joe5

Ok cool. I'll do that tonight after work and report back.

@grossgary: The vibration did NOT happen before the repair. Mykestoy also suspected the wheel bearing, but it seems unlikely to me that its condition deteriorated so much while I was doing the ball joint. I replaced the ball joint because it was super worn, like when the car was up the wheel could shake big time left to right and when I got it out the ball joint flopped around like a wet noodle. I did the other side recently too while replaceing a CV axle, and it was toasted so I suspected the other side was probably bad too (which it was). @jono: Thanks for the correction on describing the issue...Is it possible to edit the title of posts so as to not have a misleading title? Regarding wheel weight...I have never tampered with those before, is it something that could have popped off without deliberately attempting to do so? Is it easy to gauge wheel balance? I'll search through previous threads to find some info on that...

Thanks guys for the feed back. I picked the car up. The wheel does not budge when pushed up or down. I can get it to move slightly to the left and right, but its slow and takes a good amount of pushing...is that normal?

I got a 92 loyale. Just did the ball joint, which has to take the cake for the most difficult ball joint ever. I think the new part was out of spec, as it was just SLIGHTLY too big and did NOT want to go in. By the time we realized the ideal path would be to send it back, we had reached point of no return. After beating on it for ever, it was ~99% seated and we called it good. But now I have some kind of a steering alignment issue. When i'm driving between 45-65mph, the steering wheel vibrates pretty significantly. At one foggy point in my epic battle, I took the castle nut off the tie rod at the knuckle, thinking it could help me. I never separated it from the knuckle though, and ended up just putting the castle nut back on. Could this have messed up my alignment? It has to be an effect of the ball joint or the tie rod since those are the only things I messed with...Any help figurin this out would be much appreciated thanks

If your really in a pinch, you can pop out one of your rear axles, put it in 4WD and just be getting drive from the other side. Its super easy too, just punch out 2 spring pins and your ready to roll. Not that you'd wanna do that for a long time though...but a quick and easy way to get down the road without causing damage.

There is a guy in beaverton parting out a 1990 ea82 car. I got some parts last week and the front hubs were still there. the prices were definantly right too, definantly cheaper than you'll get at a junk yard. There were lots of good parts left including axles and bearings if you wanna pick those up too. here's the link. Good luck finding your parts! http://portland.craigslist.org/wsc/pts/4601440696.html

I don't know the answers to your questions, but there is a section in this forum designated to swaps of various kinds. There is a wealth of info there that can get you on your way. Here is the link. http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/forum/18-subaru-retrofitting/

I'm not sure what bolts are you talking about. Removing the rear axle takes punching out the spring pins, the lock ring, axle nut and you gotta pound the stub out of the bearing...but there aren't any bolts in the stub right?

Yea overall it was super easy, just wanted to post some pics because pictures are awesome. I didn't use pb blaster but it soudns like a good approach, I just scored the surface with my screwdriver to scrape off the grime. Probably better ways to treat it to keep it cleaned up longer.

So I had this problem with my power widnows in my 92 loyale. Just to be clear the problem is now FIXED. But figured I'd post what I found to help the next guy. The problem: Both passenger windows would roll down but not up. The fix: Cleaning up the switch on the door. So after checking fuses, relays and other common suspects, I found the culprit to just be poor contact at the switch on the door. Probably a more experienced mechanic would have checked this earlier but alas, I am not that experienced. Anyway, I got some pictures here so the next person can know what they are getting into. Beware, some of the pieces are tiny and the switch kind of falls apart when you take it out. Be careful so your not diggin in the dirt! Maybe this is typical of electrical switches but Ive never taken one apart before so there ya go. I didn't take pics of removing the switch but its easy, just take the panel off the door and disconnect it. 2 screws hold the switch to the inside of the door panel and then the switch is free. Take off the plastic cover and take out 2 small screws which hold the switch together. The two halves of the switch... And here are all of the little parts individually. Also, be careful removing the screws, they thread into a plastic piece which break easily. And you need them to hold the switch together. Interestingly, the contacts were not obviously corroded. But a quick little buffing from the tip of the screwdriver made all the difference as now the windows work great. Hope this is helpful.

Cool, yea I guess its just a cost balance, if I can swap to disc for ~ the same price I'd prefer that but If I can't find anything in a local JY I'll go that route. Buying new stuff for disc would be pretty spendy. Also, what is the hard line?

Thanks everyone for the input. PROBLEM FOUND! After fighting to get the drum off, I can see the thing that holds the brake shoe in place fell apart causing the shoe to pop out laterally into the side of the drum. Here are the rogue broken pieces... And well crap...cuz they successfully damaged essentially every other component of the brakes Here you can see both boots on the cylinder got sliced up and if you look hard you can see a gouge in the brake cylinder itself... Here you can see the shoe got a nice chip in it...(less than 2K on these shoes too) I don't have a picture of it, but the drum itself also got a nice gouge in it from the shoe pressing out into it. *&^(*%%(^^%%$$!!!!! Anybody know where I can find the stuff to convert to disc? Not looking to pay to replace every component of the drum brakes Also...would I be crazy to just take off the remaining brake components from that wheel and keep cruisin till I fix it up? The front brakes should be solid as they got new pads within the last 5k miles...

yikes! I just looked up some older threads about u joint failures...I don't wanna go there! Is tehre a reason a u joint would make the noise only from one side? Like I said earlier, the wheel and axle were SUPER hot but ONLY on the passenger rear where the noise was coming from. Is this still consistent with a failing u joint?

Thanks for the reply guys @dee2: what could the brakes do to cause this? I just replaced the shoes and its a drum I got from the junk yard...the brake cylinder is pretty old too.. @Ibreakstuff: Hmmm, this would be nice if its just a random rock that got in the way and then fell out. Does this happen allot to people?

Was out on some semi rough roads this weekend in my 92 loyale when all of a sudden I started hearing a super loud clacking/scraping? from my passenger side rear wheel. I checked it out and couldn't see anything obvious. I started driving again to hear it and it stopped after a few more feet so I kept on cruising. Then about 10 minutes later, it started happening again. Same routine, hopped out looked around and couldn't see anything but the wheel its self was super hot, like almost burned my hand. I still had to get to point B so I decided to just keep cruising and figure it out when I got there. The sound continued for a discomforting amount of time, maybe a mile, but at one point when I had to slow way down to get over a rut, it just stopped and hasn't started since. I made it out of the woods and ~100 miles on paved roads since with no issues. But I'm not a fan of problems that come and go as they please without being "addressed". I did the wheel bearing on that wheel recently, and since it was my first time I am suspicious of it... I also engaged the 4wd a few times but it didn't seem to correlated strongly with it... Any suggestions on what this could be? Thanks in advance

That car is super fly! Was the head actually cracked or could it just be a head gasket? Keep in mind if you change the head, you will have to reseal from at least that point out which can run you some more $$$ in gaskets. As birdmobile said, pulling the engine is required(or at least super helpful), which isn't super hard and there is allot of support and "how too's" available, but will take a good chunk of time. You'll save allot of money on labor though!

Check out this diagram. It should be helpful. Your distributer will be in a different place in the engine bay but just follow the lines from the cap to the correct cylinder. Good luck!

Yea thats what I'm thinking...So how did you decide on a Hyundai thermoswitch?

Yea it does seem like a thermoswitch from the JY is a crap shoot but isn't almost anything from the JY Most of the switches I see online are in the ball park of ~$50, which is more than I'm hoping to pay. I was hoping that if the thread of plug into the radiator is relatively universal between the subarus, or even other makes for that matter, I could try grabbing one from a newer car where its more likely to be good. So I am still looking for feedback on whether or not thermoswitches are universal or fairly car specific. The fact that birdmobile got the hyundai switch to fit suggests they are pretty universal...I'd prefer to get one that I don't have to splice wires but at the end of the day I'd rather pay $30 and splice than $50 and not.

Hi everyone, The electric cooling fan quit running in my 92 loyale. After some trouble shooting, I've determined it to be a faulty thermoswitch, as bypassing it got the fan running again. So I'm looking for a replacement. Are these thermoswitches fairly car specific or pretty standard? In other words, when I go to the JY this weekend, I am limited to ea82 cars or can I look in other cars? Thanks in advance!

Thanks rdweninger, I've actually already completed the job a couple weeks ago and broke in the motor with a 2100 mile road trip last week. I just posted the reply I got from autopartszilla so the part list could be available to anyone else who is mystified by a box full of undocumented parts ha. Although, "use what you need and ditch the rest" is good practical advice, its seems crazy to me that the list of parts is such an elusive creature. I'm glad people are interested in the post, and some corrections to the parts list have been made. It seems that even the part list I finally squeezed out of autopartszilla is still questionable hah. But hopefully it still represents a useful contribution to the available pool of knowledge here on the board. I did get the cam tower o-ring from subaru but I used the felpro intake gaskets. Hopefully that won't bite me in the &^% later but at least that one is easy to get to...

Ok. So after a series of emails I was able to get this out of autoparts zilla. It sounds like lots of people have/will use this kit so hopefully this will be useful to someone doing an ea82 in the future. Fel-Pro HS9392PT2 Head Set includes: Cylinder head gaskets Intake manifold gaskets Intake manifold plenum gasket Exhaust manifold gaskets Valve cover gaskets Valve cover grommet Spark plug tube seals Push rod cover gaskets Push rod cover grommets Camshaft oil seals (OHC) Valve stem seals Water outlet gasket Thermostat housing gasket Distributor mounting gasket Air cleaner gasket Carburetor mounting gasket TBI mounting gasket Throttle body mounting gasket Fuel injector seals Turbocharger mounting gasket Supercharger mounting gasket Air bypass gasket Air pump gaskets Exhaust flange gaskets Heat riser gasket Choke tube gasket EGR valve gaskets

I just got back from a road trip last weekend from oregon to eastern utah and back on my 92 loyale with 230k on the ea82. (trip was 2100 miles including rabbit trails along the way). It was the first trip out the drive way after my first headgasket/timingbelt/water pump job (And thanks to gloyale for last minute help with the most ridiculous ball joint ever). Pretty bold "test drive" but the motor held up strong! The one problem I did have... I got a leak in the little coolant hose that connects the thermostat to the block. It took me a while to find because the coolant leaked onto the top of the block and evaporated without dripping onto the ground. It started as a slow leak but by the time we were in the salt flats we were loosing close to a gallon every 100 miles. By then it was gushing and easy to spot. The take away...double check old hoses! Especially since you mentioned you are loosing some coolant. Could be many things but with the heat and being under a lot of pressure during a road trip, you don't want a hose busting on ya in the middle of no where. Good luck on the trip!

I just did the water pump on mine for the first time. The new one I got was round, not rectangular or flat.

Oh cool. Thanks Gloyale nice to see your in my neighborhood. At this point I've got the motor seated right and have almost finished hooking everything else up. Just gotta get the distributor installed and the timing adjusted. Hoping to get it back on the road by tomorrow or saturday. Thanks for the support, I'll hit you up if I get in a bind.