Hello from Texas

[PadreScout]

Greetings! I am not actually a Subaru owner, I'm in the market for a GL but trying to buy a car when most are several states away is proving tough. Oh well, here's to stupidity.

[Olnick]

Welcome aboard! Nah, it's not stupidity--I mean c'mon, you want a Subaru, right?!! And you found the right place here at USMB. Good people, tons of information and a great place to network. May even help you locate what you want.

 

In that vein, you ought to add "TX" after "Midland" in your ID--then folks will have a handle on what's closer to you.

 

Enjoy!

[PadreScout]

Yeah! Back in high school I went through a series of Increasingly decrepit off-road vehicles: from a '82 GMC Jimmy to a '72 FJ-40 to a '70 Scout. Every one of them was on it's last legs before I laid hands on it and as a enthusiastic 16 year old I dutifully proceeded to thrash the lot of them. The GMC kind of disintegrated around me. The FJ was tough, it only had some serious stroke inducing brake problems before I traded it for the Scout; which had 250K miles on it (former postal vehicle from Colorado or some-such) and stubbornly refused to break, in any way.

 

 

The years since then I have driven a little car and frankly I'm sick of a little car. Don't get me wrong, little car is reliable, gets good mileage- but in my present state of mind this equates to superb backup car for when my prospective 20 year old fun wagon inevitably breaks down. I need more room and I want a little off-roading adventure fun - nothing serious, I'm not trying to cross the Sahara here. So you know, wagon where I can bounce through the occasional field, move my stuff when I need, carry more than 1 passenger - this good plan, plus wagons are cool!

 

I know reliability wise Subarus are the automotive equivalent of owning an anvil so I looked around the internet until I found a model that spoke to me, that'd be the GLs; I can't explain why, but I /must/ own one. It's a compulsion of some sort.

 

Anyhoo, thanks for the welcome! Sorry about the wall of text, I seem to have gone on a bit of a tangent here. Thanks again!

[Olnick]

What year(s) of GL are you looking for? We had two '85 wagons, a GL and a DL, in the family years ago. They were great cars--kinda' wish I still had at least one of them!

[PadreScout]

Well, a internet buddy of mine tells me that a 88 or 89 is the way to go - they have fuel injection and since I'm not invested one way or the other, then I should go that route.

 

Personally I don't mind either way and I did find a '85 with everything I want in Arizona, which is about as close as I am going to get. So I'm mulling over the whole "do I really really really want fuel injection?"

 

I need to work out how this optional low range transfer case works though.

 

Evidently I can get the car in 1 of 3 configurations.. FWD (boo!), FWD with no-all-the-time AWD, or ..... FWD with not-all-the-time AWD and a 2 speed transfer case? I know the not low-range ones have a button for AWD on the shift knob, but I saw pictures of one with the low-range and its shift knob lacked the big orange fun button. I'm pretty sure it's not all-time AWD cause.... 1985 and the car doesn't say Audi on it anywhere.

[El Presidente]

Welcome to the forum,

 

The dual range 5mt's are a part-time 4wd system, not an AWD like the push button ones. For offroad use you want a dual range because they deliver a 50/50 torque split and lock the front and rear diffs together. It's not recommended to use these in 4wd on the road, because the torque bind can cause loss of traction on pavement at high speed. The AWD system doesn't have a low range and utilizes a viscous coupling to carry power to the rear wheels. This works great on pavement, but will eventually burn up if used offroad.

 

The low range is incorporated(along with the front diff) in the transmission and is a 1:1.59 reduction that happens before any other gearing....it all happens in one box. The front axles come out each side of the tranny and the rear driveline goes back to a R160 diff. The 5mt can be twin sticked and shifting can be done between lo-hi and 2-4wd on the fly. I have a twin stick in my rig giving me 2lo(helps to turn 29's around town), 4lo, 2hi, and 4hi....so I have 10 forward gears and two reverse gears. They're a pretty tough tranny and can easily handle an EJ22, which can be roughly twice the power of an EA82. The diff in the tranny and the diff out back, 1:3.9, can be geared down lower to 1:4.44 by using a forester xt ring and pinion and rear diff. Its involved, but been done.

 

I grew up around guys that frowned on EFI setups for offroad use, because of reliability issues. More wires, more grounds, sensors and and ECU are more things to go wrong, all of which doesn't like water, which we have alot of up here. Carbs operate on physics and can be completely serviced on the side of the trail and problems are quickly diagnosed. The carbs that came on these are pretty much garbage, so if you want a carb, think about putting a weber or holley 5200(I'm running one off a 74' pinto) on it later, but you'll want a carb intake to do that. The EFI systems on these are fairly trouble free and reliable and I'd go that route if your not going way out in the bush.

 

STAY AWAY FROM THE TURBO'S!, they're crap, plain and simple

 

The 87-89 GL's have a little bit more power IIRC, but I like the 85-86 interior better....thats why I have an 85 interior in my 87 GL

 

I've got a friend in Mertzon and she was telling me how there are absolutely zero subarus down there. Good luck!