scoobydube

Although I recently had similar symptoms, I finally read the trouble code and got 14. Copilot told me that my #1 cylinder injector was malfunctioning. Upon inspection, there was lots of white corrosion inside of the connector. Scratching as much of that corrosion off, not only made the engine run normal again, but it meant that I did not have to go shopping for another car. Win-Win.

An EGR red light on your dash would indicate that either your EGR valve has issues or your EGR solenoid has issues. A faulty EGR setup can cause the problems that you describe, according to the Subaru manual and CoPilot.

Your descriptions sounds like a problem I had when the Exhaust Gas Temperature sensor in the exhaust needed replacing. $25 You also might want to change out all of the relay switches under the dash over your left knee cap. Make sure all the breather hoses are soft and get a good seal, as the rock hard breather hoses on top of the engine no longer seal. See my thread on Rock Hard Breather Hoses. Make sure that the timing advance vacuum on the distributor still holds a vacuum when you suck on the inlet. Take apart the distributor if it is not an electronic distributor, and make sure all of the swing weights are not worn on their pivot, have grease on them and they swing properly. Make sure the distributor cap is not cracked. Verify that the engine problems do not occur only when you are running accessories. If accessories cause the engine problems then you need to change out your engine ground at it's left front connection to the frame, and also look for rock hard electrical wires running from your + positive battery terminal to the bottom side of the fusible link box as it loses it's ability to carry current.

The engine develops more power and responds quicker as a result of improving the suction in this breather system, for some odd reason.

Better to figure out why it does not work right, instead getting some vague description of a problem from trouble codes. What are the symptoms? For instance, my car suddenly decided not to maintain it's idle, even when giving it enough gas. Then it would suddenly run right for a mile, but then do the same thing later. I first replaced the alternator since I keep a spare. No change. Then I swapped out the two engine relay switches. No change. So that narrowed it down to the distributor for me. So I thought that the distributor brains were going out. I pulled the distributor and was ready to swap out the brains with a backup distributor with the wrong gearing, and by chance I sucked on the timing advance diaphragm inlet. Vella! It would not hold a vacuum. So, I swapped out the timing advance diaphragm and it worked perfectly again. Obviously, I saved myself from have an actual Subaru dealer look at it, where they either would not likely be able to figure it out, or they would have fixed it, charged my a small fortune in order to get my car back, and sabotaged it so that I would have to bring it back in 30 days. Standard Subaru mechanic scam.

Your market is teenagers and early 20's, that have no money. They would not be leaving it as is, but instead would be jacking it up, putting new larger wheels on it and turning it into a ditch banger. So the top value would probably be no more than $1500. Unless it is a show car. Since you did not mention the mileage, I assume that it is over 250,000. If it is the original engine, then cut that price in half.

The distributors don't last forever. Plus, you need to take them apart and make sure that all the moving parts have grease and swing properly. I have gone through one distributor every 100,000 miles or less. The little black plastic electronic thing a ma jig in the center goes bad, then there is no spark to the plugs. As far as electricity to the injectors, that could be the black wire in the fusible links, that runs the entire engine. Another culprit could be the capacitor that wires into the coil, that will cause the engine to not start. Obviously, you have to have installed the timing belts exactly right, and you need prior experience to do that. Coils also go bad. Then there is the electrical connectors of the hot wire coming off of the alternator. That wire with the looped end connector loses it's conductivity due to overheating, so you have to cut back the lead and reinstall a new loop end to reattach to the alternator. Ground wires also lose their ability to conduct electricity at the body end of the wire. If they are stiff, they are bad. If before you took everything apart, and tried to run the electric windows at the same time the engine was running, but that caused the engine to miss or drop in rpm, then the ground wire is bad. I use two ground wires to be safe. There are two out of the six rectifiers under the dash over your left knee, that will cause the engine to not run. You can look for a burned one or replace all of them. Don't buy them from Subaru, because they will sell you the same rectifier that you can buy on the internet for$10, but for $50.

You can remove the auxiliary fan to improve the air flow around the engine, and install a lower temperature thermostat that opens up sooner. You can also drill some holes in your thermostat to increase the coolant flow and lower the engine temperatures that way. In the winter, you would want to put the standard thermostat back in. Few air conditioners still work.

Tell us what is at the other end of the wiring and we well tell you what is bad. I have six relay switches under my 86 turbo dash. Since they were getting real hot and putting of nauseating fumes, I relocated them to ammo cans placed behind the front seats. Two relay switches keep my engine running. Two relay switches keep the head lights and digital dash running. One relay switch keeps the fan running and one relay switch probably goes to the rear window defroster, which I removed the fuses for. The original relay switches are mostly bad by now. Do not buy new relay switches from Subaru, because you can buy the same ones off of Ebay for 1/4 the cost that the Subaru dealer is going to hose you for. When your engine suddenly stops running, the cause is usually either relays switches, the black fusible link, the left side timing belt broken, a bad coil, the condenser next to the coil, or a bad distributor. Carry spares where possible. You have to take your distributor apart periodically and make sure that the swing weights and all other moveable parts are swinging and rolling freely and have light weight lithium grease. I have never had an ECU go out in 530,000 plus miles.

My 86 Turbo has no wiring to the engine mounted radiator fan. The other auxiliary fan that blocks air flowing through the radiator and blocks cooling air to the turbo area, has wiring. But I took it completely out with no over heating problems whatsoever. I even went back to a single core radiator and have no problems. Take it out.

My first fuel pump broke down at 150,000 miles. My second fuel pump is still going strong at 380,000 miles but I carry a backup. In my experience, when the engine ground wire from the left cam cover by the battery, to the ground on the frame, becomes rock hard at the connection to the frame at 250,000 miles, multiple accessories will cause the engine to run rough. So you may have a bad ground wire. I run two ground wires at the same location because I am so paranoid of it happening again and at the worst possible location. Used fuel pumps from U-pull-it are fine if the car was not sitting for years before they sold it off to the yard. And they are cheap. As are the ground wires.

I doubt that you can buy the OEM breather hoses from Subaru anymore. The double curve hoses are particularly hard to replace by shopping on line because the offset of the two ends is unique to the car, and unlikely to be made by Gates and others. So I improvised for a fraction of the retail prices that I see listed on Ebay, by using 3/4" diameter high temp silicone coolant hose in the multilayer type, brass barbed elbows and then enough 7/8" clamps to make those single and double curves. Once the original hoses crack, then your engine is not going to run well. So I wanted to replace with the new and pliable hoses to head off that potential breakdown.

Coolant tanks don't shoot out coolant unless you have cracked heads, in my experience with a turbo.

You must have full time AWD.

That pulley can be slide out on the center shaft, by using a hammer and a holding device for the pulley, so that you pound on the center shaft protrusion and push the water pump away from the front of the pulley. Also there are water pumps for pulleys with two different heights. The shorter one is for the GL. The taller one is for the GL10.

If you also do not have high beam on the right headlight, then it is probably one of the two relay switches that handle the headlights as well. They are located behind the fuse box panel above your left kneecap. All of the relay switches give off noxious fumes that are slowly killing the drivers of the older generation subarus. I ran electrical lines for all of my relay switches to air tight 30 cal ammo boxes that I put in the foot well for the rear seats.

I had better experience with the water pumps that had what looked like cast iron impellars. The thinner bent steel impellars did not last as long. Also, be sure and caulk the small top hole in the water pump in order to keep dirt and grime out of the bearing/seal.

Remove the driveshaft to the rear wheels.

Final update. By accident, after snapping up a subaru ground wire at a pick n pull, from another low mileage subaru, I installed the second ground wire in parallel with the current engine ground wire to the left side cam shaft cover area. Now, all of the relay switches that I am currently using cooled down to only nominal heating. Consequently, the horror stories that I described above about all of the new relay switches, may not in fact be applicable. So in conclusion, I recommend adding a second in parallel ground wire to your car if you have over 200,000 miles. Heck you may even be able to get those new bad boy LED headlights to work, without screwing up your digital dash and dash dimmers.

Well, I did not change the wiring on the car. As an update however, the original OEM relay switches that do not put out any fumes, are OK for the headlight circuits. However, those OEM relay switches are just too tired to get the full potential out of the engine, so I went with the newer, stinky relay switches and incorporated them into the nuclear option, which is running the appropriate gage wires into an ammo box in the back seat floor, where another relay switch connector is attached for the new relay switches. The engine relays run hot when new relays are used, just like the fan relays, so I put all three in the ammo box. Now I have full power for the engine. The older OEM relays would run cold for the engine circuit, they just no longer have the cahones to develop full power for the engine. And as an additional precaution, I now run two ground wires, at the same location. I know that when they get over 250,000 miles, then can get hot, get brittle and lose their conductivity at the connection to the body. When that happens, it is difficult to run accessories like electric windows, and still have the engine run smoothly.

Emergency Relay Switch Update. Do not install any new relay switches that you buy from anybody, including your Subaru dealer, BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL BAD. They are going to all get up to 130F, or they won't allow your engine to run smoothly, but for certain they will give off noxious fumes that are likely poisonous. You can thank the automobile conspiracy for getting these old Subarus off of the road for that, because this is how far they are willing to go in order to get you to buy a new car from them. It does not matter whether they are made in Japan, in China or in Taiwan, they are all bad and toxic to your health. Therefore, DO NOT CHANGE OUT YOUR RELAY SWITCHES. The relay switch that is most likely to blow is the Fan relay switch. When the Fan is in the number 3 position for more than about a 1/2 hour, then you are in danger of blowing that relay switch. If either of your two relay switches that run the engine cause the engine to no longer run, then swap them out with the other two or four relay switches that you have hidden behind the fuse box. The only relay switches that work properly are the ones that came with the original car. They have stamps on them like 01F17 or 03K15, but not exactly those stamps. GL10's have 6 relay switches. GL's have only 4 relay switches. If you are forced to go to then new toxic ones, then you are going to have to go nuclear and run wires from the relay switch connector by the fuse box, to a location in your car like the back seat floor, and find another actual relay switch connector that you will allow you to encasing your new toxic relay switch inside of a 30 caliber ammo box where the wire openings are caulked tight. Which is not a pretty option.

Try replacing a couple key relay switches beneath the dash, to the left of the steering column, that keep the engine running. You can figure it out when the engine is running, by pulling the relay switches one at a time. Stick with genuine OEM switches.

Do not buy DENSO relay switches off of EBAY, because the two switches that get real hot, put off noxious fumes inside the car.

Go back to the basics of new plugs, new distributor cap or scrape off the corrosion on the points inside and inspect center pin for wear, sandpaper the rotor top and tip, check the plug wire ends for corrosion, check the timing, replace the ground wire or check it for getting hot at the connection to the frame. If hot then replace it. Adjust the mixture to optimum. Check the connection to the alternator for rigid wire at the alternator end that loses conductivity as hit heats up. Replace the relay switches inside of the left end of the dash over your left knee.

The fix is to jack up the car at the hinges with both front and rear wheels off of the ground. Then put one person on the front bumper and one on the rear bumper area, and bounce the car until you bend the frame back to where it used to be. Do only a little bit of bouncing at a time, and then recheck.