Ebay wagon I just bought...$200 PICTURES UPDATE!

[Aerotech]

EBAY LINK

Is this anyone here?? Car is in Dover, NJ, 1993 NA wagon.

Here's the blurb;

New Tires where installed in January. Trans was rebuild last year. Suspension was replaced. Remote Starter. Everything Works on the car as far as i can tell.
About Two months ago the car had a engine problem. Thinking it was the head gasket i replace it. with a new radiator.timing belt. thermostat. Unfortunately that was not the case so. the engine is mixing antifreeze with oil. and it clogged the engine cooling lines. now the car heats up. The mechanic told me its the engine block. since the gasket was replace. I cant afford a new engine.
I am selling this car AS/IS. and who ever buys it will have to tow it. The car starts. but it heats up after a couple miles. specially uphill.

I know someone posted a similar problem about a month ago, anyone know what the final outcome was?
This sounds to me like a bad HG job...I have NEVER heard of a motor leaking internally that still ran (or didn't have a rod hanging out of the case)

Anyhoo, I have to drag it back to my place, and I have a nice, shiny resealed '93 longblock sitting on the shelf, originally slated to live in the VW...
I only saw the auction yesterday, no time to get pictures, etc. so hopefully it's not a rustbucket. Seems to have all the options, sunroof , maybe a LS? Too bad it's auto, but the trans is "rebuild" .

Now I just have to explain it to the boss... Time to buy some more diamond jewelry

[BXSS]

Too funny, but for $200 you can't really beat the price if it is in OK condition.
Dover NJ is pretty close to NYC as well.

[n2x4]

If it's not rusted out you're in good shape. Those people got screwed by ebay though. Think about it- $100 listing fees for any car now. So they really made about $100 bucks on that car.

[ultrasonic]

VIN breakdown: 4S4BJ65CXP7943053

4S4 - USA made Subaru

BJ - Legacy wagon

6 - n/a 2.2L

5 - LS trim level

C - passenger car

X - check digit

P - 1993 model year

7 - USA built all wheel drive, auto transmission

943053 - sequential build number

[Aerotech]

One of the better two hundred bucks I've dropped lately

Many thanks to Daniel (BEPA) for the kind and beyond-the-call help with picking the car up. The AMG tow vehicle is an absolute beast














































These are the ONLY trouble spots on the whole body. Other than these spots, I've only found one door ding... even the clear coat is in great shape.



This picture is kinda cool... if you just glance at it, it looks like there's no tire on the front rim
What I'm showing here is the big scuff on the bumper corner. The chrome strip is untouched and pristine all the way around










There's oil foam in the coolant, but the motor runs well. The exhaust sounds a little phlegmy, prolly needs a new gasket somewhere.

The car has a functional, recently rebuilt air bag suspension...

Exceptionally clean and well cared-for... I just may hang on to this specimen for further study.

[ericem]

That is a awesome deal for $200!! Looks really good tan on tan.

[Aerotech]

Yeah, it's a VERY tan kinda car...

Like a champagne metallic. You can drive it through a mud pit and it'll look clean.

[Aerotech]

A little of the back story;

Apparently, the dude's brother-in-law works at a Subaru dealer, all the recent work was done there... all OEM parts. They did the suspension work within the last year, replaced all the air bags.
The transmission has 10K on the (claimed) factory rebuild.
When the car developed overheating problems, they did head gaskets, timing belt, water pump, and a new radiator. The motor is still mixing fluids in both oil and coolant systems, so they basically washed their hands of it, calling it a bad block...
these guys were really aiming to keep the car, and looking at the body I can see why, but the piggy bank busted, I guess.
I'm just fortunate to have stumbled onto it, and have a motor ready to go in. The Ebay ad helped my cause... no pictures, skimpy details, so no one bid on it... but the way I read it, the car must be worth saving if the guy just ponied up for all those repairs.
It's in MUCH better shape than I had dared hope for.
To paraphrase the Blues Brothers, it's a lot of car... for 200 bucks.

[ericem]

If it indeed has a factory rebuilt tranny that is +$3000 not to mention the price of the air bag suspension and partial rebuild of the motor. Over $6000 easy was spent on this car. Awesome buy. How does it drive right now? Especially ride wise with the air bag suspension.

[Aerotech]

Well, I've really only been around the block with it, but it's very tight, steering has no play at all, no rattles or squeaks. I've never ridden in one of the air-suspended cars, so I don't know how it's supposed to ride, but it's very smooth. Makes my (heavily modified) SS feel like I'm driving a truck... (not that there's anything wrong with that, the SS is very entertaining, but it gets a little old banging over the moonscape roads around here. Or maybe I'm getting a little old ) I hit original cobblestone streets pretty regularly down below Chinatown trying to dodge the lines into the tunnel.

I'm going to sort of let the Ebay auction fade away without paying
thru them or Paypal, at least save the guy the $125 it would cost him if we completed the transaction...

[evolutionmovement]

Sweet deal! He did two big expensive jobs, but gave up on a fairly easy one? Must have been a last straw kind of thing.

[94SS_Canada]

Sweet deal! He did two big expensive jobs, but gave up on a fairly easy one? Must have been a last straw kind of thing.

I know all about last straws....


Nice find/ Buy!

[Aerotech]

I hear that...

Couple of weeks ago I was staring at the sedan with a can of lighter fluid in one hand and a lit match in the other... I gave it one more try, and found that damn fusible link just in time.


Anybody have a facelift passenger front fender in that color?

...and what's the name of the color, anyway?

Thanks!

[n2x4]

Nice!

Now you've probably got the bug and will be looking for good Subaru deals all the time. They're out there, trust me! Lots of people sell them really cheap due to small problems that can be fixed cheaply if you have the know how. Popular problems:

Fuel neck leaks, timing belt, headgaskets, clutch or other tranny problems (blown 4eat FTW!)

[ericem]

Nice!

Now you've probably got the bug and will be looking for good Subaru deals all the time. They're out there, trust me! Lots of people sell them really cheap due to small problems that can be fixed cheaply if you have the know how. Popular problems:

Fuel neck leaks, timing belt, headgaskets, clutch or other tranny problems (blown 4eat FTW!)

timing belt is DEFINITELY the number one reason for selling there car from deals I have seen. Alot of times I didn;t even want to pickup the cars I just told them how to fix it lol. I am to nice I guess

[n2x4]

timing belt is DEFINITELY the number one reason for selling there car from deals I have seen. Alot of times I didn;t even want to pickup the cars I just told them how to fix it lol. I am to nice I guess

Yep, I've purchased 7 or 8 Subarus with a mixture of these problems. Every single one of those came home on a flatbed trailer

There was one time where I felt bad for a lady who was selling her car and I told her how to fix it, but at that point she was fed up with it and wanted it gone!

[Aerotech]

It turns into a treasure hunt, right?

Not having seen this car before I bought it made it more exciting...
Pulling into the lot and seeing something ready for a junkyard was what I kept telling myself would happen.

Seeing the actual car was a moment of victory... Daniel and I looked at each other and were like... holy shit, this thing is almost mint!...and it just got better the more we looked.


Dan does this sort of thing all the time, drags 'em home and either resurects or dismantles.
I don't have enough space to do it regularly (see first picture) until I get the van back on the road, it's blocking the garage (and too big to fit inside).

It's odd to see one fender almost destroyed by rust when everything else is in such good shape...

[555BCTurbo]

That's a whole lot of peanut butter!


Nice score though!!!

[Aerotech]

That's a whole lot of peanut butter!

Word...

You just named the car

[Aerotech]

Autopsy Results:

Both headgaskets blown

No coolant whatsoever, but every passage, hose, radiator, heater, etc. filled with malted oil latte... car was apparently oil cooled for a while. Had to steam the radiator.
Not sure how to clean out the heater core, I'm thinking blow out w/ compressed air gently, then run some degreaser through it.

Broken hose under the throttle body, where all the coolant exited.

Took off the water pump, pure oil poured out of the water passages.

Headgaskets were OEM, with the little Nike swoosh on them and looked old, quite adhered to the block side, but the heads were strangely clean...I can't decide whether or not the gaskets were replaced recently. Bolts looked undisturbed and came loose only under protest and a big cheater bar.
I checked the heads w/ a straight-edge & feeler gauge; no warping, so they don't appear to have overheated.
I re-used the original heads on my other shortblock, as both heads on the spare motor had broken exhaust studs that will need some work to extract. All back together, just need to set timing and throw it back into the car.

The P.O. said the headgaskets had been done, and the garage thought the block had cracked internally, I'm not so sure about that, but I'm using the spare block just in case, I will do a thorough disassembly of the original later on, probably in the spring.

The next task is to degrease the engine bay, which is a fright, resulting from a recently failed CV boot (the axle was replaced) and oil/coolant slurry spewing from the broken hose. I see a steam clean in my future...

[kimokalihi]

Where do you get a good steam cleaner and how much are they? That would be lovely for cleaning the engine and engine bay. I squirted all kinds of degreaser on my engine and then pressure washed it but it's still dirty.

[Aerotech]

I don't have one... I took the radiator to a shop, and I'll drive the car to a local car wash that has a steam service.

I'd love to have a steamer too, it would save a lot of scrubbing and chemical use.

[Aerotech]

Back from vacation in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic...
ALL inclusive resort, 6 days of debauchery on the beach.

30 deg when I got back here The hardest part about coming back from a place like that is having to pay for drinks!

Got the engine back in the car and hooked up, except for the radiator for lack of a couple hose clamps. Motored the engine for about a minute w/ no plugs to pre-oil the bearings. When I stopped, I heard fluid hitting the ground... I just learned that the transmission fluid cooler lines need to be hooked up to the radiator when the engine is turning. Oops. It's my first-ever automatic.

Clean-up, aisle 5...

[Richard]

I freaking hate coolant issues! Man, If I had a dollar for every time I was working on a car and got so into it I had coolant running down my arms and into my sleeves/armpits, I'd have enough to buy a steak dinner for sure. The smell of antifreeze, burnt or not, makes me cringe sometimes...

[Aerotech]

Yup, no fun at all. The whole system on this car was full of glue, I had to soak the heater core with cleaning fluid repeatedly to get it clear.

I'm running about 1/4 gallon of Simple Green mixed in with the coolant to scrub the system while it runs, then I'll flush it again in the spring.

Took the car around the block, and it's having torque bind issues... going to plug in the FWD fuse tomorrow to start the troubleshooting. Tranny shifts normally, and has all gears and reverse, so I have a center diff problem.

The right rear axle feels like it's shot, with the wheel in the air, I can turn the wheel back and forth freely about 1.5" before it stops.