What Have You Done to your Soobie lately? (Please post in here and keep it going)

[jj421]

^ Wow, that is really clean! Great job! If you weren't on the other side of the country, I'd pay you to clean my grease-filled engine bay. Swapping my motor for a low mileage one has definitely removed probably 40% of the grease, but I've probably got a few days of cleaning if I were to do it. No point in cleaning it now, since my leaking P/S rack will just dirty it up again, haha. I might clean my engine bay after installing manual steering.

 

In other news, this is what I've done to my Soobie lately. Ever since I saw a picture of them about a year ago, I've really wanted the asymmetrical taillights that were offered on EA82s outside of the U.S. Today, they came in the mail from Finland, thanks to the user "-tombba-." He did a great job cleaning them up for me, so when they were at my front door, they were more shiny than the taillights I had on my wagon. After about 1.5 hours of messing with the wiring, I got the taillights installed. 

 

 

 

It was a sunny day today (surprisingly), so it's kind of hard to see the illumination in the lights. But, they work great!   The passenger side was pretty easy to install, since all I really had to do was move my old bulbs into the new housing. I just kept the wiring on the "Euro" lens, since it had the same connector. Driver side was a bigger project. First, the connector was different, so I had to use my old bulbs/wiring. Second, I had to wire the rear fog light. I just tapped the ground and positive wire to the taillight (the one that comes on when you have your headlights on). Whenever I have my headlights on (which is all the time), the fog light will be on.

 

Only downside is with the headlights off, and the car is in reverse, the fog light comes on as well as the reverse light. But like I said, I always drive with my headlights on, so the fog light will always be illuminated anyways. The fog light has a red 1156 18-SMD LED bulb in it, so it looks different than the tail/brake lights (which are standard incandescent bulbs). Likewise, my reverse light is a white 18-SMD LED bulb. I've always run LEDs in my reverse lights, so it's nothing special for me, haha.

 

Legally, these lenses should be okay in the state of Washington. You don't need more than one reverse light to be legal. I just gotta be careful in parking lots, since people on the left side of my car might not be able to tell I'm backing up. 

 

These taillights really compliment my fender mirrors, and makes the mirrors look less out-of-place. Anyways, I digress. I love making my car unique, and in the United States, this definitely adds towards the uniqueness. 

[SmashedGlass]

Purchase a small electric power washer, JJ. You won't regret it, and has many 'other' uses. The primary use at our house in FL is to clean the concrete twice a year--in this humidity and heat it quickly gets a growth of dark mold all over it. Side bonus is cleaning cars and car parts

 

Can Tombba get the Euro front corner lights?? I'd love to have those.

[jj421]

I might get a washer at some point. I've got a lot of stuff I want to get though. Namely, it'd be nice to have a floor jack, haha. I'll have to save up for a washer. I feel like it won't be used a lot though, since we never have needed one. Could use it to power wash the driveway from all my coolant/oil stains. 

 

You'll have to talk to him about the corner lights. I believe from what he's told me, he doesn't have any in good condition. But hopefully he'll join in.

[-tombba-]

As jj421 said I do not have any front corner lights at the moment. Someone broke my set in the car so I had to put the last set from my garage on. I can ofcourse try to find a set of them, but first I will have to ask "loyale 2.7 turbo" aka jeszek if he still want's one set because I promised him one set that I now need in my own car. But if someone is intrested I can try to find some sets of them and ship themo overseas.

 

If someone is intrested I do have one set of the taillights available still. They are in a good condition and are ready to be shipped if needed.

[Twitch de la Brat]

Hey SmashedGlass, lets hope your engine doesn't leak worse now that you cleaned it

 

I readjusted my headlights last night when I got home because I was sick of not being able to see.

Now my high beams actually broadcast a decent distance and my headlights aren't cross-eyed.

But I realized my driver's side bulb is in way worse shape than my passenger side.

So I'll be getting silverstar's when I get a chance.

Ordered NGK wires from the factory for $22 after freight (through my work) and hopefully it'll help kill this (insert long string of expletives) misfire!

I'll be taking a brass brush to the contacts in my cap if necessary.

But this is getting frustrating. On idle I'm getting about 600-650RPM and it should be up around 800.

And the total lack of bottom end is pissing me off as well.

Spark plugs look ok, a little lighter than desired, but not bad.

V power's, so it should be fine. I'll upping to a platinum if this keeps happening though.

 

That's all for now folks....

 

Twitch

 

PS: HOLY HELL WE HAD A HELLACIOUS RAINSTORM THIS MORNING.

[86 Wonder Wedge]

Hey SmashedGlass, lets hope your engine doesn't leak worse now that you cleaned it

 

I readjusted my headlights last night when I got home because I was sick of not being able to see.

Now my high beams actually broadcast a decent distance and my headlights aren't cross-eyed.

But I realized my driver's side bulb is in way worse shape than my passenger side.

So I'll be getting silverstar's when I get a chance.

Ordered NGK wires from the factory for $22 after freight (through my work) and hopefully it'll help kill this (insert long string of expletives) misfire!

I'll be taking a brass brush to the contacts in my cap if necessary.

But this is getting frustrating. On idle I'm getting about 600-650RPM and it should be up around 800.

And the total lack of bottom end is pissing me off as well.

Spark plugs look ok, a little lighter than desired, but not bad.

V power's, so it should be fine. I'll upping to a platinum if this keeps happening though.

 

That's all for now folks....

 

Twitch

 

PS: HOLY HELL WE HAD A HELLACIOUS RAINSTORM THIS MORNING.

 

I've been living with this misfire since I've had the car... when warm, it pops and the idle kinda bobs around 700 or so, but I'm not wondering if it might be an exhaust restriction since the NGK V-powers I put in and approx 5K miles later, had a white powder (like a lean condition or burning additives) but emissions passes with flying colors, all sensors pass, have about 20-22 inHg vac at idle (seems a little high to me...)

 

I went a step colder on plugs and it seemed to help a touch (thought it was a predetonation..)

 

Anyway, got the small hole patched on the header-pipe, no more hissing! ( ) but now off with the muffler to find why it's rasping.. even though the growl it produces it pretty awesome. Sounds better than most of the WRXs running around..

[Loyale 2.7 Turbo]

...I will have to ask "loyale 2.7 turbo" aka jeszek if he still want's one set because I promised him one ...

 

Yes, I'll Love to has one set for my "BumbleBeast" so I'm still interested in those Corner Lights.

 

The Local Subaru Dealer only has the Corner Lights intended for the DL Models,

 

which came factory with four Headlamps instead the one Huge Halogen unit.

 

 

I Mean This ones, They have Clear Lens in their Back and both bulbs are T-10,

 

instead of the Single Contact 1156 bulb for the Front (Marker Light):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notice the clear Lens in their Back (inner Side):

 

 

 

I Believe that the Clear Lens on the inner side will illuminate the Whole Headlamp from the Side,

 

if those where mated to the Huge Halogen Lamps.

 

 

 

The Local Subaru Dealer's Salesmen, told me that they also sold

 

Plastic Headlamps for the EA82 DL Subaru Loyale

 

with H4 Bulb's instead the 9004 ... This is a Photo of their Parts Book about it:

 

 

 

 

Let me Know what do you think about that.

 

Kind Regards.

[Loyale 2.7 Turbo]

Seems like Photobucket is Restricting the Monthly Bandwidth usage ...    ... Now I Hate Photobucket, not only for that, but also their "New" System, plenty of Problems.  I accessed my e-Mail and saw This:

 

 

 

(Linked from my Facebook account, so is viewable)

 

PHOTOBUCKET SUCKS!

Not only their "New" Software is a Real Nightmare (Which scrambles newly uploaded Photos with the Older ones in a Folder, and doesn't let you Search among your own Photos... thousands of them) Now also they want Money to let their "Free" Account users to "View" the Photos... Too Bad. 

 

I'm So Sorry about that, is Beyond my will.

 

Kind Regards.

[jj421]

"Your life. Your stories. Your Photobucket."

 

Hahahaha, I like seeing that on the bottom of the email. They might as well have said, "Your life. Your stories. All gone."

 

I've always used Photobucket and never had any problems. But it might be time to change sites, since I've got a lot of photos on there. Or, you can just create a new account, and upload photos to your new account. Your signature is also not working anymore because of this.

 

Also, in my earlier post, when I said, "Only downside is with the headlights off, and the car is in reverse, the fog light comes on as well as the reverse light.", I was mistaken. When I tested the reverse lights, I had an ice scraper wedged in between the driver seat and the brake pedal, holding the brake lights on. I put the key into the "on" position, put it in reverse, and walked behind the car, only to see the reverse light and the fog light were on. However, I forgot something. I always leave my headlight switch in the "parking lights" position. With the key off or out, no lights are illuminated. But once I put the key in the on position, the parking lights come on. Since the brake lights were on when I did this test, I didn't know the parking lights were on. Long story short, the fog light does not come on with the reverse lamp, but instead still only comes on with the headlights. Not that it really matters, but I figured I'd mention that they are working perfectly.

[Loyale 2.7 Turbo]

"Your life. Your stories. Your Photobucket."

 

Hahahaha, I like seeing that on the bottom of the email. They might as well have said, "Your life. Your stories. All gone." ...

 

Yes, I Agree... All Gone.  Seems that they will reset everything to normal again, once the beginning of the Next Month.

 

 

Your Subaru does look Awesome with those Tail Lights, they Match Perfectly the Fender Mirrors.

 

Kind Regards.

[man on the moon]

About ten days ago I noticed that coolant was leaking from the throttle body, so stopped in to my favorite NAPA store (ok, the only store in town that can actually get stuff I need on the first try...but I digress). I picked up a coolant flush detergent, some radiator fluid, a gasket and some generic gasket material, a few other things, came home. Drained the coolant, pulled off the throttle body...coolant is full of sludge .

 

Put the detergent in, gave it a few days. Then Sunday morning I went out and drained the coolant/water/nastiness. Spent half hour pulling half-baked hoses off their mounts, turn around to grab the hose for the flush...no hose. Yep, someone stole the hose that had sat behind the apartment for the last nine months. I had checked JUST THE NIGHT BEFORE! Anyway, that made me none to happy.

Come to find out a couple kids in the building had been playing with it and had decided to take it inside. Last night it showed up again, out front, so I stole the hose back and pulled the car apart again, flushed until the water ran clear, and filled her back up again. I think I'm going to do one more detergent cycle (it was gnarly dirty, as in I was scooping out gunk with a screwdriver from the throttle body passage) before I call it good, but it's a far cry better than it was!

Edited June 19, 2013 by man on the moon

[jj421]

Your Subaru does look Awesome with those Tail Lights, they Match Perfectly the Fender Mirrors.

 

Kind Regards.

 

Thanks! I love coming out to my driveway and seeing those taillights. I think they go well with the fender mirrors. Before, the fender mirrors were just there. They looked fine, but didn't exactly "match" the rest of the car. I think the addition of the taillights makes it look more foreign, more "old-school" Japanese.   Just gotta fix the rust and it'll look even better.

 

 

 

I haven't driven much, so maybe it's just the good weather. But ever since I installed these taillights, people haven't tailgated me as closely. 

 

Continuing with the topic, I've recently found my shifter bushings are, well, not there. My shifter has always been kind of sloppy. In gear, I could move the shifter quite a bit laterally. Not too bad, but it was noticeable. Yesterday, when I was coming home, the shifter randomly got really sloppy and I could barely get it in reverse, to back into my driveway. I went inside, let the exhaust cool down, then I came out to find the problem.

 

 

So that photo is the two joints at the back of the tranny, where the shift linkage attached. See the rubber o-ring/spacer on joint #1? Yeah, joint #2 doesn't have any. So joint #2 just moves around, and I cannot tighten the bolt anymore than it is. Not to mention, joint #1 (even with two of those bushings/spacers) does not sit in there tightly. It also moves about in the joint. I need to replace/repair all four of those bushings/spacers.

 

Now, moving on to the joint/bushing right under the shifter. When I took apart the center console, one of the spacers/bushings basically just fell apart right in front of me. Using some duct tape, I have it temporarily fixed.

 

Needless to say, I need to replace/reapir all six bushings/joints on the shift linkage. I don't have the money to buy the bushings from the dealership, so I'm going to try the fix for the 4-speed shifter flop:

 

 

Hopefully that works on the 5-speed linkage, and hopefully it works for all three joints. The good news is the bushings on my D/R shifter are in good shape. They're a little worn down, since I have a bit of play in the D/R shifter, but not enough to concern me. Plus, since doing my D/R swap in February, I haven't needed 4WD, so I barely used the D/R shifter.

 

On another note, when I was under the car, I noticed my front tyres are balanced. For the longest time, I thought they weren't. So now I need to diagnose a shuddering/shaking I have on the freeway. The shaking started when I installed my winter tyres, so I figured they were just not balanced. When I install manual steering, I'm going to be getting an alignment, so I'll see if that fixes it. I believe last time I went offroading, I hit a bump at speed and really knocked the front-end out of alignment. The car pulls to the right at speed and the steering wheel isn't 100% straight. And no, the shuddering is not the axles, since I've replaced my passenger axle twice. Driver side axle is in good condition, and the shuddering comes from the passenger side.

 

Edit:

 

Tailights (and rear fog) are looking good at dusk and in the rain. Fog light is seemingly brighter, but that might just be because it's a bigger light than the running lights.

 

Edited June 20, 2013 by jj421

[drake13]

I have done to my 93 loyale is oil change, New right rear control arm with bearing (old bearing destroyed the hub) New gl-5 in rear diff and front diff/tranny, fuel system cleaner, New nkg plugs (last 2 made a world of differance), JVC head unit with kicker door speakers front and back, kicker 10 inch sub with a duel amp (despite being all Walmart bought system sounds great), and 4 new tires. Up coming add ons will be air filter system, exhaust system, off road lights in the grill, grill custom fabricated for lights, and looking for an ej25 block and ej22 heads.

Edited June 20, 2013 by drake13

[drake13]

Picture of the loyale

Edited June 20, 2013 by drake13

[Twitch de la Brat]

Tried to put a new cap and rotor on the XT (old one is kinda burnt) and turns out the last person who put the rotor on stripped the screw. (insert expletive)

So until I can get the old rotor off, the new set is waiting in the passenger seat.

 

Twitch

[987687]

When photobucket goes into overload, you can right click on the image and open it in a new tab. Or copy/paste the image URL. Then you can load the image and see it. You just can't see it embedded if photobucket goes into overload.

[-tombba-]

I did some part tear down on my donor wagon today. Took the engine off and the whole interior and ofcourse whole wiring loom for engine.

 

Looks kind of funny in the yard now (notice my creative style to lift the body)

 

 

So I got this out of there ( it has some nice extras already like TD04L, better header as can be seen and top mount intercooler piping ready. It's a EA82T European model so it's 100kW @ stock and since it's from model year -90 it has the last gen heads in it too)

 

 

And that is going in this after I get the transmission, rear diff etc off that wagon.

 

Edited June 24, 2013 by -tombba-

[SmashedGlass]

Cleaning continues....or rather, removing the P.O.'s questionable choices in "styling".

 

He had painted the bottom half of my wagon with a cheap, crappy flat black spray paint (cuz flat black is bomb, yo) to achieve the two-tone look.

and it appears this is in places over what at one point he had also painted with some sort of tan brush-on house paint?!? WTF. 

So commenced to vigorous scrubbing using Scotch™ pads, rags, and lacquer thinner. Add in a putty knife for those spots where the remnants

of "house paint" (again, wtf?!?) remained, they were pretty stubborn. There is no hope for the ding/rub strips however...May have to acquire

some in the future.

 

Afterwards is a hasty session with some rubbing compound and then a cheap wax. In the last two pics you can see the stark difference between the

beautified door and the oxidized, half-finished door behind it. Still rock chipped all over but looks way better than it did.

 

 

 

 

 

The kicker: in the future I may get the same area covered in.....black bedliner, whether I get a repaint or not. 

But at least it doesn't look like ghetto like it did (should've seen the P.O.'s two honda   )

 

Oh yeah...the black fender....Replaced due to P.O. painting the whole thing with that thick tan paint, and then spray bombing flat black. 

Edited June 25, 2013 by SmashedGlass

[Loyale 2.7 Turbo]

It is interesting to see a Turbo EA82 without...

 

 ...

 

 

...

 

... Air Conditioner: No Compressor. 

[Loyale 2.7 Turbo]

... He had painted the bottom half of my wagon with a cheap, crappy flat black spray paint (cuz flat black is bomb, yo) to achieve the two-tone look. ...

 

I've seen very few Factory Two-Tone EA82 Wagons here,

 

all of them are Touring Wagons and I Believe they does Look very Good,

 

Maybe you can Try to do a better finish in a Two-Tone paint.

 

Kind Regards.

[subynut]

The only two tone ea82 wagon in my town is my wagon.

 

Speaking of which, we had one of our typical Arizona rain showers consisting of 25 drops per square mile and speckled the PandaWagon with dirt spots. Just had to clean her:

 

 

All clean now:

Edited June 25, 2013 by subynut

[Twitch de la Brat]

My cars are usually two tone after a good rain/rally session

So I'm working at NAPA now, making better money than I was, and when I was driving the XT in the rain, I noticed how easy it is to light off the front tires

Got an offroad show going on at work Saturday and I'm going to try my hand at the teeter-totter in the XT.

I'll get pix

 

Twitch

[SmashedGlass]

Finished clearing off (most) of the stupid flat black rattle can job on the drivers side. And discovered cancer at the rear of the quarter panel 

 

 

That's gonna require professional repair, and probably the matching spot on the passenger side. I lack the tools and knowledge to patch it properly,

beyond basic cut and clean 

[jj421]

Yet another post from me, but I have installed manual steering in my '90 Loyale. Grabbed a variable ratio manual rack from a junkyard '86 DL. Paid $45 for the rack itself, and then an additional $11 or so for the new belts. The manual rack has about 222K on it, which is similar to what my transmission has. My car's body has 262K, and my engine has 117K. I was surprised I managed to install it in one day (although it took me about 8 hours), since there were a few problems along the way and I took a bunch of breaks.

 

My power steering was leaking and making noises (probably air in the system), so something needed to be replaced anyways. My old EA81 had manual steering, and I missed it. So, I told myself that I would install a manual rack when the opportunity arises, and it did.   Mostly just a bolt-in swap. I unknowingly didn't have the right alternator bracket, so the belts didn't fit properly. Luckily, I had the other kind of bracket in my garage and I got it to work (I think it's bolted on right). The swap totally screwed with my alignment, even though I was trying to be careful with keeping the steering wheel and wheels straight (even on the parts car). Without string or two tape measures, I just had to eyeball it. My first judgement was slightly off. I just kept driving, adjusting, driving, adjusting, driving, adjusting, etc. I've got it to a point where it's almost perfect. When I'm accelerating, it pulls slightly to the left; when I'm coasting, it pulls slightly to the right. On average, it goes straight.   Not to mention that slight differences in the road cause the car to pull on way or the other (e.g. if the road is banked, the car will pull to the downhill side). So it's kinda hard to get it perfectly straight. 

 

This basically completes my "DL conversion." I don't have the quad headlights or the minimal instrument cluster (without tach, voltmeter, oil pressure). But otherwise, I've basically got a DL now. Non-turbo, manual windows, manual mirrors (fender mirrors), manual steering, manual tranny (D/R 4WD; not a DL option, but whatever), non-intermittent wipers, no A/C, no hill holder, and manual seatbelts. When I get a chance, I'm going to install rear discs, but just like the D/R tranny, why not install it?

 

Without A/C and P/S, look at all that room in the engine compartment!

 

Edited June 26, 2013 by jj421

[l75eya]

So all your belts are doing is spinning the alternator right? lol and it's a dual belt set-up! lmao

That's a nice looking engine compartment. Nice looking quality belts too, btw. What brand are those?