Jareth Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 I bought an 87 GL-10 turbo with a blown head gasket recently. I tore the engine down to find both the heads have cracked and the cylinder bores are rusted and have scarred. I've been thinking about getting the cylinders rebored, but I don't know where I could find some oversized pistons. Does anyone know where I could look? Or is there a better alternative I should look at? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jsyme Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 Before GD says it.. it's a dead platform. get a early 90's 2.2L Legacy or Impreza 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveT Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 If you want to keep that car, best bet is find a used engine, but that will likely be tough. Other option, ej 2.2. A lot of work, but so is trying to find parts for the original, and a na 2.2 is more reliable than a turbo ea and more power. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeneralDisorder Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 (edited) Well that was your first mistake (buying it)...... dont make another one. No parts are available. And proper machining (line hone, rebore, etc) would be extremely expensive due to no one having their equipment setup for the process on that engine. Just a line hone would likely cost $1k and then you have cylinder boring.... no one has a bore plate....oil pumps are discontinued... It would cost far more than the car is worth. It's not feasible and what you would end up with would still be an EA82T.... yuck. If it's got a really nice body consider the EJ22 swap. More power than the 1.8 Turbo and no turbo complexity. Used, good condition EA82T..... that's laughable. Such a thing pretty much no longer exists as far as I know. Might as well look for the pot-o-gold and try to catch the leprechaun. GD Edited August 8, 2017 by GeneralDisorder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveT Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 That's what I figured, thus suggesting the EJ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ferp420 Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 (edited) Theres a company making rebuild kits for them there around 300 clegs i think there on ebay you can get over sized pistons to but you still have all the other issues that come with a ea82t on the up.side there fun when they run Edited August 8, 2017 by ferp420 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idosubaru Posted August 8, 2017 Share Posted August 8, 2017 All EA heads crack between the valve seats - that's actually normal and benign. But on a blown headgasket EA82T that often can mean the cracks go down into the exhaust ports. Can you tell if they're just surface cracks or actually extend down into the head far enough to be problematic? Otherwise yeah they're ancient and old. 30 years of hoses fittings and seals to leak or fail and that's assuming all the previous owners took good care of a cheap car that's not worth much for 30 years and the last one didn't just run it into the ground due to the failing gaskets. It's not impossible but choose carefully. There's a JDM EA82 on craigslist in Atlanta. Not sure if it was turbo or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jsyme Posted August 9, 2017 Share Posted August 9, 2017 I noticed Jareth hasn't replied here. Sorry to come across so heavy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeneralDisorder Posted August 9, 2017 Share Posted August 9, 2017 What do you do when reality infringes upon your frolicking woodland creature, unicorn, rainbow, and lighting bug butt view of the world..... stick your head back in the sand of course. I can't be sorry for the truth, and have no time to sugar coat it. There's no excuse for not asking these questions BEFORE buying some automotive albatross to hang around your neck. GD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gloyale Posted August 9, 2017 Share Posted August 9, 2017 There's no excuse for not asking these questions BEFORE buying some automotive albatross to hang around your neck. GD Oh my friggin god, I about choked on my coffee. EAlbatross82!!! Hey at least there is a way to loosen the noose in the form of an EJ22. The OP here has the best platform too. MPFI car to start, Large line, Baffled fuel tank and F.I. pump. And if it's 5spd, he can stuff it's guts in a EJ trans case and use EJ clutch no adapter plate without any driveline or shifter mods and keep true 4wd and or difflock whichever he's got. Being an 87 could be either. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdweninger Posted August 11, 2017 Share Posted August 11, 2017 So... are you saying there is no Sasquatch ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rickyhils Posted August 24, 2018 Share Posted August 24, 2018 It look like an EA82 Turbo rebuild is a practical no-go. Does that same advice apply for an EA82 that is NON turbo? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveT Posted August 24, 2018 Share Posted August 24, 2018 Depends on what level of rebuild. If it was only mildly overheated, or just leaking oil everywhere, Reseal from the head gaskets up can still be done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazyeights Posted August 24, 2018 Share Posted August 24, 2018 I may be one of the very few but I have an EA82T wagon and I really like it. Granted I am a tech and do all of my own work. I have well over 200k on mine and it still gets me to work every day and gets good mileage too. I bought a low mileage JDM import engine for the car when you could still get them along with a full gasket set and a new oil pump. I figured the engine would blow right after I bought the car (I knew what I was buying) and it still just keeps on running. It doesn't make lots of power but I don't ask much of it either. One day it will blow a head gasket and I'll re-seal my other put my other engine and put that in. The turbo makes the EA82 fun to drive instead of a struggle. I also have three other EA series wagons with two of them EJ22 swapped. The EJ swap makes them a totally different car. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rickyhils Posted August 24, 2018 Share Posted August 24, 2018 Thanks for the tip. Can a knowledgeable mechanic assess condition of salvage yard crank and pistons while still in the block? If good, like you said, will redo valves and check all head surfaces. Have heard that rings can stay good for a long time. Are new valve springs in order, or just check existing ones? I redid both heads on my Loyale 9 years and 80k miles ago. The HLA lifters will . . .always clatter a bit at times. I replaced oil pump at same time (probably only needed to replace that MIckey Mouse ear gasket). Odd how when idling and there is HLA clatter, simply restarting the engine makes it all dead quiet. I did that all by myself. Will toot my own horn now and say that I also took out 5 spd trans because front main shaft oil seal leaking bad. Opened trans case (easy enough to learn) and found a bad main shaft bearing. With help of local Subaru guru I changed out both shaft bearings and oils seal. When you are in that far only way to go is Subaru factory parts all the way! That was 10 years 100k miles ago. It took me 3 weeks to get that done.No help. (pat myself on the back, thank you) Thanks. for the EA82 advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skishop69 Posted August 24, 2018 Share Posted August 24, 2018 "And if it's 5spd, he can stuff it's guts in a EJ trans case and use EJ clutch no adapter plate without any driveline or shifter mods and keep true 4wd and or difflock whichever he's got. " Sorry G, you can't do that. Everyone who has tried has ended in catastrophic failure. There is a slight variance in case clearances internally that eventually causes the main shaft and countershaft to eat each other. Add to that you can't put the DR guts in an EJ case unless by true 4wd you mean AWD. Also, the EJ case doesn't have the boss for the difflock lever, not that I recall anyway. I could be wrong about that... That being said, I agree the EA82 platform is a dead horse. If you drive like a normal human being, it's 'ok' at best. If you tend to push things, it will go sideways on you. I pushed my XT GL-10 all the time and after two rebuilds, I gave up. EJ it is and one of these days, I might uncover the parts and put them in! lol If you can't afford or do the EJ swap, then you can TRY to find a decent EA82, freshen it up and play nice with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveT Posted August 24, 2018 Share Posted August 24, 2018 I don't know how anyone could evaluate a crank and pistons etc. while still assembled, except to rule out totally destroyed maybe. I've driven a few EA82s past 200K miles. Never did anything more than reseal from the head gaskets up. Lapped valves, probably didn't need to. Never checked the springs any more than what one would notice while removing the valves to replace the seals. The EA82 I have with the most known history of, is a 1990. It was in a car I bought in 92, with 15K miles. Put synthetic 10W-40 in it, along with the Amsoil bypass filter. Never changed the oil again, just added new and changed filters. Around 150K miles, did a reseal to stop all the oil leaks, [every one I've had started leaking oil around 100K] and the head gaskets were slightly damaged by a run while low on coolant. . The bearing surfaces and dimensions on the piston rods were all in factory spec. I did not bother with removing the crank / splitting the case. I've seen others running conventional oil, with regular changes with similar low wear. I've resealed oil pumps to fix the noisy lifters a couple times on the several of these I've run. This includes the Micky o-ring, the regular one, AND the shaft seal. Oil pumps are NLA. I seem to have less problems with lifter tick than I see on here. The inside of the engines seems to be cleaner after I've run them with the synthetic than when I first got them. I am still running the 1990 engine in one of my wagons today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jono Posted August 24, 2018 Share Posted August 24, 2018 It is 2018 isn't it? This post started a year ago and OP never been back. I like DaveT honesty in.EEJ swap being a lot of work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
el_freddo Posted August 24, 2018 Share Posted August 24, 2018 7 hours ago, skishop69 said: "And if it's 5spd, he can stuff it's guts in a EJ trans case and use EJ clutch no adapter plate without any driveline or shifter mods and keep true 4wd and or difflock whichever he's got. " Sorry G, you can't do that. Everyone who has tried has ended in catastrophic failure. There is a slight variance in case clearances internally that eventually causes the main shaft and countershaft to eat each other. Add to that you can't put the DR guts in an EJ case unless by true 4wd you mean AWD. Also, the EJ case doesn't have the boss for the difflock lever, not that I recall anyway. I could be wrong about that... Sorry Ski, but you're wrong on that. EA internals can be swapped into the front EJ cases of the phase one gearboxes. This works for both part time and full time 4wd L series boxes. For you guys you're stuck with single range swaps, over here we can do it with the dual range boxes. How do I know? I've done three box combinations. My first was an L series dual range PT4wd box into a Gen1 series1 EJ case set. Worked a treat - the input shaft bearing housing was interchangeable so I saved a lot of work there. The second box was built buy another fella, it was the full time L series AWD box with the centre locking diff, again in EJ cases (G1S1). This box had the 1.59:1 low range, an OBX front LSD and a modified diff ratio of 4.111:1. It also had auxiliary low range oil feeders for cooling. This box worked well but eventually 2nd gear let go. So I rebuilt it into it's second incarnation: It's now running with SG foz internals (1st-5th ratios) in the phase two cases, running the same 1.59:1 low range (interference bush fitted to the L series input shaft so it fits into the phase two input bearing), 4.111:1 diff, OBX LSD and the locking centre diff with the matching pinion shaft. I added the auxiliary oil feeders to the cases for the low range. I've managed to match the speedo drive gear (27 tooth gear from memory) too - so now I have a very accurate speedometer! I've not had any issues with this mk2 AWD box build. It uses factory EJ flywheel, clutch, TOB, fork etc - and it bolts into the vehicle without any further modifications The way I see keeping the L series alive is with an EJ engine - mine is on it's tenth year. I've done the head gaskets once. Otherwise it's been the most reliable engine I've ever had in the car (It's run three different EA engines!). So, anything is possible with the gearbox build - you just need to have the right parts. Do take note: The phase 1 internals will physically fit into the phase 2 cases and *should* work (I've not tried this) - but phase 2 internals into a phase 1 set of cases will fit and work - except for reverse! There was a change in the distance from the main shaft and the reverse slider gear's shaft of about 2mm or so. The reverse slider and drive gears are larger to compensate for this change and are probably stronger to move the larger models of that era. Going back to the original post, I recall some ppl messing around with the EJ piston in the EA engine, but IIRC, the bush in the gudgeon pin end needed to be removed from the EA conrod. Do a search and see what shows up - I doubt there's an update on what the end result was though Cheers Bennie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skishop69 Posted August 24, 2018 Share Posted August 24, 2018 I stand corrected! My apologies to G. I thought I remembered reading here on a couple of occasions where it was tried and failed. I think I was thinking of the EA DR 5spd 411 build. Swapping shafts... Yeah, not having the EJ DR over here sucks. lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carfreak85 Posted August 24, 2018 Share Posted August 24, 2018 EJ-swap for life! I've never done one myself, but I do have an EJ20G swapped RX. They should have come this way from the factory! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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