exister99

You might try ebay for a new windshield gasket. I got a new windshield installed after some ne'erdowell punks put a rock through it a few years ago. All the parts were correct, but the seal wasn't watertight. Successive applications of silicone sealant around the windshield eventually fixed the problem. Looks a little tacky, but it works. Can't help you on the engine swap, good luck.

Just a quick update. Radio Shack part number 275-248 is an exact replacement for the relay in the FPCU. All you need to do is clip off the NC pin and it will be a perfect fit on the circuit board. I bought one and installed it two days ago and have not had a no start condition since. The car does have to turn over a few times before it starts first thing in the morning, but has not yet failed to start. I am going to wait for it to make it through a few more freezing mornings before calling it a fix.

Yeah, the impression I have gotten from my research is that all of the other components would be more likely to die and stay dead, and that the intermittent, cold induced nature of the failure points pretty strongly to the relay. Fortunately I found a 12V relay at Radio Shack that looks like it has the exact same pins and dimensions as the one on the FPCU. I plan on soldering it on tonight. If that turns out to be the fix it will be great news for those of us who have suffered FPCU failures. I noticed on the relay packaging that it is rated for like 100,000 switchings or some such, so it definitely has a finite life. I will keep you posted on my progress and report the Radio Shack part # if it works out. If all goes well someone will have to show me how to post an article on the Ultimate Subaru Repair Manual.

Yeah, I can start her up just fine if by installing a jumper to hot wire the fuel pump. I may seem stubborn, but I am pretty dead set on doing everything I can to resurrect the FPCU. Looking at the schematics it seems that on this year the FPCU and the ECM operate pretty much independent of each other so I doubt there is anything wrong in the ECM. If my efforts fail I may end up resorting to the relay and oil pressure sensor set up described in other posts.

Notes on Subaru Fuel Pump Problems. The car has refused to start on 3 separate nonconsecutive cold mornings. On Saturday, 14 January, 2006 it would not start and I decided to begin diagnosing. The float bowl on the carb was empty, and no fuel came out of the fuel lines while cranking the engine. There was no voltage at the fuel pump while cranking. There was no clicking noise when the ignition was turned to ON or when the engine was turned over. Once I hot-wired the fuel pump it began to pump and the engine started and ran once the bowl in the carburetor filled up. I removed the FPCU. I opened and inspected the FPCU. I unsoldered and opened the relay on the FPCU. I connected the relay coil to the battery and the switch clicked just fine. I resoldered the relay to the FPCU and reinstalled the FPCU. The car started fine and ran for two days. This morning was chilly and the car wouldn’t start. Plan of Action. Pull the FPCU and inspect all solder joints. Put the FPCU in the freezer for an hour and see if that makes the relay switch stop working. Possibly find a new relay at Fry’s and install it. If that fails look into testing and replacing the transistors on the FPCU. The fact that the fuel pump was getting no voltage when I tested it indicates that the problem is almost certainly not in the fuel pump. What else besides the FPCU could cause a lack of voltage to the fuel pump when it is cold outside (30-45 degrees F)?

Now why would you want to do that? I'm willing to bet it would be less hassle just to pull the thing. If you don't have a spare gasket to reinstall it you can just go buy a roll of the right gasket paper and cut your own. A carb is tedious enough to mess with on a well lit bench. My lower back would be hating me if I tried anything on it installed. Just my 2 cents. Cheers

Hello Fellow Soobsters! This past Saturday I had a fuel delivery failure due to trouble with my Fuel Pump Control Unit. I took it apart and this is what I found inside http://www.andrewhstone.com/images/Auto/DCP_0088.JPG The little black box with a "150" printed on it is a relay. Since it is the only component with moving parts on this circuit I surmised it's solder joints are the most likely to fail so I unsoldered it, opened it up, tested it, closed it and soldered it back on. The car started up just find. There is still a possibility that I encountered an intermittent failure in one of the other joints and I am ready to address this if it comes up. I also built some jumper wires that would allow me to hotwire the fuel pump to keep from getting stranded in the event the FPCU fails again. Looking at the circuit in the picure it became apparent that it is all fairly common components: resistors, relay, transistors, a power inverter, etc.. My question is, has anyone ever tried building this circuit from components rather than paying $300 for a new one? I have seen the solutions that bybass the FPCU and use the signal from the oil pump or fan to drive the replacement relay, and my hat goes off to the ingenuity of those who came up with them. However, I would think that most of us would rather keep our rides as stock as possible, especially with regards to critical components like fuel delivery. Does anyone have any ideas about where we might possibly get a hold of the original schematics for these FPCUs? It would be possible but tedious to reverse engineer it. I am thinking that it would be cool to buy the components and solder up a replacement FPCU. It seesm most of ours are starting to fail at around 20+ years so I think this would be a popular item. my guess is the parts would come in under $50 and when it is finished you would have an up to spec FPCU with all new components and solder joints that ought to get your Soob through the next 20 years (assuming you don't roll it first :-p.) So, what do you all think, any suggestions or input?

Loud clunking from the rear: sounds like you are in for a new rear half shaft as well. As has been said before a halfshaft is a two beer job. I abuse the heck out of mine and have also gotten several defective ones so I have lost count of the number of times I have swapped them out. Two tools you will find very hand for the job are a lever type ball joint tool like the one on the left here http://www.jcwhitney.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product?storeId=10101&Pr=p_Product.CATENTRY_ID%3A2004158&TID=100&TID=100&productId=2004158&catalogId=10101 and a monstrous three jaw puller from HFT to remove the wheel hub. Do not use a ball joint fork. Those things are damn near useless for anything except tearing up the rubber boot on your ball joints. You will likely replace your halfshafts more often than your ball joints so try to keep them intact. When reinstalling try to keep bearing grease from getting between the splines that mate the half shaft to the wheel hub. These things take a lot of torque and the grease will make it that much easier to strip your hub. This happened to me once and I had to drive an hour to score a junkyard hub to keep from paying the $250 the dealer wanted for it. After installing a halfshat inspect the CV boots frequently to make sure they are not leaking moly grease around the bands that hold them on. I have had three leak so far, and two of them were from a highly respected remanufacturer. Fortunately I had all three replaced under warranty. If you see grease leaking out the half shaft is on its way out and WILL fail and leave you stranded eventually. The '84 is an excellent year. Congratulations!

I second that emotion. I have several carbs lying around for my Soob and I always try make sure I have a freshly rebuilt spare on hand in case I need to do a swap. One observation I have made is that with a little creativity and some trip to Home Depot you can make a Hitachi carburetor much for "field maintainable." With a little patience and care you should have no reason to be afraid of diving right in and doing a rebuild. Inspect everything and figure out how it works, your problem will soon become apparent.

Last week I bought a rebuilt carburetor and installed it. I am pretty happy with it except when the temp drops below 60 degrees it is really hard to start and won't hold an idle until it is warmed up. The choke plate is in the same closed position as it is on my other carbs that start up just fine. I have been tweaking the idle air mixture screw and the idle speed screw to see if I can get a mixture that will help it cold start, but no luck yet. I will be checking the timing and readjusting the accelerator cable today. Life would be peachy if I could just get consistent cold starts like I used to have. Can anyone help me out with some carb tuning suggestions? Thanks in advance.

So the brass float that I ordered came in yesterday. I installed it in carb #1 (the one that was flooding). Then I installed carb #1 and voila! It started right up. The problem now is that it idles insanely high, 2000-3000 RPM and that is with the idle speed screw all the way out and the timing retarded. When I rebuilt it I set everything to spec, screwed the idle air mixture screw in until lightly seated and back out 4 turns. Adjusted the main throttle plate according to spec using the fast idle screw. I did take out the idle speed adusting screw and put it back in. So let me pose this question. If you had a carburetor on the bench and you knew it was idling too high on the car how would you adress the problem? Is there a procedure that you would follow to adjust the three screws involved in idle speed so that you can achieve a decent idle once the carb is on the engine? BTW, I know that the high idle is due to the carb and not some vacuum leak because when I install the other carb it idles just fine, only rich. Merry Christmas!

OK so here is what I did last night. Replaced the coil to no effect. Spliced a fuel pressure gauge into the fuel lines, propped open the choke plate and started her up. The fuel pressure reading was exactly 2 psi, perfect! Then I peered past the choke plate into the main barrel, and there was literally a stream of fuel pouring into the main venturi and main barrel. I'm talking like there was a mini faucet in there just pouring fuel. When I pulled on the accelerator cable I got the expected spray in the venturi from the accelerator pump, but then it went back to the stream. The exhaust gas was rich and acrid as before so I shut her down and went inside to give the garage a chance to clear out. Now I've peered down this carb many times before, but I have never seen fuel just gushing into the venturi like I did last night. That can't be normal. I was looking over the design of these carbs and trying to figure out what could be causing this. The main jet points down at a 45 degree angle to vertical so it is possible that it could have worked its way loose. I didn't take out or retighten the main jets when I rebuilt this carb so they probably haven't been tightened since they left the factory over 20 years ago. I do in fact do a lot of bumpy driving on some pretty rough tracks so it is possible they could have been jiggled loose. Another point of concern is the two bolts on the bottom of the float that are removed to access the main jets are leaking fuel, which is not a good thing either. You mentioned that clogged air jets could be to blame as well. Would clogged air jets significantly increase the amount of fuel coming into the venturi. I did have a meltdown of the plastic air suction valve silencer, which deposited a few chunks of melted plastic in my air filter housing. That was a couple years ago, but it could have taken a few years for the plastic to work its way down the air jet. In any case I have a rebuilt carb arriving on Tuesday. Once I get that in I will take apart the one on there now in hopes of finding the root cause of this stream of fuel in the main barrel. Merry Christmas.

I would just go with the cheap one from Napa. I have three of those laying around and as far as I know they are all in perfect working order. I have never seen one go bad.

I swapped out my catalytic converter a couple years ago. This was after rebuilding the carburetor and chasing everything else down. If the cat is original you can almost bet it's toast. As a preliminary test run your engine with the air filter lid off. Then get down to where your eyes are level with the lip of the air filter housing. Rev the engine by tugging on the accelerator cable. If you see droplets of fuel and fumes belching out of top of the carb you can bet your exhaust is clogged, probably at the cat. Now to make extra sure remove the cat and Y pipe assembly and give it a shake. If there is junk rattling inside the cat it is probably the culprit. The cheapest one I could find sold for $215. It required some modifications to get it to fit, and still doesn't fit as well as the original. Plus I had to fashion my own heat shield because it kept trashing my passenger side DOJ boots and joints. I kinda wish I had spent an extra Franklin or two for a dealer one that would give me an exact fit. As far as the blackening of the carb and filter, that sounds like misrouted exhaust due to a valve problem...

That's what I've been thinking too is that there isn't really a way for the fuel pump to cram too much fuel into the engine without raising the fuel level in the bowl. I've been thinking back to when Carb #1 failed and trying to figure out which component could fail that way. I was cruising right along, warmed up and all, when I started to hear like a low pitched hum. That went on for like 20 minutes on the freeway until I lost power and couldn't go faster than 35 mph. Then as I was limping into a parking lot the engine died completely and wouldn't start at all. I have rebuilt 2 of these carburetors so far and I can't think of any part inside the carburetor that would fail so quickly and catastrophically. Any ideas?

You make a good point. I will probably go ahead and change out the coil anyway since it is several years old and I can get one for cheap. Any thoughts on the high fuel pressure theory? Could high pressure be making Carb #1 run rich without driving the level in the bowl sight above the correct level? Is that even possible.

Perhaps you could elaborate on the problems you have been having. Are you belching unburnt fuel fumes from your exhaust? Be warned that this rich running is bad business for the catalytic converter and the engine as a whole, so I am keeping it to minimum. I will definitely post the resolution. There always is one... eventually.

Yeah, in this case the timing light will cut out alltogether for a few seconds at a stretch when connected to the #1 plug wire and will cut out in a much shorter cycle when connected directly to the main ignition wire. At first I though that the cutting out was due to the wet plugs not firing, but then I realized that wet plugs will still draw current. The current will leak to the block instead of generating a spark, but it should be coming down the wires nonetheless, right? Thanks for your input.

Carb #1: When it is on the engine the car will start right away when cold and hold an idle. The exhaust fumes are cloudy, burn my eyes and reak of unburnt fumes. It will idle for a while, but as soon as I tap the accelerator pedal it dies. After that I can only start it if the accelerator pedal is completely depressed, and it will die unless I keep the pedal completely depressed, in which case it weakly idles. The fuel level in the carb's bowl sight is in the lower half of the little cloudy circle as it should be. When I pull the spark plugs they are black and a couple of them are wet. Two days ago I took apart the choke plate and reassembled it to spec. Carb #2: When it is on the engine the car won't start at all. The fuel level in the bowl sight hole is above the cloudy little circle. I just rebuilt this carburetor and clearly I should have replaced the float. When I pull the plugs they are all wet, and there is fuel visible in the cylinders. So based on the above situation here are my three theories. Please feel free to rate them from most to least likely. Theory #1: Both carburetors have a flooding problem. The main problem with this theory is that I just set the choke on both carbs. Granted carb #2 needs a new float, but I can't find anything wrong with Carb #1 which was working fine before this rich situation came on suddenly. Is there anything in the carb besides the choke and the float that could make it run rich. Theory #2: I am getting too much fuel pressure. Two holes in this theory. One, don't fuel pumps typically put out too little fuel when they fail; and two, if I have too much fuel pressure why is the fuel level in Carb #1 correct? I will know more once I get a chance to hook up a pressure gauge to the fuel lines. Has anyone ever had engine flooding due to a component outside of the carburetor? Theory #3: My ignition coil is weak. This theory has two strength. First, a weak spark would cause incomplete combustion and consequently rich running and unburnt fuel in the exhaust. Second, if I hook up a timing light to the car while it is running the timing light only flashes intermittently. The distributor was just rebuilt and I also replaced the ignition control module. Any other causes for a weak or intermittent spark. Wires and spark plugs are all brand new BTW as are the cap and rotor. I have a third, newly rebuilt carburetor on the way, and I am trying to rule out any other causes for this problem so I can be ready for action if I get the same behavior with the new carb as with Carb #1. I hope you have found this tale entertaining. Please contribute any thoughts you may have, and Merry Christmas!

I know you are all just dying for an update. I resolved the loose choke plate issue on the previous carburetor by replacing the screw that had fallen off the shaft and resecuring the electric choke pulloff using 2 #8 bolts in place of the rivets. I got this carb back on the wagon and tried to start it with no success. I pulled the spark plugs and not only were they all wet, but they were also covered in black gunk from the rich running condition. I brushed them all off with a tooth brush and blew them dry with my compressor. Put them back in. Tried to start, and it almost coughed to life before going back to nothing. Any suggestions on getting the plugs squeaky clean? I pulled the plugs again and the plugs from cylinders 1 and 3 were dry, but the ones from cylinders 2 and 4 were soaked. I shone a light into cylinders 2 and 4 and could see standing liquid fuel, so I threaded a rubber tube into each cylinder and blasted it out with compressed air. Cylinders 2 and 4 visibly erupted with liquid fuel, but not much came out of 1 and 3. My plan is to leave the spark plug holes open for a couple of days to let the cylinders dry out. Anybody know of a better way to dry this thing out? I have been down for a month now so if you all know of anything else I should be considering let me know. My theory is that the plugs got all fouled up when the choke originally broke and started running rich. After that all of my attempts to start the engine led to a vicious cycle of dumping more and more fuel into the cylinders, which just increased the flooding. Does this theory make sense? Oh, and I will defenitely be swapping the oil out as soon as I get this whole flooding mess sorted out. Thanks...

Funny you should mention that. While installing the carburetor I snapped off the lower vacuum tube from the round vacuum switching valve that vents the carburetor bowl. I managed to find the part number for the broken valve: 461057000. The cheapest I could find it was at 1stsubaru.com for $126.72. Seems like a lot for a little plastic doohickey. Since this part seems to be critical for proper carburetor operation can I get some suggestions for repairing or replacing it cheaply? Seems like a pretty simple switch with only 2 tubes going into it. Is there a cheaper, newer valve that can be used? Is there a reliable way to reattach to the snapped tube? Thanks for any input.

Yeah, good times. I once had a VW engine on a stand next to my bed in a studio apartment. I was kind enough to lay down a piece of plywood and a plastic sheet to spare the carpet. Olds 455 huh? I had one of those monstrosities when I was 17. Drove it 'til the transmission went bad. That was when I discovered that you can limp a shot auto tranny to the junkyard by starting in D1 and shifting it like a manual.

Thanks for the free advice Subarian. I checked the oil after the rich running condition and it looked good. Once I get this carb situation straightened out I will check it again and make sure it is still good and thick and doesn't smell of fuel. I'll probably top it off with some 20W50 too for good measure. I haven't actually run the engine yet with this flooding carb, and I won't try to start it anymore until I get the carb swapped out. Hopefully, letting it sit these couple of days will allow any fuel in the intake manifold and cylinders to evaporate.

Just out of curiosity, what is the correct way to check a brass float for leaks and why does that technique not work on a plastic float? I think I will go ahead and get two of the brass floats and use them to retrofit my fleet of backup carbs.

When I did the rebuild the old plastic float was pretty discolored so I put in a cleaner looking one from another junkyard carb. I would not be surprised if it is leaky. Another thing I noticed was fuel on the top of the throttle body at the same height as the lip of the bowl. There is that little jet you can see if you look down the secondary barrel and there was fuel all over there. I doubt that is normal as the only place fuel is supposed to come out is down in the venturi assembly, right? I think I will go to Napa and order a brass float, part number CRB2498, and install that.