Subaru Leone 1.8 Turbo Wagon

(First i have to apologize for the bad quality of the pictures since i didn't have my camera with me, so i ended up taking pics with the phone)

It has been a while since last post, but i really didn't have anything interesting to post since THIS is the thing i wanted to post next. And there were the holidays and stuff, so no hard feelings. Right?




Around 6 months ago i bought white 1986 Subaru Leone 1.8 Turbo Stationwagon. I actually had one already, but it requires decent amount of work before it's going to pass the local "MOT", known as "Katsastus" in finnish. I guess "Inspection" is close enough word for that. "Nothing major" would include some work with rust and few bushings. But it's not about the green one at this time. This time it's about the first car that i'm genuinely afraid to leave on the street alone. And it was supposed to become my daily... We'll see about that, since i'm planning to fit a alarm to it anyhow. Maybe then i'd get some peace of mind.

It came with those "oh so 80's" Hella square auxillary lights. They can stay on the nose for now, until i come up with better solution. There is possibility to install better auxillary lights, or do better wiring for the cars own lights. I'm probably going to install better auxillary lights AND improve the cars own wiring by doing a relay box that is controlled with the original wiring. That way it can be easily converted back to original state if i (hardly...) or someone else wants to museum inspect it at some point. Oh and reasons for buying another Leone? well...

Does it REALLY need more reasons? All original 84k kilometers on clock. Want more? Always kept in warm garage, hardly never driven in winter. More? Everything works. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Well... almost. One thing isn't working as supposed but you'll see soon. Even the original air suspension is in working order. Oh and it even has some real, 80's extras!

Now this is purely my opinion, but this genuinely 80's Raid aftermarket steering wheel is so awesome. Sure, the rim has some scruff marks because apparently someone has driven it with some serious jewellery on their hands. Or a poodle has eaten the rim. And i'm not kidding about the poodle. The car has a sticker of "Suomen villakoirakerho RY" (Poodle club of Finland) in the rear side window, and 230 volt socket in the boot for heater. The socket gets power from the same line as auxillary engine heater.

Now about the one thing that DOENSN'T work. The engine. Well it runs good, but a while back i left the car running on the yard and suddently it boiled. I was alone at the garage in middle of the night and garage doors were wide open. I couldn't leave the yard to go driving and cooling it down so i had to do the thing that is really, really, REALLY no-no. I turned it off while it was boiling hot. I noticed that for some reason the radiator fan didn't work at first, but after a while it started to do it's thing. After a while i checked fluids and drove it home without issues, and on next day back to the garage with a friend following me on other car. At halfway of the trip my friend calls me and gives out the most shittyest laugh in a while, that was followed by this. "There is something weird coming out of your exhaust, like clouds of fog. It's quite white stuff that comes out. OH ANOTHER CLOUD!" and i saw it too from my mirrors. We both started laughing as my friend said "Buy a subaru you said. It's a reliable car you said."

Reason for that specific sentence was that he bought 1st gen Legacy Turbo that appeared to be decent, but has ended up being sort of pain in the ass. And i, sorry human being, recommended that thing for him.

There is only few options for white clouds coming from the exhaust of Subaru Leone that is equipped with EA82T engine. Either head gaskets are blown (hopefully) or exhaust channels in the head have cracked. If the gaskets are blown, it's fairly simple procedure. If the heads have cracked, i have to send them to Aution Auto at Ylivieska. The green Leone got all exhaust channels blown due radiator leakage and they were able to weld them back with no issues at all. I've hear that they have even fixed totally blown Alfa Romeo racing heads. If i have to send the heads i'm gonna take the engine out of the green Leone and drop it in the white one since it's fully functional until i get the heads fixed and swap the engines back like they should be. Aution Auto came highly recommended by Jukka from Subtech.

I already have the full engine gasket set waiting, so i started to remove the engine. I know a guy who can remove the engine of Leone in 1½ hours, but all the things i did today, took about 4 hours in total. I disconnected everything, drained the fluids and took off the radiator because it's easyer to take the engine out when there is no radiator and it needs to be replaced too. It looks good at first but it's really corroded, you can see the blue corrosion coming through the black paint. I found a surprise too.

 

The thermostat that controls the fan is in really bad condition. It's very corroded, and that black stuff on the plastic isn't dirt or muck. It has been fried electrically. And that red arrow shows a spot where it has even started to fall apart. The connector isn't in better shape either, so i have to install new thermostat and new connector. I bet this is the reason first place why the engine started to boil. Also the water pump seems like original part, so i'm going to change that and i bet the timing belts are original since the mileage isn't full yet so i'll be replacing those too. Good thing with this engine is that it's not interference engine and blown timing belt doesn't cause much damage, if any at all.

Next time i'm going to lift the engine out and take it apart to see the damage. Also what i got in store for getting rid of the heat problems is Air-to-water intercooler from 1st gen. Legacy Turbo and i'm planning to install Spider intake form XT Coupe. So OEM+ and stealth is the way i prefer.

If you'd be interested to see a really awesome Leone, head over to the NASIOC and check out this high quality build! The green one MIGHT just become something like that one day.


Take care, enjoy the ride and drive safe
Hannu