Leaderboard

It’s a dream to pile into my ‘81 B.R.A.T. and trek slowly at 55mph all the way to this. That would be SO cool. Or I get rich and get a flatbed trailer and tow it there with my wilderness.

B and I pulled the dash out of the Impreza and worked on some wiring. The neutral and clutch switches (for canceling the cruise control) haven't been registering on the Haltech in a while. I had them wired 12VDC to one side, signal wire to Haltech on the other side. B suggested trying to ground them and that made them turn on and off at the Haltech. Still don't understand that, had them wired to power and they worked for a while. I think they stopped working when I replaced the expansion module or updated the firmware. Regardless, they work now. B installed the cabin air filter kit. Slammo turned me on to this. Very simple install/upgrade. B also cleaned out the HVAC box and blower motor. B wired in a retained accessory power module from timers.shop. Set that up to keep the power to the family band radio and two cigarette lighter outlets after the ignition is turned off. Will set that to 99 minutes I think. Been meaning to do that for years. He also made a little panel and added a switch so we can turn on one fuel pump or the other once the extra fuel tank is done. He replaced the backlight bulb in the gauge cluster so the clock shows up now. I wired all four EGR solenoid grounds to one of the outputs of the Haltech so we can see if that does anything. Wanted to get it working before we tune the car on a dyno. I got the horn working. Since the cruise inputs for the Haltech need a 5VDC power supply I had to separate that out (they're normally powered by the 12VDC horn circuit) and run the horn power through one of the airbag wires. The main reason for pulling the dash was to try to get the speedo working. After some trial and error and back and forth with Dakota Digital, I seem to have it working now. Will update the EZ36 swap thread with details. On that topic, I plan on just putting a swap guide and base map on my website soon too. Not sure how to share files on here.

Brat is still alive and kicking.....

I would love to see the end result, 242Hp and 220Tq would make for a quick car!

Whatever happened to this project?

Yeah, but- Why not be able to shoot in some new grease now and then? I'd rather grease my bearings than replace them. This idea is interesting. I was working on a way to force new grease into the bearings while the axles were out. But this idea is also worth thinking on. One question I have is- What about too much grease? If grease was fully packed into the housing, all around the spacer, ect., would it possibly cause a failer due to higher pressures or something? Some people say 1/3 full of grease. If it is not any problem to be full, then we should be able to pack all the grease we can into the hub (when we got the axles out) and be ok with it. What do you guys think about that?

Only for the rear - the tool is to remove the huge ring nut that holds the bearing in. You can use a coal chisel and hammer to pound it around, it just chews up the nut, and is a lot more difficult. The tool has four protrusions, and can be used with an impact. Takes em right out quick. GD

No - the rear can be either two bearing/race sets and a spacer, or can be a single sealed unit. Either way in every case I've seen, the rear is sold as a unit - per wheel - while the front is sold individually. You have to buy four bearings for the front, and two for the rear. 4 seals per wheel all the way around. They are a different size than the front, are held in differently, and the seals are different. I don't see the similarity other than they are both bearings. Have you ever done one? I've done enough to own the special tool for it.... GD

different parts # but still take 2 bearings and 2 seals per wheel on a 4wd.

I had four bearings and four seals when I replaced them on my 84 4WD wagon. Whats this about the grease?!?! Wish I had known that....

Hey, you could do it Jaguar style. Drill the spindle, like you were talking about. Also drill a hole through the hub, and put the zerk in the hub. pump grease into the hub, and old grease exits through the spindle. A similar setup exists on M60 tanks, except there are 2 holes in the hub, and none in the spindle. One hole contains the zerk, and the other has a relief valve. It's fun pumping those up with a pneumatic grease gun. You don't know when it's going to pop off, or where the nasty, old grease will fly. I probably have a few of these relief valves sitting around, if you wanna give it a shot.

The rears do last a long time. I've never replaced a set because of failure that did not result from some other problem. I had a set go bad because the little washer with the tab you bend down had sheared it's key off, and allowed the nut to spin off. (this was a 2WD rear bearing). On the 4WD this is much less likely to happen because of the design of the spindle. GD

Well - the way I figure your at least diluting the contaminates with more clean grease Also - if the bearings are cared for properly, and the car was designed with bearings that could hold it's weight, they should never fail. The metal never actually touches - the bearings ride on a thin coating of grease - the only way a bearing can wear out is it's it's got too much weight on it (thus sqeezing out all the grease), or if it's running dry, or with contaminated grease. So saying that they shouldn't need regreasing till they fail if properly installed doesn't make sense - if they were properly installed, they should never fail. Of course this isn't a perfect world, and they do indeed fail because of either improper installation, or seal failure, which lets in contaminates, and water (even clean water will ruin the grease), and lets the grease leak out. For these reasons I like the idea of a grease fitting - it would allow you to just replace the seals without having to remove the hub and pound the bearings out of it. Just remove the seals from either side, and pump in new grease till it runs clean from either side - new seals, and put it back together. This way you could prevent failure of the bearings for a long time I think. GD

Yeah - I have to dissagree junkie - water and other contiminates from the abuse that us off-roaders do to our bearings is going to make them fail prematurely. A good regreasing via a zirk fitting on the hub after every couple runs would help to keep them from running dry and failing prematurely. I don't think that drilling a small hole for a fitting would weaken the hub. If the hole is drilled properly, it shouldn't be a problem. GD