Difficulties with acceleration and weird shuddering uphill

[Carcs]

This my first post, however, I am only a recent liberty owner and hope to hang around. I have 1991 gx 4wd auto sedan. I went to a lot of precaution prior to purchasing the car, and from what I could tell it was a wise investment.

Now, of course, not every intricacy of the car surfaced and I have now come into a problem on a couple of occasions. To put it simply, there is one steep long hill near my house. The car seems to deal fine with the hill at the beginning, and all other hills I have driven on so far, but the hill is long and winding. When I slow down around the bends and then accelerate up the last part of the hill the car loses a lot of its boost and begins to slow down, it will not accelerate like normal. Further, if I pull the car over and attempt to idle it will start shuddering sorta, does not sound happy at all, making a fairly decent noise and shuddering is the best way of putting it. However, If I continue to drive after the hill is finished, it will accelerate normal and the car no longer has the weird fit when idling. Also, this doesn't happen on smaller hills.

Any ideas?? I thought id ask here, as it may be a fairly usual Liberty mishap. Hopefully it isn’t too major

[Suby Roo]

First choice would be to check error codes to see if there is a problem. It kinda sounds like the Hill hold is working.

[dwayneb]

Fuel filters? fuel pump?

[Carcs]

ok, thanks for the input. Ill check these tonight when I am doing some routine maintenance.

[SuBaRiNo]

Would the hill holder effect idle?? I wouldn't have thought so... i agree it does sound like a fuel related problem to me. I would start with the fuel filter and work from there.

Dave

[El_Freddo]

Tempreture issue? You mentioned it happens when powering up hills - is there anything that gets too hot under the bonnet that may be failing its job?

The hill holder would not have anything to do with this - its independant of any vacuum hoses or engine parts - that said, i thought the hill holder only came on the manual...

Cheers

Bennie

[jzk25]

Sounds a bit like the common EJ22 fault(assuming it is still an EJ22, you don't say) of lifters overcoming the valve springs and losing power, usually on hills. By the time you lose power and pull over the car either stalls and is hard to restart(sounds like it has no compression initially, because it doesn't) or it runs on a couple of cylinders and by the time you open the bonnet it recovers.
This is usually a product of the engine being over heated at some stage(they all have been) and the springs losing some temper(they are very light to begin with).
It can sometimes be remedied by flushing the oil galleries with diesel oil or "engine flush". Other wise it's replace the valve springs/or engine.

[AlpineRaven]

Hill Holder only comes in manuals, not automatic.
Cheers
AP

[Carcs]

Ok, thanks guys, very helpful.

The fuel filters and pump look fine and I dont think they are having input.

There are also no temperature issues evident when it happens.

I have not checked the error code yet, I have been a little busy. But this "EJ22" fault does sound like it is the product of similar symptoms to what it is experiencing, i will see if it shows up.

Cheers

[__JC__]

Ok, thanks guys, very helpful.

The fuel filters and pump look fine and I dont think they are having input.

There are also no temperature issues evident when it happens.

I have not checked the error code yet, I have been a little busy. But this "EJ22" fault does sound like it is the product of similar symptoms to what it is experiencing, i will see if it shows up.

Cheers

Ah the joys of used car ownership.

EJ22 isn't a fault, it's an engine code and the type of engine that should be fitted to your Liberty provided it all factory original. The EJ part is the engine series and the 22 means that the engine has 2.2L of displacement. You can check out Subaru EJ Engine Series on wikipedia for some more info on Subaru engines.

As far as fault codes go, unless you have a check engine light (CEL) displayed on the dash either intermittently or constantly you shouldn't need to check. It'll let you know.

What Al (jzk25) is saying sounds right on the money. You may not have overheated it yourself but some point during your cars many years of service it may have been and as a result the valve springs in your engine have lost some of their tension (metal has lost it's temper as AL said).

Hope you sort it out!

Jake.

[Carcs]

Oh, It was only a matter of time before I made a fool of myself on a car forum . Nevertheless, i'm sure I will get it sorted now.

Cheers.

BTW, with this problem aside, I have certainly been converted to the Subaru camp. Make of that what you will.

[whoshotjr]

Hi,

I'm a new member of the forum.

My 95 auto liberty seems to have the same symptons as the EJ22 fault referred to above.

Just out of curiosity, I checked engine error codes and it came up with 32 (O2 sensor). Could O2 sensor problems explain intermittent loss of power on long hills?

How do you go about flushing the oil galleries?

Cheers,
John R

[AlpineRaven]

Hi,

I'm a new member of the forum.

My 95 auto liberty seems to have the same symptons as the EJ22 fault referred to above.

Just out of curiosity, I checked engine error codes and it came up with 32 (O2 sensor). Could O2 sensor problems explain intermittent loss of power on long hills?

How do you go about flushing the oil galleries?

Cheers,
John R

If the error codes comes up, reset the ECM and if it does come back again then it needs replacing.. You can get O2 sensors for under $100 off ebay.
Cheers
AP