Carbed 89 justy starts then dies

@ok4450 … didn’t you say a while back you have some experience with 80’s Subie carb problems?

Yes, I worked on a bunch of Subaru carbs back in the 80s and 90s. They were problematic at best.

I’ve followed this thread a bit but can’t offer much advice other than to make sure the anti-diesel solenoid is operative.
I seem to remember a comment about various jets and so on being changed. That puts a whole new wrinkle in things because one jet or air bleed in the wrong spot will cause all kinds of grief.

With car and carb in hand I could probably sort it out. Odds are it’s something simple and being overlooked, but… :confused:

I have absolutely no doubt of that.
Personally, I’d love to get my hands on it. I like these cars and like a challenge. And I’ve fixed enough carb problems over the years to have learned how they work.

This statement dismays me. We’ve debated this before, but I still believe a great deal of valuable understanding of fuel metering basics could be gained if automotive programs covered the basics of carburetion.

Not one single american automotive textbook from the last several years talks about carburetion, except perhaps from a historical perspective. Certainly not how they work or how to diagnose and repair them

I’ve been reading these textbooks for along time, and I can tell you roughly when carbs disappeared from the pages

There also haven’t been any carb-related ASE exam questions in quite some time

I know. More’s the pity.
But we’ve had this debate already. Our opinions differ on this. No sense rehashing it.

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I wonder how the carb was overhauled. Some consider disassembly and hosing it down with a few cans of aerosol carb cleaener as a method. That does not work well.
The carb should be soaked for a few hours in carb solvent, thoroughly washed out with water, and then compressed air used to blow out every passage.

The Justy carbs were not too bad and the Carter-Webers used on the Brats were very good. The problem child was the Hitachi carbs which made up the bulk of Subaru useage. A PITA from the get-go and downhill from there.

One major problem i discovered with them was that the cast iron throttle body section and the alloy float chamber section would warp badly due to heat and dissimiliar metals. I’m talking as much as .020 or .030 of an inch. This would allow air leakage or internal transfer of gasoline into places where it shouldn’t be.
Any carb work ALWAYS necessitated use of a file… :frowning:

Even the Justy

Yeah, my idea of a carb rebuild is disassemble and spray out the passages with carb cleaner. I’ll do it the way you described next time.

My justy came with a Hitachi carb that didn’t run very well. It seemed the duty solenoid in the carb was failing so I put in a new Weber a few years ago and am happy with it. I got a kit for an e82 Subaru engine and went down a couple jet sizes on the main and idle to increase gas millage.

So now I’m even more confused. Yesterday I was cranking for a long time and my starter failed (no surprise). So this morning I put a spare starter in and it fired right up better than it has in months. Tested it a few more times and it starts great. I can’t believe the old starter was the problem because it cranked a ton right up until it died.
Maybe i bumped something while changing the starter?

That’s how I usually do it for my truck, but the last time that method didn’t work. I had to soak the carb, then spray out all the passages with compressed air. During the compressed air phase I noticed a bunch of gunk come out that never came out with just the carb cleaner can method. One idea as a compromise if the problem re-appears, don’t do the soak , but try spraying the passages out with compressed air. In my case I think the problem was the air bleed passages at the top of the carb were plugged and that’s what the problem was, rather than the main jets and fuel passages.