The AUSubaru.com.au Forums

Hi guys, so lately my L series has been running great. Took it for a trip upto my grandparents farm, they have a "hill" which i thought id tackle, everyone told me "your car wont get up there".... being silly as i am i thought id give it a crack. Definatly shouldn't have, it was just a washed out rocky vertical incline. after giving the L series a flogging in low range i managed to get upto the top only to notice my idle going funny. It would stall on idle, i would have to keep the revs up. anyway got back down and back to the property, stopping to open every gate id have to keep the revs up otherwise she'd stall. Turned her off. thought id see how she is the next day.

Day 2, start the suby up... all is good! drive for a bit all is good, anyway after a bit of paddock bashing throughout the day(nothing too stressful) bam the rough idle comes back and will stall when the engine comes back to idle.

Won't seem to go away, and have to make my 2 hour trip back home i thought gee this is gonna be fun just hope i dont have to come to many roundabouts (when i goto change down and when i put foot on the clutch it will die) anyway half way home it stalls when i am forced to come to a stop at some lights. Keep going and by the time im home, its sorted itself out??

This has happened before, about 4 times in the past year. An intermittant problem, but a very annoying one. The car runs fine, but just wont idle and will stall at idle.
Being intermittant i haven't been able to sort it out, id take it to my mates who are mechanically minded and they can't help me because its fixed itself before they get a chance to see it

I noticed this thread when i did a bit of a search:

showthread.php?t=8399

Pretty much my exact problem down to a tee.
Im suspecting its the carby or some sort of vacuum thing.

Anyone had this problem and fixed it? or any ideas on what they think could be the problem? im going to start slowly try and rule out everything.
I'm very average mechanically, so tearing the carb down is something im not particulary thinking about lol, so tryna leave that last resort if i have to.

I definatly don't think its a spark issue, ive had bad leads/water in the plugs and all of that and its nothing like that. engine is firing fine on all cyclinders and runs fine under load etc/ just when it comes back to idle it will cut out.

Anyway the car is running back fine for now, but i really wanna try and sort this problem out. I love my L but i am looking at getting a new soob in the near future as problems like these make me hesitant on long trips. An 2000 - 2001 outback is what im thinking next!

Sorry about the long winded post, any help would be great thanks guys!

Also one strange thing, when i was driving back on one of the country roads a couple of times the car backfired really loud. It does backfire when going down hills etc
But this happened when just cruising at like 70km/h in 5th gear on a flat which i thought was strange. Only happened on the start of the journey home and hasn't happened since. seems to have sorted its self out like the idle issue ?

There is just the standard run of things people gonna suggest. Think of sediment laying dormant in your tank until you take for a good old shake rattle and roll, could have got through filters to carby, could be a whole range of things, but an idle is usually carb related. Try a carby cleaner that is designed to spray into the throat of a running carb to get in the jets and other little holes that air and fuel bleed through.

I'd say, first get a fuel cleaner to shove in tank, take for good drive that gives fuel a chanc to wash through to filters, then change to new fuel filter. If you have upset breathers and swamped air filter with engine oil - have a look, smothers filter makes it harder for donk to breathe.

Also if you warm up engine or just the breather hoses on each rocker cover with hair drier, undo clip and pull hose each side, you might find the pipe on top of the rocker covers jammed up with carbon. At the back of the manifold is a PCV valve that can alos clog up with carbon letting too much air in at idle, making it stall. 19mm spanner undoes it, wd40 stuff helps soften and clean it, or new one - they are service items never changed until 20 years later- then just cleaned out, next, look at dist cap under side, rotor button condition, spark plugs and leads. Observe which lead goes to which plug and label both ends, replace one at a time. Note which way and where each goes on cap too.

Keep you busy

Replaced air filter and fuel filter approx 2 years. Gonna get a can of carby cleaner/new fuel & air filter and try as above.

Dumb question, but When spraying the carby cleaner down the carby, once you take the air cleaner top off and the carbys throat is exposed. theres two entrances? The bottom that has an butterfly valve and then theres another part above. Do you spray down the part with the butterfly valve? or the top part? or both

If a bit confusing will post a pic.

Spray down both barrels, include the airbleeds at the top of the main body that you can see down from the top.

Don't go overboard, otherwise you'll flood the engine on startup.

Subaru upper engine cleaner does a better job.

but it does not do the carby eh? i use carby cleaner with engine running, may need to hold revs up. carb has primary and secondary throats, second does not have choke blade up top. the whole bit should look very shiny clean when finished

If you're talking about those two tubes that slope down into the float bowl I'm pretty sure they are just ventilation tubes, carby cleaner down there would just go straight into the fuel (someone correct me if I'm wrong)

Silverbullet wrote:If you're talking about those two tubes that slope down into the float bowl I'm pretty sure they are just ventilation tubes, carby cleaner down there would just go straight into the fuel (someone correct me if I'm wrong)

Yes, that's right, don't let any of your product go down the float bowl vents.

Carb cleaner does what it's supposed to do, but you use a lot of it, and the large amount of liquid fuel in the manifold will take a lot longer to vaporise, before you think about starting the engine.

Upper engine cleaner, which is a foam, which allows you to virtually fill the carb barrels with foam, will clean the inside the carb from top to bottom without putting anything else near it.

I get about 5 cars out of a can.