Stubies Subie

Here’s another idea I just found doing an internet search: "...The standard cure (for oil consumption) is to pour a couple oz.'s of SeaFoam in each cylinder, let it sit overnight or longer with plugs out; crank with plugs out to eliminate any SeaFoam in the cylinders (i.e., prevent hydraulic lockup), then start up. It will likely smoke like it’s on fire for 5 minutes, then stop. On my Saturn, doing this and adding a can of SeaFoam to the oil for 100 miles before a scheduled oil change reduced oil consumption from ~500 mi/qt to over 1,000 mi/qt. A second treatment completely reduced consumption to a point I didn't need to top off between 3,000 mile changes" now what I'm thinking, (because what I got is a flat 4) if I can get one side of the car on a 45 degree slope then fill up the "high side" cylinders over night, that might work. I'm also reading more and more then prolonged use of seafoam in the crank case is a bad idea, yet here’s someone that drive 100 miles then changed his oil. The last time I added it to the crankcase; I drove 50 miles then changed the oil.

Ok, we got more results with the acetone cleaning this weekend, but not in the direction I had hoped. Before we continue with this build any further, I'm sure as you read this you will realize, there is a problem with the engine. The problem we're experiencing with this engine is in no way the result of any work performed by anyone, it's a problem that would have been impossible to see until the engine was in the car and running, and it's not specific to an EA82, the same thing could have happened if we had done an EJ22 swap This is no one’s fault and in no way, shape, or form do I blame anyone for what happened, it was just a fluke. I'm not mad at anyone, I'm not even upset about it, to me it's nothing more than just another challenge. So please, if you’re going to place blame on anyone or accuse anyone of anything, then I'd rather you kept your thoughts to yourself. It just happened. The problem may work itself out, or it may not, in the event that it doesn't work itself out, I'm already on the lookout for another "EA82" rebuilder. But as low cost cars go, and as most of us are always short on funds, let’s try to get this one working for as little as possible, so bare with us as we try different procedures to see if we can somehow get our compression back. I hope you understand this posting, and why I wrote what I did, so no flame throwing! ok, on with the build Statistics on the car: 900 miles to date Burning 1 quart of oil every 100 miles last weekend, GD tested the compression and got lower readings then I did, I believe the difference in readings between his test equipment and mine is due in fact to my compression tester being really old, and spending the last 30 years banging around in my tool box, so I believe his readings to be more accurate than mine he worked over the passenger side front cylinder on Sunday: before the acetone treatment, he got 90 lbs compression, after treatment he got 70. now while that may sound bad, I see that as good news, because, if there wasn't any debris between the rings, then General Disorders treatment wouldn't have had any affect at all, the fact that it did have an effect, and went down, tells me there's junk in there that needs to get cleaned out. and maybe some carbon deposit got lodged between a ring and the cylinder wall. who knows? but the readings did change. I got a compression tester identical to the one GD uses so our numbers match, I believe the numbers I gave originally a few posts back were to high, because my tester read high. So where am I at with the car now? After 900 miles, the compression numbers sound terrible, but it is running better, the two back cylinders are coming closer together in the readings, while the front cylinders are still all over the place. to me the car idles fine, it has a bit of a grumble to it that to me sounds like the torque cams, GD thinks it's still got a miss, but for me, I can't really tell for sure because I have no other EA82 with torque cams to compare it to It seems to have plenty of power on the road, it's got what I would describe as good get up and go. But those compression numbers make me think it should be running worse than it is. The amount of oil it's burning also tells me there's a ring problem, a leak down test verifies that as well, because you can hear the air pressure coming out the oil filler tube. so, according to seafoam, they say to do a good cleaning from the back side of the pistons, they claim that you should put 1 ounce of seafoam for every quart of oil in the crank case, and drive the car 30 to 50 mils and change the oil. I tried that and it seemed to have an effect, so I'm going to try it again, this time, I'm going to try 2 ounces of seafoam for every quart of oil. I'm thinking if we go at the rings from the back as well as the front, it's bound to have some effect.

I probably shouldn't post this, watch me get forever banned from the forums -but with two allen wrenches (we use a second allen wrench instead of paper clip as used in the video), picking a car door lock, on most cars really is this easy: Watch the video, a car door lock works the same way we have to do this every summer out at my place for people that either lost their keys, or locked them in their car, my neighbor has it down to a science, I've watched the guy do it in less then 10 seconds an a number of occasions. It takes a little practice but once you get the hang of it, it’s a peace of cake, I can do it in less then a minute, I’m not near as good at it as my neighbor is

Thanks 82gl4 I figured the problems I’m experiencing aren’t unique to me, I’m sure someone out there has put a used engine in their car only to find the rings don’t seat, it has a misfire, burns oil or what ever. 30 years ago, Chevy Vega’s were my thing, I can tell you, more than once I did an engine swap, only to find something wasn’t working like it was supposed to. that engine was an aluminum nightmare This thread is to document my progress, my problems and the solutions we came up with to fix those problems, it’s helping me, and hopefully it will help someone else. This is far from over, there’s going to be all sorts of mods to this car over time, as money allows

Thanks for clearing that up GD, I feel bad because it seems like every time I post something about my car, someone doesn't like it. I have complete confidence in GD's work, if I didn't I wouldn't have hired him. Trust me, as a customer, I'm not that easy to get along with and he puts up with me anyway, that says something all by itself, I can be a pain in the butt, I always want things done yesterday and I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist, I have to see for myself that the smallest little detail isn't overlooked, I will literally be looking over his shoulder as he works on my car, and if I don’t like something he’s doing, I’m going to tell him, so trust me when I say, I can be a pain in the butt. GD does do a good job, and he explains everything. Sometimes we have to think outside the box, if we refuse to use the modern technology that’s available to us, then you’re stuck using the ways of our ancestors, and if that’s the case, then Subaru wouldn’t exist, and we’d all be driving Studebakers. Now with that behind us, let’s move on to the next little challenge, the compression problem: It looks like we got a rusty/sticky ring issue, with the engine, and doing some internet searching, it looks like the method of choice would be to do a 50/50 mix of acetone and ATF. I found this reference which I thought was interesting: "The April/May 2007 edition of Machinist's Workshop did a test of penetrating oils where they measured the force required to loosen rusty test devices. Buy the issue if you want to see how they did the test. The results reported were interesting. The lower the number of pounds the better. Mighty interesting results for simple acetone and tranny fluid! Penetrating oil . Average load .. Price per fluid ounce None ............ ..... 516 pounds . WD-40 ............ .. 238 pounds .. $0.25 PB Blaster ......... 214 pounds .. $0.35 Liquid Wrench ... 127 pounds .. $0.21 Kano Kroil ........ 106 pounds .. $0.75 ATF-Acetone mix.. 53 pounds .. $0.10 The ATF-Acetone mix was a 50/50 mix (1 to 1 ratio)." What I found in my searching was two different opinions of the sticky ring syndrome, there’s the guy that said, pull the pistons, re-ring or clean, and then there were the guys that said, give it a penetrating oil treatment. I also read about the success rate, I found that interesting to, nowhere did I find any reference to – “I had to pull the pistons to cure the problem” Most all the success stories I read, pointed to using some form of penetrating oil, most notably, a 50/50 mix of ATF and acetone to free up the rings. The one trick that really seemed to do the job was forcing the mix past the piston and rings by way of forced air. I’ll give that a shot and report back my findings.

you can open that door in less then 10 seconds with two small allen wrenches, I'm just not real sure I should explain how it's done

I'm sorry but I can't quite buy that assessment, the pulley is lined up, it’s dead on, we double checked it, and the cork for the oil pan is maybe 1/8th inch thick at most, then when you torque down the pan bolts, it squishes it even flatter, It has great oil pressure. I’m sure if you could get inside an oil pan and measure the distance from the bottom of the pickup screen to the bottom of the pan, no two cars would measure alike, and how many of these “off road” EA82’s are driving around with crunched pans from bottoming out? Wouldn’t that decrease the clearance as well? I know they are supposed to at least have a factory skid plate protecting the pan, but I'll bet you dollars to donuts, there's a good number of EA82's running around without them. My car has never been off road the pan is flawless, no dents at all. Sometimes you gotta think outside the box, take a chance, dare to be different, Technology changes with time. If it’s assumed that not using a gasket on the oil pan is a bad thing, then let me be the guinea pig and prove that theory un-true. Your assessment really does sound legible, but with new better and more advanced sealants, I believe it to be false. I believe the uneven cylinder compression wasn’t caused by the way the engine was assembled, but rather from the amount of time the engine sat unused, and because of that the rings aren’t seating properly. I’m confident with a little help, that ring problem will work itself out.

I reached 550 miles today on the new engine, (used block) and decided to take a compression reading when I got home from work tonight. They still seem to be all out of whack from each other, but it is running better. Drivers side back cylinder (closest to fire wall) 175 lbs Drivers side front cylinder (closest to radiator) 115 lbs Passenger side back cylinder (closest to fire wall) 125 lbs Passenger side front cylinder (closest to radiator) 135 lbs I did that on a warm motor with all spark plugs removed, and throttle wide open. My compression tester is pretty old and beat up, but it works good on the boat motors, so I would assume it’s going to be ok for the car. I would think they should all be close to 175 lbs, so maybe I need to soak the cylinders in some more acetone to see if I can bring the low ones up, or maybe drive it some more and check it again in another 500 miles and see if they evened out any better. Not quite sure what to do about that yet.

yup, that would be the one

Bearings are behind the seals, and the seals would be no more at risk then the seals on an engine with an internal timing chain. the Chevy small block V8 has a seal on the crank behind the harmonic balancer that's pretty much exposed to everything, the seals keep the oil in and the dirt out. an outboard boat motor has lower unit seals that do the same thing, and they run submerged in river and lake water all day long. a seal is a seal, and if they will keep the oil in and the water out on an outboard boat motor, then it sure isn't gonna hurt anything to have them exposed on an EA82 without the timing belt covers. another example would be axle seals on a trailer, they keep the grease in and the grit out. and those are running inches from the road surface, not up under a hood on the EA82 protected from the elements (for the most part)

yup, it was, I sent dave the link, someone in Spokane did up an ad using a picture of Daves car, I sent him a link to it and flagged the ad. it's interesting to note that there was no contact information, no name, no phone number and no way to email or respond to the ad. Stuart

I don't have covers on my EA82 either. when we rebuilt, we threw them away. after running without them, I see no reason to have them, and if I ever end up with another EA82, I'll chuck those covers as well.

There’s two types of filters you can get, from a couple of manufactures, there’s Gano, out of California, and there’s Tefba, made in Australia and sold out of Texas. You can see what the Gano filter looks like a few posts back. This is what a Tefba filter looks like: A couple of things first: the filters are not cheap, my personal opinion is that they are over priced with the Cano filters at about $35 each and $20 for the cooling system filter. The Tefba filter is about $80. Both filters are liftime filters so you do only have to buy them once, you never have to replace them, just clean them out. The heater core filter is just a couple of reguler 5/8th inch brass garden hose end fittings (male and female) with a mesh screen filter that I'm pretty sure you could pick up at your local home depot or hardware store. I have used both the Tefba and the Gano, and personally I prefer the Tefba filters because they are super easy to clean, just unscrew the lid, pull out the filter, clean it, reinsert and screw the lid back on and your done. The gano filter has to be taken out of the upper radiator hose to be cleaned than reinstalled back into the upper radiator hose again. I went with the Gano filter on this build because it was cheaper, but will probably switch over to a Tefba filter at a later date. One works just as good as the other. And even though they are over priced, I still think it’s worth it. Here’s the link to Gano: http://autocoolantfilter.com/ Here’s the link to Tefba: http://www.tefba.com/index.html

I ain't worried about it at all, I think it came out fine. I like the idea of being able to park an EA82 with 147,000 miles on it in my garage, and not see a single drop of oil or coolant on the floor. I've heard it said that they all leak oil, ...I know of at least one that don't

I really like the idea of the cooling system filters, we got filters for the air to keep it clean going into the engine, we got a filter for the oil to keep it clean, and we got a filter for the fuel, but nothing at all for the cooling system. From my own experience, I can tell you, I’ve pulled some weird stuff out of those cooling system filters, from what looked like chunks of hair to sludge and bits and peaces of gasket material and sealer. I promise you, your cooling system isn’t near as clean as you might think it is, and it’s all that debris that I keep pulling out of the filters that would otherwise be plugging up my brand new radiator. And unlike the fuel system, or the air system, the cooling system is a closed system, so while it may seem that your doing a lot of unclogging when the filters are new, after 400 to 500 miles or so, your going to notice that the filters are needing to be cleaned less and less, and after a while, you won’t need to clean them any more often then you change an oil filter. But, when you first start using a cooling system filter, be prepared for collecting a lot of junk in them.

The old motor had a washed out cylinder, then we found one that had good cylinders and 123,000 miles on it, and that's the one we chose to go with but it ended up having sticky rings, but we have since got those freed up. I wanted a 2 row radiator, but found the part numbers to be misleading, they got a part number for one, but to the best of my knowledge, when you order it, what you end up with is a single row for an EA81, so I decided to go with general disorders suggestion and got one for something like 75 or 80 bucks, but it is a single row. And I gave away the old engine to Rugby Subie, so the cam towers are gone, but I didn't figure on having any troubles with the ones i got. My long term plans are to find another motor and build it up as we did this one and have it on hand as a spare, but that's a while off yet. I still owe money on this build, once I get that paid off, I'll continue on with the car.

These EA82’s are notorious for having over heating issues, I’ve read and heard time and again how the radiators are barely adequate, so when it came to this rebuild, I thought it would be in my better interest to have some form of cooling system filter. Running these filters has paid off, in the 4oo miles I’ve driven the car, the heater core filter has plugged up twice, and the radiator filter has plugged up once, they are simple to clean, and I’ve gotten all sorts of junk out of them that would have otherwise ended up in the radiator or heater core, and for me I’d rather have that junk go in a filter I can clean out, you would be surprised at the amount of debris you got floating around in your cooling system, it’s that junk and debris that plugs them up, and I’d much rather clean a filter for free, rather then replace a plugged up radiator at $100 plus. Here are some pictures of the filters: This is the radiator filter: And here’s a picture of it installed on my car: And here’s a picture of the heater core filter: I don’t have a picture of the heater core filter installed at the moment because it’s buried under my spare tire, so next time I got the tire out, I’ll take a picture of i

this is a short video clip of the exhaust so you can hear what the torque cams sound like on an ea82, I guess we can call this my before video, I am going to have a 2" exhaust put on it from the cat back, not sure what I want to do for a resonator and muffler yet though, I still need to think about that one.

Sorry I was a little slow in getting this thread updated, the engine is back in the car: We did kind of get off the a rough start with this new engine, and when we first got it running it ran like crap, and wouldn’t idle at all, it had something like 180 lbs compression on the two drivers side cylinders, and something like 100 lbs compression on the passenger side, but with some acetone treatments in the bad cylinders, following by some treatments of seafoam, we were able to bring the compression back up on the low cylinders, It turned out that the new block just needed the rings freed up and a good cleaning, we did the seafoam through the intake, and also in the oil, as well as through the gas tank, It’s now running pretty good, I’ve got 400 miles on it to date, and the more it’s driven the better it runs. I had to try out the 4 wheel drive, so here’s a picture of it sitting out in the middle of our field: This is just the beginning, there will be more updates to come, more things added to the car ect. .. just as soon as I pay off General Disorder, this has been somewhat of an expensive ordeal, but for the money spent, I’m very happy with what I got and believe that I now have a good foundation for an awesome build.

We’ve put so many new parts into this reseal, it’s hard to keep track, but so far, as best as I can remember we’ve done: All new seals, including the rear main new head gaskets New timing belts New water pump Used but good oil pump Used but good XT6 clutch set, including flywheel, clutch disk, pressure plate with less then 10,000 miles on them, they did look pretty much brand new. New pilot bearing, and throw out bearing All new coolant hoses New coolant New thermostat New PCV valve and hose New used block and heads, the ones I had were pretty much shot, so we found a good engine with less then 125,000 miles on it and decided to work with that instead. (we could have just dropped that engine in the way is was, but I wanted to go through it anyway) Compression cam grind Shell Rotella T6 full synthetic motor oil New oil filter Rebuilt power steering pump Electric fan conversion New NGK spark plugs and wires Plus some stuff not related to the engine repair like: Nice used blue floor mats out of a wrecking yard, (the interior is blue) used ash tray, the car came without one new rear tailgate lift struts a pet barrier for the back, to keep our dog where she belongs on long road trips. This I actually pulled out of my old jeep, so I’ve had it for years but it fit the Loyale perfectly. New wiper blades front and rear. Halogen backup lights from JCwhitney, I had them for years to, I bought those back in 97 when I bought my new garden tractor and used them as headlights, but beins how I never drive the tractor in the dark, I donated the back up light bulbs to the Loyale, and they are really bright, I think they are worth the investment if you can get a set. I’m sure I’m forgetting some stuff, but that’s all I can think of at the moment.

We made some more progress today, probably the most progress in a single day. We pretty much got the rest of the parts, and put the finishing touches on the motor. I wanted to pressure wash the engine bay and get rid of years of grease and grime, and had been putting it off because it was such a dirty job, but in reality, it ended up being about as easy of a job as anything we’ve done to this car so far. Here’s a picture of what it looked like under the hood before we started cleaning: I went to the corner grocery store and picked up this bottle of simple green: A few weeks ago, I went to Harbor freight and picked up an engine cleaning gun, part number: 68290, here’s a link: http://www.harborfreight.com/engine-cleaning-gun-68290.html Here’s a picture of the gun: The gun is about $7.00 and I will tell you, if you have an air compressor, it will be a very well spent $7.00. We only used a half bottle of simple green with this gun, and was able to cover everything under the hood, and I do mean EVERYTHING, and the longer you let it soak, the better it cleans. We didn’t let it sit at all, mostly because we were in a hurry to get the engine mounted before dark, so we only let ir soak for a couple of minutes before we took General Disorders pressure washer to it, his pressure washer is something like 2800 psi and has hot on demand 140 degree water. 5 minutes after we started pressure washing/steam cleaning, it looked like this under the hood: And 30 minutes after that, we had the engine mounted: And here’s another picture of the engine in place: It’s looking like we’re going to have it running Saturday, we gave up for the day because it was getting to dark to see, but all that’s left is to hook everything up, rebuild the power steering pump (it was leaking to) and then do the electric fan conversion.

ok, I only found one place in the US that's selling them, I'll order a set you can get them here: http://mdmetric.com/prod/flosser/flosserprice.htm

So, what your saying is that the Flosser 9104 is a direct plug in replacement for the stock 9004? if so, I'll order some. About the High output 9004 Bulbs and the H4 Replacement headlamps, let me Tell you that the German Brand: Flösser Sells a Replacement bulb to fit the 9004 Housing but with the REAL H4 100/80 Watts output (and Filament placement as the H4) in fact is a H4 Bulb with the 9004 Base. Look at the Filament Placement on the 9104: it goes "Vertical" While the Stock 9004 goes "Horizontal" I Really Noticed a Brighter Lights with those, also those makes the Light to Reach Further. QUOTE]

I was looking at some headlight options last night and thought my best bet would be to go with a 55/100 halogen bulb found here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/380221347071?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649 Those seem cheap enough at $4:50 each Then I got to looking further, and found that in Germany they have aftermarket headlights for our cars, and I think they are H4 which gives us more lighting options then the 9004’s that ours take. The link to the aftermarket German headlight is here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/110704483466?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2648 I wrote to the guy to ask about shipping to the us, but have not heard back from them yet, then again, my German isn’t all that great, especially when using Google translate. so he may still be trying to figure out what I'm asking

Ok, I know it’s been a while since I posted, but that’s not to say that we haven’t been working on the Subaru. I kept forgetting my camera, so Rugby Subie took a few and emailed them to me, and I’ve been busy with family life so I haven’t had a chance to really update this thread like I would like to. So here we go: we got the engine back together. There’s been some good and bad with this project but with General disorders expertise, I think we were able to circumvent a couple of possibly costly problems that arose with the reseal. When we got the cams back, they had some pitting on them, not on the parts that were ground, but where the cam rides in the housing. Here’s a picture of the cam tower installed General disorder was able to clean them up enough to keep the seals from leaking …yeah!!! We did have to change out the bell housing on the new motor because it was broke, but the old one was fine. Here’s a picture of the engine heads and cam towers all bolted back on, it cleaned up real nice. this is also where we started running into trouble with the oil pump, we had at least 4 used oil pumps where the bypass check valve was blown out which rendered the oil pumps useless, we finally found one that was good, and continued on with our assembly Here’s a picture of general disorder installing the belts: And a picture of the motor all put back together, although we are waiting on a couple of parts, so it’s not going to be ready to install until at least Wednesday: And last but not least, in order to understand the workings on a flat 4, you must become one with the flat 4 …here I am trying to become one with my motor ….. Actually, in that last picture, I’m just thankful we got it back together, this has been an expensive learning experience for me, but when it’s back on the road, it should be a pretty nice driving car. at some point down the road, when I have more money, I'll buy a new oil pump, and I'll also pick up an oil cooler, but for now, I'm just thankful we are able to get it running without leaking and blowing headgaskets. the engine that was in the car when I got it turned out to be a peace of junk needing a complete rebuild, so if there's one thing I've learned .....miles on a car mean nothing, it's how it was taken care of that counts. ....General Disorder said he'd seen better engines with more then 250,000 miles that were in better shape then the one I had.