Stubies Subie

when my old jeep would brake down, and I had to open the tool box, the song "another one bites the dust" kept popping into my head. but now that I have a subaru, that needs fixing, and having someone else to do the fixing for me ....this song keeps popping into my head:

And that's why my car is out your house, I have complete confidence in what you do and look forward to the finished product and very much appreciate the time and effort you have put in to this. You have gone way above and beyond on this one, and I thank you for that. Those heads look awesome by the way, The next time I pass a broke down Loyale on the side of the road with steam rolling out from under the hood, and realize, it’s not me this time, I’ll have General Disorder to thank. You have no idea how much I appreciate the time you’re putting into that car. With out you and Rugby Subie helping me out with this, I know I’d be in a world of hurt.

I got the work bench and the glass, I do that with all the outboard boat motors I've rebuilt, there's nothing worse then blowng a head gasket while on the middle of the lake on a good fishing day!

ok, disappointing news, at least for me, my other Car broke down today and I was never able to make it over to General Disorders house, I spent all day working on our 2001 Buick Century, we finally got it running a few minutes ago. it wasn't that bad of a job, but it took me a while to figure out what I was doing, once I got it figured out, it went quick, but I still didn't get it done in time to go to GD's place, hopefully I'll have better news for you at some point this coming week. Stuart

we did some more cleaning today, well Rugby_Subie did more cleaning today, we're going to go back tomorrow and do some more. General disorder said we could start reassembly tomorrow. Here’s a picture of what we did get clean: it was a mess, but the more Rugby_Subie cleaned, the better it looked, all 4 cylinders look really good, and I'm finally starting to get excited to get it back together, with the torque cams, I'm thinking that this engine is going to have a sound all it's own. I did some major searching the other night for EA82's with torque cams installed and found nothing, while I did find a few posts of people that talked about doing it, I found nothing in reference to it actually being done. when it's up and running I'll be sure to get some good recordings of the sound, I plan on doing a simple exhaust mod to get a deeper throaty sound, although at this point, I'm not quite sure what that's going to be. I'll have more to post tomorrow, pictures today are complements of Rugby_Subie because I forgot my camera, tomorrow I'll be sure to bring mine and get more photos. Stuart

I thought that was a good video when I saw it. Today while driving to work, I saw a subaru wagon with a canoe on the roof towing a pop up camping trailer, it looked like a newer Legacy Outback, but what the heck, it was a subie, and it was towing something, I shoulda had my camera oh yeah, and the cams came back, I talked to Generaal Disorder today, we're going to clean up the new block tomorrow, then the re-assembly begins, I can almost hear it running now! YEE-HAW!

I ordered new tailgate lift struts for my loyale wagon off the internet, now to get the hardware off the old ones

I plan on doing the rear disk brake upgrade before I do any major towing, but right now, we're completly focused on getting the engine running and back in the car, from there, more upgrades will be coming. I've also considered stiffining up the suspension as Loyale 2.7 Turbo talks about here: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=110546

that Boxer sound was general Disorder driving off, I didn't realize the camera would pick up the sound from his car, it sounded cool though. I'm gonna play with the reader board today and see if I can get a good slogan in it like "Subaru Think Feel Drive"

And that's exactly what happened to my jeep, I couldn't afford it, the cost of gassing it up verses the mileage it got towing a trailer was terrible. This will be more within budget for me, and while I don't expect it to do this: http://youtu.be/ul0UwGt11rY I do expect it to do it's intended job for an economical price.

sometimes it pays to take a gamble, I had no idea what I was getting into with this one, but am learning to trust my friends recomendations, GD said get this one, so I did, and it paid off, we've now got a good block with 4 good cylinders, this is what were going to build off of. it shows nice cross-hatching on all 4 cylinders, it's looking real clean to me inside, here's a photo of the right side of the block: and a photo of the left side of the block: from here, were going to take the best of both engines and make one good one, so we'll use the new good block, my old cam towers, (because the cams have already been sent in to be turned, and Rugby_subie has already cleaned them up, so no sense making him do the sme job twice) and were not 100% sure yet on which heads to use, but we will probably use my old heads, they were in good shape. oh yeah, one more thing, the new engine has 123,000 on it, it was driving a 3AT, and my old engine has 146,000 miles on it driving a 5 speed.

here's what to use in place of the clock, a mini reader board, I even got some good background noise with this one, well, other then the heavy breathing part .....I'm an ex smoker, so forgive the shortness of breath. the boxer sound is awesome though and you can program the reader board to say anything you want

YEE-HAW ...we got a nice low mile engine coming tonight, I'm gonna go check it out later, pictures to follow!!

hahaha ...ok, we can use what we got, but maybe another block?

we finished getting the engine torn down today, we got good news and bad news ... the good news is that we can use the block, the bad news is that it's got a bad cylinder, GD checked it and it's suposed to be no more then 2 thousandths of an inch (.00002") larger then the piston. and that cylinder is sitting about about 5 thousandths of an inch (.00005") bad enough to burn oil. GD estamates about a quart every 1,000 to 2,000 miles. I don't like that idea, and GD and rugby_subie didn't seem to thrilled about putting the engine back together with that bad cylinder, I can live with it if I have to but my thinking is that maybe we should try to find a good used short block. I'll put an ad in the clasified to see if anyone local has a good deal on a good SPFI block, crank, and pistons. meanwhile, here's some more pictures: here's a picture of the bad cylinder, it's the cylinder on the left Here's Rugby_Subie hard at work cleaning parts, I don't think he was liking those cam towers to much by this point:

forgive me if this has been seen before, I'm fairly new here, but when I saw this video, I thought it explained a lot, I don't know how it relates to my older EA82 5 speed 4WD, but I found it very interesting none the less:

Here’s a Dutch Tv Commercial featuring a Subaru Forester, with a camping trailer, while I may not have this performance with my little Loyale, its fun to watch anyway. http://youtu.be/ul0UwGt11rY

yup, that check engine light was on when I got the car, the old guy I got it from had put the tape over the light so you couldn't see it, it passed the emissions test witht he light covered, had they seen that light on, they would have failed it on the spot. once we get the engine back in it and running I or they or we, (one of us) will go after the check engine light issue, I'm sure it's something simple like an O2 senser or something, we haven't pulled the codes out of the ECM yet, but I'm pretty sure once we do, the codes will lead us in the right direction. I'd rather have that light off, then to just cover it up

I know I'll have my boat attached when I head to the water, I have a little 10 foot fiberglass Columbian with a 1955 5.5 horse Johnson, perfect little lake boat. I promosed some interior pictures but was a little slow in getting them posted, plus I'm just starting to learn how to use photo bucket, so lets see if this works. here's a picture of the stereo that's in it now, nothing special, and it will soon be going in the trash when the car comes home and I can afford the new stereo: and here's a picture of under the dash, I'm thinking I'll have plenty of room for an aditional rado, the brake controller, ect. I've also got room for an additional radio here in this little cubby hole under the stereo, this is probably where I'll put the one with the removable face. by clicking on any of the thumbnails you can see some aditional pictures I took of the interior.

I'll second that, I think outside temp would be cool, we don't really need a clock up there on the dash when we have one built into the stereo.

I'll get some pictures today, it's bone stock right now. for the most part, I can get the scanner to fit under the stereo, they are both the same size, and one of my ham radios has a removable face, so that should be pretty easy, the 10 meter radio does not have a removable face, and it's big and bulky, so I'm going to have to do some planning on that one. I'll look at your old thread and see what you did.

I can understand people’s concerns about towing, but I've been towing most all of my adult life, from driving semi's with doubles and triples, to pulling travel trailers and boats with big "gas hog" pick up trucks. And the once a month trip to the local land fill. To date I have in access of 500,000 miles under my belt towing trailers, they simply don't bother me in the least. Properly set up, with trailer brakes where the trailer axle takes part of the braking load, you pretty safe as long as you’re not trying to haul a 5,000 lb trailer with a 2,500 lb car. The trailer weight rating for the Loyale (with trailer brakes) is 1984 lbs, keep in mind, that is with brakes, without brakes, it drops down to under 1,300 lbs. I don't intend to go over 1,300 lbs with trailer brakes. that is well below the rated capicity the car can tow. Add to that an evenly dispersed load both in front of and behind the tow axle, with a tongue weight of about 120 lbs and you have a pretty safe towing set-up. I don't intend to go up the mountain, or down the mountain for that matter doing warp 9, I intend to drive at a leisurely pace. You can’t just grab a car (any car) and a trailer (any trailer) and figure that you can tow it, you have to think and plan this stuff out, you can’t pull a 30 foot fifth wheel with a Volkswagen, but you can certainly pull a small light weight utility trailer. Over the years I’ve found that as a general rule the naysayers are most often people that haven’t tried it, and the ones that support the idea are the ones that have actually done it. I didn’t get a Loyale to go rock climbing or speed racing, I got one so I could tow a little vacation trailer for an economical price, after pulling a 4,500 lb trailer with a Jeep Grand Cherokee that got between 6 and 10 miles to the gallon, I’m looking forward to a little economy car that will for the most part, take me to the same places the Jeep did. So Sit back, relax, enjoy the postings; a trailer is coming …….

Apparently in Australia, they tow with the car, because if you look up “Leone” instead of “Loyale” the towing capacity shows up: http://www.carbuddy.com.au/car/values/specification/default.aspx?mk=SUBARU&md=LEONE It lists the towing capacity with trailer brakes, and without. These would be factory specs, from Japan, which should be internationally recognized, if it will tow in Australia, I see no reason why it would not tow that same weights in the US. Trailer hitches are readily available in the US for the Loyale. I’ve seen a Loyale towing a garbage trailer to our local land fill; I’ve seen one in the parking lot at our local Home Depot with a trailer attached. I used to own a small VW GTi, (that’s a smaller car then the Loyale) and I towed a utility trailer loaded with about 1,000 lbs of gear, plus 4 children all over the Pacific Northwest. I did that until the kids grew up and moved on and I sold the car, I never once had the slightest hint of trouble with that little VW The Loyale will tow, stay tuned and you will see for yourselves, my Loyale with a trailer behind it.

This Loyale is going to be built for towing, not to exceed it’s rated towing capacity of 1,900 lbs. So far, what we have on the drawing board is an XT-6 clutch, that should give me a little more clutch power (if that’s the correct word for that) We’re also doing the torque cams, that should give a little better low end torque for towing. A new radiator, which should help with cooling Also, a new water pump, to help with cooling And 2 cooling system filters, one on the intake to the radiator, and one on the intake to the heater core, that will help keep debris out of the cooling system by trapping them in the filters where I can easily remove them. It’s also getting an electric fan conversion, with override switch: I’m supper paranoid of over heating issues, so we’re hoping to solve that problem by taking these extra precautions. It’s getting a new timing belt set, complete with pulleys and seals and what ever is needed to keep the oil from leaking. NGK plugs and new wires, that should help with the spark. And last but not least, an oil cooler. I have big plans for the interior as well, with a GPS Navigation system, new stereo, some amateur radio gear, including an all band scanner, a 2 meter and 440 MHz radio, and well as 10 and 11 meter equipment, a power inverter. a back up camera to be mounted on the back of the trailer, but viewed from a screen on the dash board, And I’m sure some other stuff I have yet to think of. oh yeah, and some new speakers for the front doors.

I’m sure most of you read the other thread where I kind of jumped the gun and got something I should have probably stayed away from … Well, here’s the build thread on it, In short, I bought the car, tried to drive it to work, it over heated, and I limped it to General Disorders house where it’s sitting now, getting the engine worked over. So lets take it from here: We got the car to GD’s house, pulled the motor, and have got it partly apart, the cams have been sent in for a regrind, and we’re still waiting on some parts I think before GD starts sealing back up and getting it ready for the install. I think the heads are going in for a resurface as well, GD can update more on that stuff, I'm kind of leaving it to him as he knows best what it needs. Included are a few pictures of the tear down, and where we’re at now, and what our plans are (always subject to change).