jeffroid

That doesn't sound like too bad of a deal if you absolutely can't do it yourself, but swapping a clutch is fairly easy. I just did one a few weeks ago without pulling the engine. It took me a lot longer than two hours, but I got it done after work one day plus an hour or so the next. It's a lot easier if you have a buddy to help too. The question I would have is what do you mean by mushy? I wouldn't replace a clutch until it started slipping.

I made my own spacer so I that I could swap the head unit location with the little storage tray and keep the ash tray. I don't smoke, but it comes in handy as another more secure storage tray ! ! ! I made mine out of aluminum since I have access to a milling machine at work, but I have seen others made out of wood. I tried to first attach a photo, and that didn't work because it was too big. I couldn't figure out how to adequately reduce it's file size, so I figured out how to post photos to the member gallery. Here is the location, but for some reason it doesn't show up in the message as a link you can click on when I preview the post. http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/photos/showphoto.php?photo=6655&sort=1&cat=500&page=1

You can do the shafts yourself but it depends on what you have for tools and a workspace. It's not exactly fun and it will take you most of a day the first time you try it if you do the bearings too. Some of the veterans will say they can do it in like 20 minutes or something ridiculous like that. There are tricks and good write ups on this site on how to do it. Even if you have to do the bearings you should be able to do both sides for around $150. But it appears to be common for the right side to go first because the head from the catalytic converter nukes the boot. I should add the disclamer that the above comments are based on my experience with EA81's (prior to '84), but I am almost postive that the '87 is the same in regard to replacing the shafts.

The description of the condition of the body is conspicuously missing. If it’s not all rusted and busted up it should easily be worth the money. Even if there were something else significantly wrong it would be worth it. But that also depends on how much you enjoy working on cars and soliciting help/scrounging parts on this message board ! ! !

I think that's funny too, because I had never heard the refrigerater reference before either, but before I even had a chance to read the note I was visualizing a white Legacy wagon.

Again, I don't know about an RX, but I'm guessing that if you don't have the hill holder, you don't need the spring. I also think that if you have the clutch cable adjusted with a tiny bit of free play, that there is no way that not having the spring can wear out your clutch any quicker. I might be able to visualize a situation to where if you had your cable adjusted too tight, that little spring could keep the throwout bearing off the pressure plate, meaning you could wear out the throwout bearing. I don't think you would be burning up clutches, though, because that little spring doesn't seem like it's strong enough to overcome the tension in a clutch cable that would be required to overcome the springs in the pressure plate. But again, if you adjust your clutch cable to where you can still wiggle the fork a little, I don't see how not having that spring could matter.

When you say "top of the fork" I assume you are talking about outside the bell housing where the clutch cable hooks up, correct? If so, might you be talking about the something to do with the hill-holder? I don't know nothin' about '88 RX's, but most if not all of the EA81's I've looked at had the clutch fork for the hill-holder apparatus, but few of them actually had the hill-holder enabled.

In my opinion you should do a compression test or preferably a leak down test before you decide anything. Any advice prior to knowing the results of those tests is guesswork.

Another thing that comes to mind is that often people think they have a blown head gasket when actually it's a leaking intake manifold gasket. There is a water jacket that runs right through there and if it leaks, coolant can get sucked into the intake. I'm really an EA81 guy, and there is a small coolant line that is under the intake manifold that can leak and is hard to get to. If it springs a leak that could leave you stranded and it's a pain to get to. I don't know if the EA82's have the same line or not. You also mentioned lack of power. Again I'm an EA81 guy so I don't know how much help this is going to be, but I'd check the function of the advance mechanisms on the distributor. Mine had both a vacuum advance and a mechanical centrifugal advance. I had a hell of a time once because I was trying two different distributors. One had a broken mechanical advance and the other had a broken vacuum diaphragm. I finally figured it out and put the good diaphragm on the one with the working centrifugal weights and that made all the difference in the world. Anyway - good luck ! ! ! I used to live in Montana before I moved to the Seattle area so I know what you mean about trying to work on cars without a garage in the cold weather.

Fair enough. Sorry I didn't notice your "black dot" post on the old gen board. The responses actually sum up my feelings pretty well. If I didn't like to work on cars and learn about them I certainly would not want to drive an old Subaru, and If I had a wife and a bunch of kids I wouldn't want them driving around in one either. I just drove an old '84 wagon with 244K miles that someone gave me from Seattle to Northern California and it ran like a champ. Sure I had to put a little work into it before I would trust it but I enjoy working on it. (Hope I didn't jinx myself because I still have to drive back home ! ! !) We've got a couple of hills out here on the west coast. I get up them fine, just not very fast ! ! ! I've got another vehicle that's newer, cost me a lot more to buy, put gas in, and maintain, and gets up hills a lot faster. I could have, and probably should have taken it on my trip. I love old Subarus and get satisfaction out of saving them from the crusher and fixing them up well enough to trust them to be dependable on a long trip. Anway, no offense intended, not everyone is looking for the same thing out of a vehicle. Good luck with your engine swap, and I will be very interested to read how it comes out if that's what you decide to do.

Also not to be rude, but I am compelled to ask what you are talking about when you say you know the Loyale has a terrible reputation with engine problems? I am a relative newcomer but I've been reading this board very regularly for nearly a year and I have never heard of such a thing. If anything my perception is the opposite. The EA82s and EA81s may be underpowered, but are very reliable from what I've been able to conclude, and that has certainly been my personal experience. Would you care to elaborate ? ? ?

Yes, things are pretty much all set up. All I have to do is figure out exactly when I am going to be able to get out of town so Justin and I can figure out when to meet up. I'm guessing now Tuesday morning. Depends on how the next couple of days go.

I just sent you a PM, Mark.

Sounds like you might be leaning in a different direction, but if it helps I might be able to pick up XSNRG's tranny and bring it to Portland next week. Approximately Wednesday, June 22 (give or take a day), I will be driving from Seattle area to Northern California, bringing me through both Olympia and Portland.

Trying to post a link to a search: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=32048&highlight=hydraulic+%26amp%3B+lifters+knock+sensor If it doesn't work, do a search on hydraulic & lifter & knock & sensor. Hydraulic lifter engines have a boss for a knock sensor, solid lifter engines don't.

I bought and fixed up an '83 GL-10 sedan for a friend of mine's son to drive. The moron wrecked it and it's stuck on the side of road way across town from me, and I'm trying to figure out how to get it home when I get off work tonight. I sent a buddy of mine to go check it out and report back. The passenger side front strut is bent in so severely that the tire rubs on the strut. He says the steering knuckle and everything else otherwise looks intact. I've got an '83 wagon in my yard as a parts car but it's 4WD, while the sedan is FWD. Will the strut from the wagon bolt on the sedan so that I can get it home tonight? Anything else there that's likely to be busted bad enough to keep me from being able to drive it home? THANKS ! ! !

In a few rare and fortunate cases, I have had good success pulling out dents in my Subarus with one of those suction cup puller things. I don't know for sure where you would buy them, but they shouldn't be too hard to find. I was able to borrow this really nice one from someone that had a little finger pump on the back of it that pulled quite the vacuum. It yanked a big dent out of a front fender. The best thing is you don't have to take anything apart. If you get really lucky a drain plunger might even work.

My truck had very poor seats in it. I used to dread taking it on trips. I eventually put some better seats in it, but in the interim, for long drives I used to sit on a Thermarest seat pad. That helped a lot. Are you familiar with the Thermarest matressess that campers and hikers use? Well, this is the same thing, only smaller. I don't know what the dimensions are off the top of my head, but it works perfect for a seat cushion, being as that's what it is ! ! ! Hope that helps.

I don't know much compared to some of the long-time posters on this board, but for the sake of discussion I'll throw my 2 cents in. A difference in 20 psi between cylinders doesn't seem like much to me for an engine with that kind of mileage. Do you have any other symptoms of a leaking head gasket? Water in the oil, bubbles in the coolant, loosing all your coolant, white smoke, etc. ? ? ? I don't know, but I'd guess that a lot of us are driving around with differences in compression from cylinder to cylinder at least that high. If I was you I'd figure out for sure if that's what was causing the missing on one cylinder before I yanked the heads off. As for your valves you need to figure out if you have hydraulic lifters or not. There has been much discussion on this topic, you should be able to figure it out by doing a search. No offense to anyone, just throwing this up for further discussion.

Also, try tapping on the bolt WHILE you are trying to unscrew it. Put your wrench or vice grips on the bolt head and try to loosen it while you have a buddy tapping on top of the bolt head with a hammer and punch.

I've got both 2WD and 4WD EA81's and the 2WD has a different distributor. I've read before that the 2WD is supposed to have a different advance curve. The cap for the one on the 2WD is physically shorter. I'm guessing that you need one for 4WD and they gave you one for 2WD.

I don't know about that, but I do recall noting a couple of things that I thought might be small discrepancies/ambiguities. I can't remember what they were, but nothing major. Still a great site, and I also found it the same time I found this site while I was surfing around looking for an engine.

I wish I could help and I'm glad 'dude bumped it back up because I have the similar issues with my '83 wagon. I disabled my ASV a while back because I thought it might be causing some problems I was having. Thing is, mine was on the passenger side, not drivers, and doesn't appear to have the black plastic silencer thing that melts when things go haywire. Whereas on my OTHER '83 wagon that is now a parts car, the ASV was on the drivers side and did have the plastic part that melted, but that was a long time ago, long before I stumbled across this board. Anyway . . . I have the same question SuBrat84 does. The wagon is running crappy again, and some of the posts lately make me start to wonder if I've melted my cat. I still have pulses at the tailpipe, but I can hear the cat popping and cracking as it cools when I shut the engine down. I don't recall hearing that to the same degree as I do now.

It's personal preference (obviously). I used to be of the opinion that I did not want power steering in my subarus. They are small and light enough to where I felt that the small increase in convenience wasn't worth the stuff extra under the hood and something else to go wrong. BUT, I recently started driving around in an older GL-10 sedan that I picked up to fix up and donate to a friend in need. MAN that power steering is sweet. Now when I drive around in my GL wagon without power steering I really miss it. So my vote is power.

I PM'd Travis but never heard back . . . I searched and read all the stuff about the different chemicals and glue and stuff, but don't EA81's windsheilds just pop in with the rubber gasket around them? I know it's not easy, but I've seen it done with them pulling the nylon rope around the outside. I'm pretty sure it's not something that would be easy for me to do by myself. Like I said, I'd hate for the kid to have to pay more for a windshield than what I paid for the car. I appreciate any help I can get guys (and gals). I'll be out of town and away from a computer until this weekend, so I won't be able to check in until then.