Questions and Answers

Dying Subaru Q. I have a 1980 subaru GL 1600 2 wheel drive 4 door station wagon, manual transmission. I left my lights on and the battery ran down. Got a jump and noticed the volts were not at 12, were at 10. Bought a new battery. The volts were still at 10. Started driving over to "Battery Exchange" and car died.

Got it towed and they replaced the alternator and voltage regulator. Now the car starts and dies. Maybe just a coincidence? Anyway, replaced the fuel filter. Disconnected it from carburetor and when I turn key on gas come out, so I think carburetor is getting gas. It starts just fine and will idle for one or two minutes if I don't rev the engine. If I rev the engine, it will die right away. Had tune-up last month, checked all the belts, Ideas?

Thank you...

A. It's possible you have a bad fuel pump. That car has a mechanical fuel pump and if the diaphragm inside goes bad, it can't pump enough volume to keep up with the engine. You can test it with a vacuum gauge. Disconnect the fuel line from the pump inlet and out the line rom the vacuum gauge on it. Start the car and you should get a steady reading of between 5 and 13 inches of vacuum. If the needle fluctuates, then the pump is no good and needs to be replaced.

It is also possible that the ECU was damaged during the jump start. Early ECU's didn't have too much in the way of voltage spike protection and incorrectly hooking up jumper cables could have sent a spike through the electrical system. If the car was fine before the jump start, then I think this would be a very good possibility.