GeneralDisorder

Mostly abuse, but EA81's are notorious for electrical gremlins - they were the last generation of Subaru to not use mostly water-tight connections. GD

Wideband - those narrow-band gauges are gimmicks. They won't tell you anything useful for a turbocharged engine. Anytime you are under boost you will be off-the-chart rich on those gauges. They are good only for people that want to try and maximize their mileage by staying in the stoich sweet spot. Do that on your turbo and you'll be looking for a new engine after you head over to the next county to collect your pistons and rods. GD

The way to do this in the future is to take an old axle nut, weld it to the drain plug, and get your 36mm+1/2" breaker bar out. The heat of the welding helps knock it loose and the 36mm nut will give you more purchase than the wimpy 17mm. GD

It's an '88 GL with 90 HP and an automatic. Answer: Whatever brand is cheapest (probably Autozone). At this point they will probably outlast the usable life of the car no matter what brand you buy. Any what makes you think the shocks are bad? Does it bounce? I have yet to find a legitimate "bad" shock on a Subaru (I've owned dozens). My '83 hatch has like 240k on it and the shocks/struts are original. All they do is dampen the springs - so if it doesn't bounce when you push down on each corner - they aren't bad enough to need replacement yet. Maybe if this were a sports car but as noted above..... it's a 90 HP automatic. :-\ GD

You can dip the tap in some motor oil if you wish. Aluminium is so soft that you could easily tap it by hand without any lube. I would use lube though just to keep the tap from getting dull. Work it back and forth - when you feel it start to bind turn it back a couple turns to free the chips from the cutting teeth then start cutting again. I typically run the tap in and out 2 to 4 times, cleaning it each time with WD-40 to insure there are no chips left in the threads. Do likewise with the bottoming tap. You can buy a legitimate can of cutting oil - I like the foaming drill bit lube as it stick to stuff better - good for upside down cutting like this. But an ordinary squirt can or rattle can lid filled with motor oil for dipping the tap in will do just fine for this simple job. GD

It should thread in by hand if you have done your job properly with the tap. If it's difficult, then you take two nuts, lock them together on the end, and use that to thread it in. It's called "double nutting", and is the common way to install/remove studs if you don't have access to a stud remover. That's what the file/grinder is for. You taper the edges of the cut end at about a 45 degree angle to "feather" the threads. Pull the drinking straw from your McD's cup and measure for yourself! (hint - use a sharpie!) Yes - do everything in 7/16x20 (the "20" part is the TPI, or "Threads Per Inch"). This isn't rocket science. GD

Except for everything behind the front seats they are identical. Head room is slightly better if you have a GL with the t-tops. They are a pain in the butt for long distance travel as you cannot lean the seats back for a rest stop, etc. Brats tend to have been more abused through their lifetime and often come quirky with respect to mechanical/electrical issues. Fuel ecomony is slightly better than a Wagon due to the reduced weight and the overall better airflow of the light truck body style (the wind-buffer "vortex" created in the bed). I am 6' 2" and I tend to dislike the stock seats in the EA81's. They are tollerable, but I prefer something that sits lower. There are options out there - I have Isuzu Impulse seats in my '85 Brat, and I have EA82 wagon seats in my '83 Hatch. The problem you run into with the Brat is that you can't get the seat reclined far enough and also back far enough at the same time with the EA81/EA82 seats so while I am comfortable in them on the Hatch, they would not work for the Brat. The Impulse seats are great but very hard to find. But as with any car - seats can be changed and enough room exists in the cab it's just a matter of finding seats that fit your body and the car at the same time. They are great little trucks, but although I love them and am still in the (long) process of restoration on mine, I haven't driven it much in the last couple years. I find the EA81 hatch to be much more to my liking as the wheelbase is smaller (better off-road), it has back seats and enclosed cargo area, and I can recline the seats on long drives. For daily driving I much prefer the Legacy's for comfort, ride, and amenities. They are also cheap and worthless so I don't have to worry about someone bashing into my car, etc. For all around fun, economy, and utility, it's hard to beat the EA81 Hatch body with an EJ22 and a 5 speed D/R installed. That's just about the perfect combination. Light body, lots of HP, good gearing and just the right amount of utility without being a total pain to drive a fair distance. If I absolutely had to only have one car this would probably be it - if I could have two the other would be a Gen 1 Legacy wagon. GD

Bottom front of the carb - look for a mixture adjustment screw blocked by a vertical roll pin. It's probably not the issue if it's still got the pin in it - if not then someone may have mucked with it. It's not the solution for anything other than a rich IDLE. If it's rich at anything other than idle then it's not your problem. GD

Yes - disconnect the fuel pump - it's under the car. Just pull the wire going from the coil to distributor cap. All of them, and crank with the gas pedal fully depressed. Pull the plug and ground the electrode to the block while you have someone crank the engine over. Color should be white with tinges of blue. Orange or red spark = weak spark. You need a timing light to check the ignition timing - get one and follow the directions if you don't have one. #1 cylinder is the closest to the front of the car on the passenger side - that is the one you use for checking/setting the ignition timing. While you are checking the timing, rev the engine and see that the timing increases with increased engine speed. Also check the vacuum advance pot on the distributor by sucking on the line - the advance mechanism inside the distributor should move and stay there till you release the vacuum. GD

You can install the water pump fan - it just bolts on top of the water pump pulley. It would probably help but your overheating is obviously due to something more than just that. I've run plenty of EA82's without the water pump fan and not had an issue. Have you cleaned out the fins on the evap core? It could probably use a good pressure wash - if the evap core isn't flowing air through to the radiator then you would likely overheat easily. It is in front and takes the brunt of the road debris, bugs, pine needles, etc. GD

That's EA82 though. The '83 is an EA81 and as such has a dual-core all-metal radiator. They are generally more expensive. I've bought brand new EA82 radiators for $65 shipped off ebay - the cheapest I've ever paid for an EA81 is about $120. GD

It's really very simple if you follow my directions. Go get a peice of all-thread, cut yourself 4 studs, tap out the holes in the heads and have a nice day. This can all be done with hand tools - hacksaw and a file for the studs and a tap+crescent wrench for the heads. There is no need to get fancy, and there is no need to overthink it. Just DO IT and then have a beer. GD

Get them used from the junk yard. Cost to replace them with new parts will be half your next paycheck (maybe all of it). GD

Discount Import Parts in Milwaukie or Beaverton. Bubbling out the radiator could be simply overheating, head gaskets, or air bubbles in the cooling system. Make sure the front end is higher than the back when filling and burping the cooling system. GD

Is the single fan driven off the water pump or is it electric? Non-AC vehicles typically have only the electric fan on the passenger side. AC equipped cars added a water pump driven fan as well to assist in pulling air through the evap. core. Generally if the cooling system is working well, the water pump fan isn't needed unless the temp gets very high and you aren't moving much (traffic). GD

That sounds more like what you should be seeing. The stock "goo" isn't red so they have definitely been off at some point - probably safe to bet the head gaskets were replaced. I would make absolutely sure you don't have air bubbles in the cooling system - this is an easy and common mistake with the EA82's and results in overheating. Also replace the thermostat with an OEM one and make sure the connections to the fan and fan thermoswitch are clean and working properly. More than one intermittent overheating problem has been due to fans working intermittently. GD

Very nice info - but it makes no difference to this thread as we are talking about EA's and no one makes tuned aftermarket headers for the N/A EA's. You are also talking about an order-of-magnitude more power from the EJ's - 160+ HP engine compared to one making 90 HP stock.... the gains would be so insignificant even if you did build one and flow-test/dyno it that it wouldn't be worth your time. Further, anything that hasn't been dyno'd and tested WILL be a loss. Take your car to Joe's exhaust shop and tell him you want a custom header - you won't get a gain out of it I assure you. GD

I have an advantage as I have both the FSM as well as the 4WD 4 speed transmission service manual.... To get the extention housing off, you have to dissasemble the 4WD engagement linkage under the rectangular plate. The 4 speed dual-range's are stupidly complex devices - getting them apart and back together correctly takes some luck and a lot of patience (and that 35mm socket). The OD of the socket needs to be about 45mm. GD

This is how it's laid out: Valve cover / Cam Carrier / Head / Block / Head / Cam Carrier / Valve cover The head gaskets are between the Block and Head sections only. That clear it up for you? GD

There are sections of FSM's floating around in digital form. The fuel and ignition sections are on my SPFI conversion page as they are applicable to swapping SPFI to the older carbed engines: http://home.comcast.net/~trilinear/EA81_SPFI.html I don't have any of the other FSM documents for the EA82's as I rarely work on them anymore. You'll find as you hang out around here that us old-timers skip the EA82 generation vehicles and mosly just rob the good parts off of them for our EA81 gen stuff. That and we drive EJ's for daily's. The EA82's are just a pian in the butt unless you swap the engine out for an EA81 or EJ. GD

CD player options, premium decks, and other optional junk that your car doesn't have. As far as I know the EA82's never came with power antenna's. You will find a lot of optional connectors on Subaru's. This way the dealer can install options if the customer wishes and the factory only has to produce a couple different harnesses. GD

Unfortunately quite a bit. It wasn't so bad till they increased the power of the EJ22 in '96. The older dual-port EJ22's are 135 HP, while the EJ18 is 110 HP. The newer single port EJ22's are 147 HP though so he's going to lose 37 HP out of the deal - but hey there were plenty of EJ18 Imps made and they are great cars with a great engine. Not as much power, but better economy and still just fine for a plain old driver. Hell I'm still rocking a 74 HP EA81 with one low cylinder in my '83 hatch and I do just fine. GD

IIRC, that would be the shift-lock overide - in case you have to get it out of park without the key. GD

Are you sure you are looking at the head gakset and not the cam tower? Those are sealed with RTV and it would be normal to see it there. The cam tower is the last 3" or so on TOP of the head and the valve cover attaches to the cam tower. The block itself is rather small and the head gasket are 6"+ from the valve covers. GD

Contrary to the above, when I do rear axles, I remove the lower shock/coil over-bolt from the trailing arm. Don't have to mess with the diff this way. If you do it with the rear end on jack stands you can then put your jack under the trailing arm and jack it back into place and then reinstall the shock/coil-over bolt. GD