GeneralDisorder

Dexron III is fully backward compatible with the Dexron II spec. It just has some additional additives and smells like moth-balls now. 75w90 in the front and rear diff. GD

If you are going to lift it, 6 lug. If you are staying stock height or lower, 5 lug. But the 5 lug conversion isn't a simple bolt-on for a Brat. You need custom lower control arms in the front and custom axles in the front. No axle exists that is the right length and has the correct outer joint style (EJ splines), and the control arms for the XT6 are too long, while the Brat's control arms have the wrong interface for the ball joint. No one makes these parts - you will have to custom fab them. GD

It can't hurt anything in your car - you *should* add a seccond wire from the back of the alt to the battery positive terminal to protect against a dead battery attempting to draw more amps than the stock wire can feed to it. If any accesories you add are wired correctly and safely the alt will not cause any damage. The potential for burnt wireing is only there if you don't add additional wireing to carry the load of your additional accesories. It will not change the spark - that is controlled entirely by the number of windings in the coil and the voltage supplied to the coil. It has nothing to do with the amperage capacity of the alternator. And in any case the stock ignition system is capable of igniting the fuel/air mixture with a 99.9999% success rate - which is all it needs to do. A hotter spark does nothing for performance if the weaker spark it replaced was already working at near 100%. I can certainly supply one for your Loyale. Just let me know how many grooves there are on the pulley and I'll get one right out to you. I have both already made up. GD

If it works out would we have to canibalize a Subaru transmission and send him a bell-housing section? When I have thought about this in the past - it seemed from the research I had done - that the best choice would be a Nissan RWD transmission and divorced t-case setup since the Nissan's use a similar T/O bearing arrangement. In fact older Nissan's seem quite a bit closer in engineering design to Subaru than either Toyota or Honda. There's a number of things you can point to that are the same or almost the same - the Maxima alternator's for example - Nissan kept the design of the Maxima alternator compatible with the older Z car case design which was identical to what Subaru used. I know that you can use a Nissan truck T/O bearing on an EA81 transmission in order to match up with the EA82 pressure plate fingers..... Just my thoughts based on what I've seen - maybe it will help with the toyota project or it's another possilibity for your guy to investigate maybe..... GD

Harbor Frieght makes a kit for "FWD bearing service" or something along those lines. It was like $80. It's basically a cheap version of the hub-tamer and I've used it several times to do EJ front wheel bearings. With a decent 1/2" impact and the addition of a two-jaw puller to remove the race from the hub once dissasembled it works quite well. GD

How many 4 speed D/R transmission's have you owned? I've lost count on my end. The donut on the pivot of the shifter usually does need to be replaced, but that's not the "problem" area for most of them. The shift rod and sleeve looseness problem has been around since before I became a member here. Many articles and pictures of it have been done - it's VERY well known and documented. Many different methods have been tried to eliminate it. So far I've had the most success by threading the holes. Replacing the bushings and the pivot donut are obvious and we have all done that as well. If it were that simple no one would even be talking about it on here. GD

I'm partial to my own garage. I do side work on occasion and I've been known to "assist" or lend some garage space now and then. I'm very particular about the parts I will use and how the job is done. I'm not a "shop" and I don't treat people like customer's - if your car is here it's because you're a friend. And that's just how I like it. GD

The hub probably wasn't fully seated in the bearings. That's on the guy that pressed them in. According to Subaru you are supposed to check the location of the hub after pressing it into the bearings. Squeeking is not good. They shouldn't make any noise. Sounds like something still isn't right. GD

That is a completely different pump, but they are also noisy. It's a solenoid style pump so they are naturally going to make a rapid clicking noise. Sounds a bit like a helicopter. GD

Well - you offroad with what you can afford - I get that. But having some of these things allows more fun with less stress. Such as having a AAA membership in case it's just not going to drive home by itself. Without a doubt the most important peices of equipment I have is my cell phone/CB and my AAA card . Knowing what air pressure gives you a decent contact patch costs nothing. It's worth the few minutes it takes. GD

The SPFI pumps tend to make a whirring noise when running. It's pretty much normal. Most of them do that. They can fail but it's rare. Mostly they either last till the end of the car or in some parts of the country folks have problems with the surge pot on the end rusting out if exposed to too much salt. They are also VERY expensive for a direct-fit replacement. If you have to replace it there are a number of posts about some Ford F-150 pumps that will work as an alternative. GD

One thing I think is essential is knowing what tire pressure you need to be at to acheive a proper off-road contact patch. It's much lower than you think. With the light weight of a Subaru you have to go pretty low to get decent contact. You can check it by spray painting the tread while the wheel is in the air and letting it down on a bit of butcher paper, etc. Test it at full pressure, then lower it to about 15 and check it again. You want about 4x to 5x the contact patch that you had when fully aired-up. Most likely that will mean about 7 to 10 lbs of air pressure per tire. Carry a full-sized spare of course. As well as at least a tire repair kit (the sticky string's and the tools), and an inflation pump. Both are cheap. GD

No, and they are more complex electrically. Though an EJ22 harness could run one with some modifications. They have head gasket issues at least up till the 2005's or so and evidence sugests that it may not be fixed yet - they just upgraded the head gaskets again for 2010. Early 2.5's suffer from piston slap and higher than normal rod bearing failure rates. GD

Not on EA81's - the thermostat is on the manifold so you only have to drain out enough to get the level below the thermostat housing. GD

I've never had that happen but in the rust belt I've heard of such things from other members - you will likely have to remove the MC and either replace it or drill that bleeder out. I would probably just go buy a new MC or get a used one from the JY. IIRC, the MC's aren't that expensive brand new. GD

Axle joint breakage is a function of angle AND speed. The steeper the angle they are at, the slower your can safely spin them without failure. My guess (and my experience is the same) is that you are breaking them when the suspension is hanging at full downward articulation - possibly with the wheel free-spinning in the air? This is partially a problem with the way you are driving it - don't spin the wheels real fast like that when one is hanging down - it's doesn't usually help anyway and often just digs holes. 10% wheel-spin gives the best traction. The other thing that can help is to add limiting straps to keep the suspension from dropping down so far. This really doesn't hurt your off-road much since if the wheel is hanging down like that there is no weight on it and it really can't propel you forward anyway - no weight = no traction. The EA82 cups help with over-extension - I've had problems with the joints actually pulling so far out of the cup that they walk over the retaining ring and in the process split the cup open. The EA82 cups will allow farther downward travel safely. You may have broken your set with EA82 cups using the welded rear and are now having problems with over-extension because you aren't using the right cups anymore. DO NOT drive on dry-pavement with a welded rear, both rear axles in place, and huge tires. You will break the axles every time if you make even a mild turn into a driveway, etc. This is simply a lose situation - just don't do it. No matter how it's setup the axles aren't strong enough to handle that kind of abuse. GD

You need to do a full system bleed - starting with the master cylinder first and working your way in from the farthest point in the system. The procedure is MC, left-rear, right front, right rear, left front. GD

Not at all common - I wouldn't even consider rebuilding it with used transmissions being likely cheaper than just the ring/pinion set. GD

I use a strap wrench - they are about $25 at home depot. Go to the plumbing section - look for the Rigid tools. They make a strap wrench with a soft woven nylon strap. They work quite well for stuff like this - also stubborn oil filters, etc. http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=strap+wrench&cid=14993230865432261642&sa=title#p As a last resort if the strap wrench is slipping too much you can move up to a chain wrench and wrap the pulley in an old section of belt. There isn't much that you can't turn with a chain wrench, a cheater pipe, and a torch . Useful to own. http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=chain+wrench&oe=UTF-8&cid=17671462340384902247&sa=title#p GD

Hey! I didn't know they had jacking holes. Nice. I've never had one really stuck though - usually a tap with a rubber mallet near the edge of the rotor will pop them off for me. GD

That's a good point - they sell them individually or as a set with the gasket. The thermostat itself is the same for EA or EJ so all dealers carry them. The gasket they may not have depending on the dealer. But they should be able to get it within a work day. GD

Make sure that you routed the cable under the steering shaft and the heater core hoses or it will wear out prematurely. GD

Replace the thermostat with one from the dealer and see if anything changes. Could be the theremostat - that's the first thing to check. GD

I'm sure it will be fine. I've never had a problem with the stock fuel pump's though for Weber's so I've never used one. 6 amps is nothing - the stock wireing will run that. Weber's like about 5 psi so you shouldn't need a regulator. GD

22T's are rare and you run the same risks as the WRX swap - same amount of work really. They aren't much different - just a little less HP stock but it would be silly not to add a little larger turbo, intercooler, etc - then you are at or over the HP of the WRX engine. The 22T is larger and potentially more powerful. The regular 22 is a good engine choice - the 5 speed D/R can handle about that much power. More power and you will be looking for replacement's often. The 4 speed is junk and should be used as a boat anchor - they aren't even good with the stock engine. It's still a lot of work. The 5 speed required customized linkage and tranmission cross-member, and then you need the adaptor and drilled flywheel plus all the wireing, etc. My friend figures that he has spent over $1000 in parts to do this swap. Probably closer to $1500 to $2000. When you figure all the costs it adds up - little things get you like FI hoses, gaskets, maintenance items for the used engine, etc. It can be done cheaper for sure - but either that means you have a ton of parts on hand like me and some other members, or you have done it completely ghetto style and it won't be anything to be proud of let alone fun to drive or work on. GD