How to turn "any old car" into a Subaru...
Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 5:54 pm
I'm sure I'm not the only one who's done this, but here's the story...
My wife has an '83 Ford Telstar (Mazda 626) sedan that has been progressively dying in various ways. Everything is so arze about with the inside out carby, back to front polution control system, and so many "compensatory devices" to try and get all the poorly designed bits to actually work enough to be drivable.
Well, since the job of fixing it has fallen to me (I could refuse, but this IS my wife's car, so there's a degree of favouritism involved), and with an abundance of Subie parts of the same year in the shed, you should be able to guess how I've made the car easier to maintain...
With a fabricated adapter to mate the Subie carby to the Mazda manifold, with hot water gallery included to stop the carby from icing up, the Subie carby bolts on nicely, although back to front. I didn't bother putting it around the right way because that would just make it hard to get to adjustments and vacuum hoses on the carby. A standard Subie air cleaner is mounted on top (with a little height added on the carbie to allow it to be mounted around the "right way"). The original choke cable made way for a Subie on too of course, grafted into the Mazda/Ford wiring.
A couple months ago I had already dropped in an alternater of a Subaru, because the original fell apart internally (as the do), and had to adapt the multi rib pully onto the diferent shaft. Also put a couple of Subie relays in the charging circuit to make sure the battery was isolated when the key was off.
There's a few bolts and bits from Subarus that have found their way into the car too. Next thing to dilute the Mazda/Ford heritage will probably be the spare L series central locking I have on a shelf. The electric mirrors I just grafted on were not Subie though, they were from a later model 626.
Any suggestions from anyone for more (preferably discrete) ways to make this car more Subaruish???:rolleyes:
Oh, and if you've ever bolted a Subaru part onto another make of car to get it going, spill the beans please...
My wife has an '83 Ford Telstar (Mazda 626) sedan that has been progressively dying in various ways. Everything is so arze about with the inside out carby, back to front polution control system, and so many "compensatory devices" to try and get all the poorly designed bits to actually work enough to be drivable.
Well, since the job of fixing it has fallen to me (I could refuse, but this IS my wife's car, so there's a degree of favouritism involved), and with an abundance of Subie parts of the same year in the shed, you should be able to guess how I've made the car easier to maintain...
With a fabricated adapter to mate the Subie carby to the Mazda manifold, with hot water gallery included to stop the carby from icing up, the Subie carby bolts on nicely, although back to front. I didn't bother putting it around the right way because that would just make it hard to get to adjustments and vacuum hoses on the carby. A standard Subie air cleaner is mounted on top (with a little height added on the carbie to allow it to be mounted around the "right way"). The original choke cable made way for a Subie on too of course, grafted into the Mazda/Ford wiring.
A couple months ago I had already dropped in an alternater of a Subaru, because the original fell apart internally (as the do), and had to adapt the multi rib pully onto the diferent shaft. Also put a couple of Subie relays in the charging circuit to make sure the battery was isolated when the key was off.
There's a few bolts and bits from Subarus that have found their way into the car too. Next thing to dilute the Mazda/Ford heritage will probably be the spare L series central locking I have on a shelf. The electric mirrors I just grafted on were not Subie though, they were from a later model 626.
Any suggestions from anyone for more (preferably discrete) ways to make this car more Subaruish???:rolleyes:
Oh, and if you've ever bolted a Subaru part onto another make of car to get it going, spill the beans please...
