azdave

I've had several pumps in my 87 DL wagon in the last two years and they all begin to whine and moan after a few months but only when they get warm. The whine pulses up and down when the turn signals are on or when any change is made to the loading on the battery. The pumps all work great at first and are pretty quiet but eventually I begin to hear them after a long drive home from work. I just figure it is cheap pumps that quickly lose the gearing tolerance after a few thousand miles.

The only thing critical is that the blue/red wire on the fan sees positive voltage and that the yellow/white gets a ground that comes from the thermo snap switch. The wires on the thermo snap switch could get swapped but is doesn't matter since all it is doing is supplying the ground connection for the fan whenever the coolant is hot enough. When the key is on and the engine either hot or cold, you should always read +12 volts on one wire going to the snap switch connector. The other wire will be grounded to the chassis. When the coolant is hot enough, the snap switch closes and the fan is connected to ground and turns on. You could have the wires on the snap switch reversed and it would not matter. To test the fan, temporarily jumper across the connector at the snap switch with a paper clip (ignition key in the run position) and the fan should turn on. That tells you if the fan is okay. To test the snap switch, you will need to get it hot enough to trigger it. If you can take it out easily, connect it to a VOM and heat it in a pan of boiling water to see if the contacts go from open to closed.

If you did everything correctly, as you and the shop both agree, then it pretty much comes down to the struts being the issue. Not all brand new parts are without fault. Did you compare the old struts to the new side-by-side? If the extended height seemed to match, did you also compared the number of turns on the spring coils and also compare the coil diameters? Do you still have the old struts? There are far to many sellers these days that offer parts that fit where the old parts were but don't meet the application specs properly. I had the same issue with front struts for my 87 DL. I found out they weren't really the exact part for my car but they would bolt up the same so some manufacturer decided to group them all together as being compatible when they were not. I bought them because the cross reference charts claimed they were correct for my wagon but they were not. It sat too high after the install. I eventually found a proper set but it took a long time to find a right and left pair.

Thanks again. Time to build a parts pile. I see Rock Auto has some of the bits so I can start my list there for a few of the pieces.

Thank you. I'll maybe reach out to David Melcher over in Cali as he seems to have quite a bit of L-series stuff on FB. I don't think he is on USMB though. I also replied to a FS thread here for Dave S. in New Mexico to see what he might have.

Thanks. That image gives me a little more idea what I would be in for on the lower end. Really wish I had a donor car to do the swap but they don't come up for sale very often around here and are very rare to be found in a junk yard. I don't even know of another like mine around here. I go to the weekend Subie meets once in awhile but haven't seen one there either.

I really like my plain Jane, pure stock, 5-speed, 87 DL wagon that I brought back to life a few years ago and travel at least 150 miles a week with it. At one point, I wanted to install a DR tranny but realize that is something I would very rarely use so I've decided to leave that be. The one thing that I would really like to add is power steering. I've had multiple elbow surgeries on both arms and due to that and just getting older (born pre-60's) I would really like to be able to turn the steering wheel with less effort. Is converting to power steering a simple task if I can find parts or will I have to change alternators and A/C compressors and find all kinds of rare parts to do it properly? My A/C works great and in Arizona, that has to remain functional. Seems like a lot of stuff needs to move to make room for the pump, belt changes, etc. Might this also involve a change to the water pump shaft length? Is the crossmember different due to location holes for mounting the power rack or routing the PS hoses? Other related threads here are pretty vague about how much really needs to change. Photo shows my current setup

Not sure if this helps but the only time I've had trouble with my 2003 WRX A/C system was when I temporarily wired the compressor control to remain engaged full-time instead of cycling on and off as it is supposed to do, based upon temps and/or pressures. My compressor would lock up and then start working again, over and over on my drive home from work. I deduced that the evaporator core was probably getting so cold that the return line to the pump still contained some liquid refrigerant that didn't boil off in the evap core and you can't compress a liquid so the compressor would lock up and then work again until more liquid made it to the pump again. After fixing the control issue, I removed the jumper that forced the pump to stay on full time and haven't had the issue since.

Welcome! It's not the forum of old these days but it's still here and useful to me. I just wish we had more control over keeping out all of these spammers. I have a 2003 Bugeye WRX 5-speed wagon and a 87 DL 5-speed wagon. I DD the 87 for work and errands and just turned over 250K miles. The WRX is at 205K. I even have a 1965 Corvair with an EJ20T going in the back but it's still in-process.

Same here. Past owner got the length wrong, Rock Auto got the length wrong, vendors don't care to pay attention and then I got smart and realized it was the same pump body and shaft length involved. All I had to do was pull or press the mounting face to the correct distance. I hope the spacer works out.

The pump is only as good as the bearings inside but it may be impossible to find a pump that uses anything but Chinese parts, especially at Rock Auto. If you had an early failure then you might want to also take a look at the fan and fan clutch to be sure they are not contributing any uneven loading to the shaft.

Several have sold recently on BAT and an 04 STI with 38K is at auction right now. https://bringatrailer.com/subaru/wrx-sti/

Look good so far!

Loved or hated, they are what they are. My EA82 gets me to work and back very reliably each day, even when it's 110+ in the summer. When we have errands to run, I much prefer to drive the 87 DL with 246K miles and not my wife's 20 years younger Honda. In general, we love the old cars and that's all we own. Our newest vehicle is almost 20 years old. Our oldest vehicle, driven most every weekend, is 60 years old. I don't even drive my 2003 WRX that often these days. She's too young for me.

A rhetorical question, right? Our world is full of immoral mechanics and car salesmen who know it is far cheaper to hide faults than to fix them. My 87 DL came to me with the CEL bulb not doing a proper self-check at start-up. The bulb had been removed of course. I installed a new bulb and was able to fix the faults. I later found the old bulb under the passenger seat when cleaning up the interior. I bought the car from the original owner but of course he claimed to know nothing about it.