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Drove up to the UP Friday night and checked a few of the camping areas we'd found on the last trip. First one had a few people in it including some guys setting off fireworks so I went to the next one which was unoccupied. Camped near an outhouse along the river/reservoir and set up the tent. B showed up a few hours later. Saturday we headed to the first suspension test area. First thing in the morning the tach in the Impreza didn't work but then it started working after some driving and a few restarts and has been working fine since. Stopped at a cool waterfall/rapids at an old bridge/dam with some people fishing just downstream. Saw a Forester out in a field with the back sheet metal cut off. Took a few trails/roads we hadn't been on before that went through but I tried one too many. We'd gone north most of the way on this road before and then went east the long way so this time I tried going all the way north. It was fine until it wasn't. Got stuck in a mud hole in the Impreza. Took us a couple hours to get it out with the high lift and recovery ramps and snatch strap. Then it took us a few more hours to get both the cars turned around. Once we were out on foot digging and jacking it became clear the road was covered with 3-4” diameter logs. These were both a help and a hindrance. We did learn a few things though. One, we need to practice using our high lifts more or perhaps watch some videos. B's seems to just lock up occasionally. Mine wasn't lowering consistently. At one point I kept “lifting” even though it was mostly the jack sinking rather than the car lifting which then took a while to jack the jack out of the mud. I really need to fab a rear bumper for the Impreza with good recovery points. The 1.25” square adapter I bolted on my high lift was mostly useful but with all this heavy use started to rotate, so that could use an upgrade. Definitely need a bigger lifting foot too. I made one for the high lift I keep in the white Outback but it fits so tight I never bother to take it on and off so it makes the high lift even more of a hassle to store. Solving those issues probably would have cut our recovery time in half or less. Gotreads folding recovery ramps were alright. At least once they worked their magic, tire would suck them under and then grab. We slightly bent them but they still fold back in the carrying bag. Definitely more practical to carry than the solid recovery boards we have. We really need to pack the winch so it's more accessible too. Currently I have it buried in the spare tire well. There weren't many large trees around but we probably could have cut our time significantly by winching. While we were getting unstuck we found some scraps of styrofoam, part of a tow strap with hook that we used during our recovery, a floor mat probably from a UTV, a leather work glove, and a few beer cans. So we probably weren't the first people to get stuck there. At any rate, we got out and finally made it to the first suspension testing area. B could go significantly faster in the Forester than I was going in the Impreza without “bottoming”. The Impreza had the front end banging noise we've had in the Foresters that shows up sometimes even when we don't seem to be hitting very large obstactles. Got some baseline max speeds with slight bottoming on a relatively high speed road with some big but fairly smooth dips in it. We started with our tires at 35-40psi and then tried it again at 25psi, didn't notice much difference in ride quality. B did say the Forester seemed less squirrelly at the lower tire pressures, I felt the Impreza understeered less at the lower tire pressures. Just beyond that suspension test stretch is a log section where we were going about 10mph. Headed on to an area where we'd driven through a lot of whoops before. Unfortunately when we got there we found they'd graded most of them smooth. We did find one winding trail that was still whooped out though, very fun to rip through that at 35-40mph. Again the Impreza was limited by the banging noises. We headed on to the next section of whoops that's fairly close to a campground we've stayed at a few times. As we were approaching them it was dark and there was quite a bit of standing water in the trail so we decided to just camp for the night. Sunday morning we headed back up to the fast whoops. You can run most of these at 50-60mph but there are some near the end that are really big so 40-45 is more prudent. 60 will get you very airborne. Again the Impreza was limited by the banging and the Forester could go significantly faster. It was mainly the left front so we tried swapping front tires side to side (two different brands but both mud tires in the same size at the same pressures), that made no difference. We'd brought a set of front struts with different valving in them for the Forester and rear struts with different valving in the Impreza. Since the Impreza was limited by the front end banging and the front struts are easier to swap, we put the struts with new valving in the Forester and the ones off the Forester on the Impreza to see if it would fix the banging. B said the new strut valving felt generally more damped and didn't get as airborne off the same big whoops at the same speed. The struts off the Forester didn't seem better in the Impreza. We headed back to the winding whoops trail to test our changes. Similar results to the faster whoops. We were trying to figure out what might cause the banging noise and noticed the aluminum front control arm bushing on the corner that was making noise flexed a lot more than usual so we swapped that out with a less used spare. The banging noise almost went away, now I was able to drive the Impreza as fast as the Forester with minimal banging noises. This made sense as B has this problem most often, including the last trip, but we'd just replaced those bushings on his car before this trip. Then we headed back to the original test road. Again I was able to drive about as fast as the Forester with much less banging than before. There's a dip at the end that makes a decent jump in the one direction, the cars jump and land fine but at 50+ you're going a little fast for the dips right after the landing section so the cars bounce a bit. Also was able to drive the Impreza as fast as the Forester now through the logs with the fresher bushing. We swapped the front struts on the Impreza back to what we started with. Was maybe slightly better, we both felt that set we started on the front of the Forester was bouncier than the other setups which makes sense looking at the valving. We took the short (distance) way to the campsite which took a few hours. The longer distance way we took the next day takes about a half hour. Bounced the RR tire of the Impreza off a rock on the way there. Put a hole in the sidewall. Tried plugging it but even with three plugs it was still audibly leaking so we just swapped on the spare. Camped at a site we'd found on the last trip overlooking a stream/river. In the morning we headed up to town to meet my brother and take him for a ride and shoot some video since he's the real shock tuning expert. North of town there are tons of trails and we spent a little time wandering and found a wide powerline grade with two trails side by side, one whooped out, that we'd been on before and seemed good for shooting some video. Again the Impreza's coolant temp would start to climb on fairly low speed 2-3000RPM second gear light throttle type terrain especially with a lot of soft sand. As soon as we either stopped and idled or moved at a higher speed the temps came right back down. Still thinking that's the lean tune at low loads and RPM, need to set up another tune at stoich to test between the two. Met up with my brother and took him on a ride through the fun winding whoop trail and the side by side powerline whoops to get some video and took some notes on his thoughts. One thing B and I discussed since neither of the cars we took has functional AC at the moment is how much the 200F heater core under the dash increases cabin temps. Assuming once these cars are 20+ years old a fair amount of air leaks past the control flaps too. Will probably try some shutoff valves and some extra hose to bypass the heater core for summertime use and see if that helps. Even with the AC working, if it reduced cabin temps by 10F that would just improve AC performance further. Definitely seemed cooler driving the Impreza with the windows down to turn the fan off or switch to defrost/floor since the air coming out of the vents felt well above ambient. Overall it was a good weekend. Annoying being stuck that long in the heat and humidity but gave us/reinforced some ideas about improved vehicle recovery. Didn't execute the full original shock testing plan but we think we finally figured out the mysterious banging noise and it's a fairly easy fix and the valving changes we did make seemed to be an improvement. Also both cars seemed to go through the whoops pretty well.

100% that’s CV grease from the boot in the pic. Reboot and go again. Cheers Bennie

Looks like the CV boot is cracked and slinging grease. Clear signs of it slinging out. How old is the axle? Theres a very small chance it could be old grease we are seeing. Check the axle boot for cracking. Or give us closer pictures of the ribs/convolutions so we can look for a crack. If it is, Reboot or replace the axle.

While you are in there tighten the oil pump back plate screws and replace the o-ring.