scoobydube

My guess is the $20 Exhaust Gas Temperature sensor that screws into the catalytic converter. Your welcome in advance.

John's Subaru in Laurelwood Oregon has parts that you cannot buy anywhere.

It probably needs rebuilding at this age. Which is a new circular seal ring, a new boot and they through in a metal ring to seat the boot inside of the caliper.

A bad exhaust gas temperature sensor will cause all of your bad engine problems, which you do not appear to have changed. About $20. It screws into the side of your catalytic converter coming out of your turbo.

3 idlers plus 2 belts in a kit are available on EBAY for the best price that I could find.

I believe that the engine runs off the battery during ignition and switches to the alternator once the key returns to the run position. So you might check the alternator wiring for it being in place, and then the alternator. There are also three wires that go bad in the same area. The ground wire gets hard and goes bad where it is bolted into the chassis, just in front of the battery, causing the engine to run rough with headlights on or working any other accessory. The wire that comes off of the bottom of the hot battery terminal wire and goes to the fusible link box, gets hard and loses it's ability to conduct electricity. The wire that is bolted into the back of the alternator also gets hard and loses it's ability to conduct electricity, causing the engine to kill.

As I recall, once you remove the boot to uncover the ball bearing assembly, there is a circular wire clip that wraps around everything, that you pop out in order to disassemble it enough for the ball bearings to fall out onto your work table.

I have had this happen a number of times on my 1986 GL10. There are about 5 silver 1" diameter x 1 1/2 long gismos that I believe are switches, under the dash board and just left of the steering wheel column. They plug in and pull out. If you take a look at each one by unplugging it, you may find one that overheated and is slightly dis-colored. That's the one that is fried. You can swap it out with another one that is working but obviously, you will want to get a good one so that everything is working. They last a long time, so used ones are Okay to plug in.

And the inner joint pin only come out one direction, and then only goes back in in the opposite direction. A taper around the hole is at the exit and entrance end.

I put the nut back on and this put a 2x4 flat over the nut and hit the 2x4 with a heavy hammer. Obviously, the inner connection to the transmission, should already have been disconnected.

If the genuine subaru mechanic did not smear brake fluid on the rubber cv boots, then how else are those boots going to both crack and require replacement at the exact same time. As I recall, they did it too my vehicle twice.

Look for rust in the frame around the bottom of the windshield, once you remove it. You may need body work.

I bought refurbished front CV axles from both O'Reillys and Autozone. Put them both on at the same time. The Autozone axles went out in 30,000 miles. The O'Reillys axles are still going strong. Apparently Autozone uses chinese axles, according to O'Reillys. If you wait until they start making noise, it is too late to just add grease. Auto mechanics will smear brake fluid on the rubber so that they crack in 30 days, simultaneously. So then it's back to the auto mechanic again. Funny how that works. Tip: stuff as much axle grease into the wheel bearing area as you can because it helps with the longevity of the wheel bearings. Pressure wash the inside of your brake area so that you don't get dirt into the wheel bearings when you go to reinstall the cv axle.

Do you clean them with brake fluid or acid? I have never had any grommets crack. They will get hard and not seal at maybe 40,000 miles. To make them seal better, I use high temperature gasket maker. Same with the rubber cover seals to make them seal better. It is especially important to keep them from dripping oil onto the exhaust pipe or the left side exhaust gas tube. I use the grommets that I buy with full gasket sets on EBAY and they seem to work fine.

The subaru dealer used to recommend changing the water pump at 15,000 miles. No doubt because they were failing in 20,000 miles when the grime is not kept out of the water pump bearings by plugging the top hole, but not the bottom hole. I had total bearing failure at 25,000 miles with no top plug. Just changed one at 40,000 miles with a top plug and no bottom plug and the seals were getting a little sticky, so it may have made it to 45,000 miles with a top plug. Leaving the bottom hole open, lets you know about when the seals are shot.

The water pumps will not likely last longer than 25,000 miles if you do not plug up the upper weep hole with gasket maker, or 40,000 miles if you do plug up the hole. In my experience. And when they go out, the fan wobbles so badly that it will cut into the radiator, requiring a new one. A trick to setting the timing belt over the camshaft gear, is to temporarily set the tension adjuster wheels so that the spring is fully extended. Then you can install the camshaft gear without having to deal with the timing belt. And then the timing belt slips on easily over the gear, afterward. Otherwise, you will be fighting the timing belt while trying to line up on the pin that puts the gear in the correct position. For back cover clearance, trying taking them off, laying them flat, put some weight on the high points that have warped outward, and apply heat from a heat gun until the warp is taken out of the back cover. For attaching the front cover, use plastic washers beneath the bolt heads in order to keep those bolt threads from seizing inside of the back cover threaded inserts. 1986 GL10 Wagon 480,000 miles original owner

Get some bolt loosener and let it sit overnight after liberally spraying.

To remove it, try using a piano or metal guitar string with a grip attached to each end. Making it a two man job. Leaks also may occur from the air intake that is hidden just in front of the windshield. Which is also where the mice like to get in. You can build up the lip that keeps water from really flowing into the heater vents, with caulking, and put hardware cloth over the top to keep the mice out.

Find a whiter white to pain your jackmans, and possibly paint the lug mounts behind the jackman's another color like RED. Some people also paint the disk brake calipers. That will dress it up.

In the 86 gl10 turbo wagons, the distributor electronics have a limited lifespan, which is considerably shorter than the lifespan of the remainder of the vehicle. There are a lot of other electrical issues that can keep it from starting, and put it in junk yards. The new felpro head gaskets can keep the head gaskets from blowing and are a must have. I have 475,000 miles on mine and still can keep it running, since all of the things that go wrong, have gone wrong before. It still looks new since I keep it garaged. The Subaru dealer is just waiting to get his hands on it so he can take it out of commission. The rear brake calipers are also extremely hard to find so I hope you don't have bad ones. My brake master cylinder finally went bad the other day. The digital instrument cluster will have issues with the gear at the speedometer cable connector at this mileage. Coils will also go bad. The exhaust cross pipe develops cracks and rattles that can be resolved by removing the heat shield at the turbo end and rewelding on the outside of the pipe at the crack. There appears to be 3 or 4 different diameters used for that pipe, at the turbo end. The bigger the better. What ever you do, don't let a dealer near the vehicle, because they want to sell you a new one.

I have the same 4 pin Hitachi distributor that you show in your photo. I used a 2 1/2" diameter exhaust pipe that starts at the first catalytic converter. The 2nd catalytic converter is gone. It passes DEQ with flying colors, providing it is in tune and the timing belts are adjusted properly. I had 2 used distributors go bad in one week, just last week.

You are correct in that the Nippondenso distributor was used in the 86 XT MPFI. There is a long list of electrical issues with my GL10, that can keep it from running properly and sends them to the junk yard. They are A. coil goes bad B. the hot wire coming off the back of the alternator gets hard, and eventually breaks but makes the engine run poorly in the process before it breaks. C. the engine ground wire gets hot, get hard, and looses it's ability to conduct electricity efficiently, resulting in very poor engine performance as in the engine won't run well with the headlights on. This starts at around 150,000 miles. D. the wire that comes off the bottom of the positive battery terminal connector and leads to the fusible link box, gets hot, gets hard and loses its ability to conduct electricity. E. the gismo that attaches to the coil with a single wire and is also attached to the body at the coil mounting plate, that cuts down static on the radio, can go out completely and the engine will not start. F. the Hitachi distributors do not last long enough and may cause the engine to run rough before they go out completely. Or they may just go out all of a sudden. G. the battery terminals can get corroded. H. the distributor cap can crack for no apparently reason. I. the terminals inside of the distributor cap get corroded and cause poor performance. J. the spark plug wires get rusty and/or can have a total failure at the connector at the spark plug. K. the spark plugs can go out separately and they all should be replaced at no more than 25,000 miles. L. the timing belt on one sides can jump a tooth on the timing belt pulley. This is caused by the tension pulleys not be adjusted properly. M. the timing belts can break Obviously, every single one of the above problems happened to my GL10 Turbo and I found the cause. Which is why it now has 476,000 miles and runs better than the day it came off the dealers lot, because I installed a larger diameter exhaust system, updated cylinder head gaskets, exhaust cross pipe with the rattle flashing removed, a larger diameter exhaust cross pipe at the turbo and an LSD rear differential.

In this photo, the timing indicator is pointing at the flywheel BTDC marks, not the 3 tick marks that are used for setting both the timing belt pulleys and installing the distributor. So the rotor position shown is completely irrelevant in a discussion based on the 3 tick marks.

You are correct.

Forget my comment about whether it is a genuine Subaru service manual.