also, I really am admiring all of the work you've done to that little wagon. Your pictoral step-by-step guides to everything you're doing is going to be a bible to somebody eventually I'm sure. I think some of your repairs should be linked to and stickied in the USRM. Bravo!

I'm having a very similar thing happening in my 87 gl 4wd. It's been a coming and going noise that sounds like it's coming from the back right (passenger) side tire. It started about 3 months ago after using the 4wd in the snow. it's been very non-apparant since then until two days ago when I set out on a 900+ mile round-trip. It was making the noise on the highway (very fast knocking) but then it went away. On the way back from the trip the noise came back and started getting louder until there was finally a loud pop and the car reacted as if I had hit a bump (only in the back) and then there was no noise until about 5 minutes later it did it again with the same bump hit feeling. After that I pulled off and jacked the back up by the diff to look around the rear wheel, but everything back there feels tight. I'm thinking either a dragging brake shoe that's snagging, or perhaps a bad u-joint or the carrier bearing. I'm going to check that stuff out tomorrow, suggest you might do the same.

Just pulled 989 miles in two days. Something in the back is wearing out, be it a wheel bearing (everything feels solid) or maybe it's a catching brake shoe. Could be a u-joint or the carrier bearing..dunno yet. Made a few unnerving noises along the drive but aside from that, all was well. 2-1/2 tanks of gas.

What better reason could there be then? Two nice upgrades to two nice 'roos. I think the ej18 is my favorite engine. They seem to be *the* most reliable engines built. I've heard of countless examples with 300+k on them, and the one I mentioned previously in my brother's Impreza is getting up there. Last time I saw his car he was at 230k, and that thing runs just amazingly well.

Check your fuel filters? Do you have another carb you can throw on there? Have somebody else start it and when it starts to stall squirt some starter fluid in the carb. See if it keeps running. Make sure it's a fuel problem, then just start running down the list of possibilities. Sucks Ned is giving you a hard time. Good luck

Probably just a coincidence. If you ran your car for awhile with a bad alternator it may have taken it's toll on your battery. OR you may have gotten a less than par alternator as a replacement. Do you have a voltmeter? What reading do you get on it? The ticking, it seems like you've read about it already. Replace that oil pump and put a new gasket and be rid of it!

Never had that problem with the apple coring though. I've seen how easy it is to replace the governor gear though; pretty much as simple as changing a spark plug. Few more tid-bits; If you're cruising at 25ish and want to accelerate quickly, just drop the trans into 2nd. It's not very responsive even if you mash the gas, it'll probably just keep trying to pull in 3rd. And (idk, mine is like this) do not ever, ever, ever shift the transmission into 1st while you're rolling more than like 2 mph. It will NOT be a pleasant experience.

Been looking for somebody putting the ej18 into an L series. Everybody throws in the 2.2s. Looking forward to this! Hopefully one day I'll be plucking the ej18 out of my brother's impreza, if he ever gets rid of it!

haha! Those videos were great. Glad to see I'm not the only one that got out in the white stuff today! Got about a foot down here in Jersey! Got pics and video up on my thread too if you wanna check em' out. Not nearly as interesting though, but fun stuff!

Finally got to drive my car around in some REAL snow! Thank you snowstorm Nemo! Pictures and videos! And a couple short silly videos Hooray! Only took 3 winters to finally get some real snow to drive around in!

Ever want to work on your car yourself but would like to have some extra hands to help out, let me know! I love working on these cars.

Glen, Visitor message left. Can't send PMs yet.

These cars don't scoff at running high RPMS for extended periods of time at all. Only thing I can say is keep up with your timing belt replacements. If anything is going to go from running high rpms for awhile, it's one of your timing belts if they haven't been replaced and are old and worn. Though, to re-assure you, our Loyale was driven regularly on the highway for over an hour commute DAILY for 2 years. 65 mph is a comfortable speed (you'll be just under 4k at 65). As I said in my first post here, click my screen-name and you'll see a picture of the Loyale breaking 100 mph But really, you don't need to worry about driving 65 mph on the highway. You can even cruise at 70 for awhile if you wanted to. It's nothing to worry about. I remember when we first got the Loyale, I had the same reservations about bringing it up to speed you did haha The ONLY thing that isn't good about the engine running so fast at those relatively low speeds is gas mileage, but even that doesn't really get too bad. I remember when we took the Loyale to Canada (10 hour drive. That's 10 hours of 4,000 rpms by the way) we got on average 24 mpg.

Hey, just wanted to let you know I went through your entire webpage about your repairs to your L that you have. That's some nice work you did there!

That's an awesome story and some pretty cool pictures as well. Also a very nice BRAT. Do you have any threads for it on here?

If it holds the oil and you don't have to put a quart in it every week, and you're concerned about the ticking, just replace the oil pump + gasket.

That sounds *awesome*. Would love to hear it winding out!

If your shocks are still in good condition, there is constant pressure in the shock absorber pushing the steel rod upward. The only time it will fall down on it's own is if your shocks are bad. There's a good bit of pressure pushing that rod up, nothing you can't over-come though. If you have the whole shock out and in your hands you can put the bottom on the ground and then use your hand and with a bit of force you can compress the shock absorber yourself, to give you an idea of the resistance. With it in the strut assembly, it might be a little tricky to get it to compress, but with a little creativity it should be possible. I'm thinking a rag wrapped around it and a pair of vice grips. Move it downward a little bit at a time and then chock something in there to hold it in it's new position while you re-attach the vice grips at a different point. Kinda sucks that happened, but you'll get it in the hole! =P lol Good luck!