DerFahrer

I already have new OEM balljoints for it, and what I found surprising was the new balljoints I bought are sealed and non-serviceable, while the original balljoints had little grease nipples in the bottom of them. It wasn't the fact that they were in there a while that was a problem, it was those bottom two bolts. They won't come right out, the body of the balljoint itself gets in the way! I don't understand it. The bushings in the control arms look a little rough, but might be salvageable. If I were to replace the front arms though, I'd like to keep everything as original Gen1 stuff. Call me weird.

New struts can definitely raise a new car a tad just because they're new and fresh and can support more weight. I've seen it with my own two eyes, on my own cars. They will 'settle' eventually though.

They will lower the car, they have higher spring rates, yes they will reduce body roll, etc. etc. You'd have to mix and match a couple parts to get them to fit your Legacy though. Have you been to LegacyCentral?

I forgot to add, I changed the starter in my Legacy before starting on the 79 yesterday morning, and I'm not telling any lies, I'm not exaggerating... it took me 15 minutes from the time I opened the hood until the time I hopped in the car and turned it over with the new starter. The first-gen Legacies are still the easiest Subarus I've ever worked on, IMO. I can just look at the dash on the Gen1 and tell you it would be way easier to pull than the Legacy's dash, I don't doubt you on that at all. And I will say something else, neither my Legacy nor my XT have as tough of a body as my GL. Every time I close a door or close the hatch, I can tell just how much of a tank it is. But mounting the swaybar to the tranny crossmember??? I can't think of any benefit in suspension geometry, and it just makes things more difficult.

I too can confirm springs settling. My Legacy didn't seem all that lower right after I put my WRX springs in, but a couple weeks later, I actually noticed a significant difference. Did you get new struts too? New struts can raise the car up slightly too, simply because they're new and capable of supporting more weight, thus taking some off the springs and causing the car to raise a bit. Struts too will settle.

Wait a second. What hydro clutch car are you working on Gary? If this car with a hydro clutch is a turbo, then the clutches are different. Most turbo clutches are pull-style (the throwout bearing pulls the pressure plate out, some new Subaru turbos switched back to the other style) but the nonturbo clutches are push-style (the throwout bearing pushes the pressure plate in). Hydro clutches aren't complicated. When you push the pedal in, the master cylinder forces fluid into the slave cylinder, which pushes on the clutch fork and disengages the clutch. It works under the exact same principle as brakes. In fact, they both use brake fluid. I know that someone used a transmission with a hydro clutch and was able to get a cable clutch to work with it. But I dunno about the other way around. Any particular reason why you wanna go this route?

If it's a 4EAT AWD, then it's from an 88 or an 89. My brochures say that 90 and 91 XTs were FWD only, regardless of MT or AT. Yeah, it will fit though. If your GL Turbo has a 4EAT (it's Fulltime 4WD right?) then yes it should bolt and plug in.

Ummm, a 79 Subaru GL without a transmission After literally hundreds of things coming up between May of 06 when I bought the car and now, I finally had the time today to drop the transmission out of it. I've already dropped and reinstalled the transmission in my Legacy to fix a loose clutch fork, so that knowledge helped me a ton. The overall concept is largely the same. But there is SO much stuff that is different, and most of it is different in a bad way Don't get me wrong, I love Gen1 cars. But I can definitely tell that Subaru was still a new company and not designing things the best way when this car was made. 1) To remove a top-mounted starter, you have to disassemble the pitch-stop mounting system. I tried and tried, but there's no way to get the starter out around the cable that mounts to the transmission. 2) OMG... I hate the balljoints on this car! If anyone knows of a better way to remove them, PLEASE inform me! I had to get them off the control arm by ruining the bolts by hammering them out because the body of the balljoint itself interferes with the bolt removal. 3) This is the kicker right here. I have never actually been underneath the car until today, and once I saw that the front swaybar mounts to the tranny crossmember, I dropped my jaw. As I started to look around, I also noticed that the trailing arm on the front was welded onto the front arm, and is also bolted to the tranny crossmember (EA82 cars have the trailing arm bolted to the front arm and is mounted to the frame, not the tranny crossmember). Once I got to it, I realized that I was going to have to drop BOTH front control arms, the swaybar, and the tranny crossmember as one piece. WTF! That was interesting to say the least. But the transmission is out, that was my goal for the day and the weekend, and now I'm very happy that I actually got something done on this car and also that I know it A LOT better now. Oh, and Raven, where the hell have you been with this thing? I'm not sure whether I got covered more in oil or in sand!

I'll throw my own personal opinions in here. You all can do what you want with them, I'm not going to argue them till my teeth fall out. I can't really vouch for later 2.2's having electrical problems, as I don't see them come in for that all that often. If it is the case, thank you for pointing it out, although I honestly don't consider that a problem with the "engine" though, as I think the point is noting the strengths and weaknesses of the longblocks themselves. I too have seen EJ205s with spun bearings, and yes even rods thrown through blocks. But I don't think their bottom ends are any weaker than any other EJ bottom end. I think they just see more abuse because of dumb little kids turning the boost up to 20lbs on the stock turbo and not adding fuel and EM to compensate for it, just like was mentioned. People with older Outbacks and Foresters aren't subjecting their cars to such abuse. As far as the strength of the EJ22T goes, yes it's a very durable engine, one of Subaru's best. But it is an old engine, it has its points of obsolescence, and it can break. People do it all the time. And I've heard several Subaru guys much more reputable than I say that there is nothing an EJ22T can do that an EJ257 can't do better.

A 90 XT? Do you have the last 8 of the VIN handy? I wanna check and be sure it's a 90 XT, because if it is, it will be the ONLY 1990 XT that I know of. I've never seen any 90 XT, online, in person, anywhere. For everyone's knowledge, NO 1990 XT6s were made, and a VERY small number of 1990 XT 4cyls were made. If it's a 90, then it's 4EAT but FWD only according to the brochures.

Well, the biggest problem was the 96-99 EJ25D, the DOHC Phase I 2.5 engine. Their headgaskets leaked internally, causing loss of compression, mixing of oil and coolant, etc. etc. Then the EJ251 came out in 99, which was Phase II, and went back to SOHC. This engine would develop an external headgasket leak, which would leak coolant outside of the engine. It didn't cause any compression loss or mixing of fluids, but it was still a headgasket leak, which still required headgasket replacement to properly fix. The new EJ253s so far seem to be alright. I have seen a few issues, but they're usually freak accidents (saw an 07 Forester, 300 miles, with T-stat stuck closed, engine overheated so bad that exiting exhaust started to melt rear bumper, heads warped out of spec, replaced under warranty). Phase I and Phase II mostly just refer to the thrust bearing location. Phase I's were in the middle, the number 3 position, while Phase II's were in the rear, the number 5 position. Understand though that ANY Subaru is susceptible to headgasket failure. I've seen the venerable EJ22 blow headgaskets, I've heard of STi's blowing headgaskets, I've heard of SVXs blowing headgaskets.

I saw that first (that was blatantly obvious) and then tried to look and see if there was something else amiss...

Mitsubishi makes the turbos that are used on the WRX (not the STi). Both Subaru and Toyota use NipponDenso starters. You can go to your local Toyota dealer, buy a couple different packets of starter contacts, and you should be able to replace all the contacts in your Subaru starter with the contents of those packets from Toyota. There are waaaaaay too many companies sharing stuff between one another for it to all be compiled into one list.

Double-check. If you don't have a fuel return line, then EVERY drop of fuel that the pump is putting into the carb is being used. I would say you'd flood the carb and the car wouldn't even run.

Why wouldn't you?

Well, Isuzu doesn't sell any of its own vehicles for regular consumer use anymore in the US. The Ascender is nothing more than a TrailBlazer/Envoy/Rainier/9-7X/etc. rebadge. The i-series trucks are nothing more than Chevy Colorado/GMC Canyon rebadges. The Hombre that they used to make was based off the S10/Sonoma. However, the Duramax diesel engines in the Chevy/GMC full-size trucks are made by Isuzu. And Isuzu still sells their box trucks for commercial use.

The LUV was a rebadged Isuzu wasn't it? I don't have a working digicam right now, so I can't get pics of the switch, unfortunately.

The first day I find a blue oval on it, I'm selling it I sold a remote mirror switch for a WRX the other day that had a Nissan symbol on it clear as day.

Yes, is it MT? Could there maybe be an electrical problem with your reverse light switch? That switch only conducts current when Reverse is engaged, and if there's a problem like a short, it could cause a burning smell that only appears when you're in Reverse.

Yep, got mine today. Thanks again Paul!

I would say let everyone post confirming that they got theirs, and then when everyone that bought this batch confirms delivery, just lock it. Looks like mine will be here tomorrow, so I'll post up once I have it in my hands.

Wait until your engine is warm to turn on the heat. By having your heater going the moment you start your car, you're just making the engine take longer to warm up.

There's no reason to use a higher pressure fuel pump. First off, your engine isn't really going to benefit much from extra fuel, even if you do put it to good use by advancing the timing, etc. But here's the thing: Your carb (assuming you haven't touched it) is going to just send that extra fuel right back into the tank anyway.

GC is the sedan, GM is the coupe. It's a 97, 2.2, AWD, auto, Mystic Blue Metallic.

Yeah, I was aghast when I read all the stuff you replaced on yours, because the car looked absolutely gorgeous when I saw it. The thing is, I never drove it, or even heard it run, so I couldn't judge its mechanical condition.