The Beast I Drive

I got an Idea... Make that one a clean daily driver and sell me your Touring wagon... I like that one Nice lookin rig though -Bill

That would be sweet with the old Power Wagon look on the front end, it will be an off road Hotrod, and I dig it! But it will need at least a 340 Mopar motor at some point... And pistolgrip shifter -Bill

Those on the left were some of the rear blocks and the 2 in the frontmost left are for the front for the back of the radius rod mounting plate. I do paypal, Ill PM you. -Bill

Nice, very nice... Might need a gusset, cuz its quite a drop, but looks fantastic man! -Bill

If you want to go to manual brakes, like absolutely have to, for clearance issues or what not, the old old '71-73 EA series cars had manual brakes, i.e. Gen 1 stage 1s with EA62 or EA63 engines from 71-73 at least. Other years may have had them too. I dont know if the brake pots will work in a later EA car like your Sedamn, but you could look into that... -Bill

Well since Im late to the party... And since I didnt read the whole thread because it got insanely long... From what I read you have the control arms off the engine crossmember and they wont go back in. Bolt the struts with 2" blocks attached back to the towers. Get everything on the hub all bolted together, and make sure your axles are back on the trans stubs and the roll pins are in. Then, with the car on jackstands, put a floor jack under the jack plate on the bottom of the engine crossmember. Undo the 2 14mm nuts on each side of the crossmember and lower it with the jack until you can attach the lower arms. Once you have a bolt in each arm, jack the engine back up and put the nuts back on and tighten them good and tight. You will have to loosen the steering shaft u joint for this, but thats 1 12mm bolt. You shouldnt have to undo anything else in the engine bay though. It will take all of 15 minutes if you do it right -Bill

It appears 1" is the way to go, its less stress on the CV joints, and you wont have to move the engine crossmember. There will be extra stress on the pivot bushings on the lower arms though unless you modify the control arms or slot the mounting holes on the crossmember. You will still need some gracious bashing/ fender cutting to clear those big meats, and they still might rub a bit... -Bill

That is going to be pretty sweet, 120hp, it has more power than the stock motor! Should have plenty of torque with the extra trans, enough to turn those 32" tires eh? Here's those pics of the extended radius rods I forgot to post :-\ sorry bout that Those are extended 1 1/2", which was too much, I had to move the motor crossmember forward 1/2" to make them work. I cut the rods, cut a piece of stock 1 1/2" long, slid it into the pipe, then plug welded both sides of the pipe to the radius rods. Should be plenty strong, but I have yet to test it, gotta finish the wiring and get an EJ22 in it. This car aslo has a 4" lift and 31" tires on it -Bill

They do indeed bolt to the top of the struts, they are made of 1/4" thick steel with Grade 8 hardware. They are lightly used, got a little dirt on them, but I can clean them up a bit. They are the ones on the right, they are upside down in this pic, when i was painting them. -Bill

I like it, it looks killer, even with the stock wheels on there. An RX trans or Impreza 5 speed would be a good trans to put behind the EJ22 in that car. I dont see it being real practical for rallying, but if it handles good I could see it being a decent autocross rig. Sweet pavement pounder nonetheless, Ive never seen a Subaru hatch that low and still driveable Not really my style, but it looks sweet! And not all cars have to be practical to be cool -Bill

I am putting my time and money into parts that can be transfered onto a less rusty body when the time comes... The rust isnt near as bad as some of you midwesters, but its infected the entire chassis... As long as it is safe to drive Im gonna drive the crap outta it and love it Also this way, if this rusty body gets damaged, its no big deal, its demise is inevitable, but I might as well give it a good run as long as I can Plus I just love to work on it, its not hard, just frustrating at times :-\ but its fun to play with it, this car just does something for me, its like going back in time every time I sit in the seat and turn on the stock AM radio and blast classic country 1460 -Bill

Well this rig proved itself out in the mountains just south of Satus Pass east ouf HWY 97 yesterday :banana: I love it, its so narrow and without a lift it was able to go places no vehicle had been in over 30 years There were a couple spots that I wish I had a low-range, and some spots where a 4" lift woulda been nice, but overall I was quite pleased with its performance. Ran great the whole day! The only problem i had was a short on my possitive starter cable, the spare was pushing it down into a bolt on the anti-pitch rod and it burned up the ground cable for the tranny, but I made a makeshift repair and went on our way, fixed it when we got home. On a side note, me and my buddy covered a lot of terrain, saw tons of tracks, and a flock of wild turkeys Now I have to get my 78 Brat running (it has an EA81 and D/R 4speed swapped in) so I can see if they used an 81-82 4 speed. If it has the low gears I want, and it shifts good, its goin in Rusty Gotta finish up the roll bar, I have it mocked in the car, but I still need to weld on my new light mounting tabs and get the stacks mocked up, but Im waiting for my exhaust cutouts before I do that. Then I can paint the roll bar white and fully install it -Bill

Well, I didnt get around to rebuilding the carb today, but I got it running better but who knows how long THAT will last... I adjusted the valves, which did help a little, and I put in a second fuel filter on the pre-pump side, but then I decided to play with my carb some more and turns out I was running the idle jet just 1/2 turn too lean... Before I would get this really bad dead spot if I tried to push the throttle just past idle, like the accelerator pump was flooding out the motor or something, but now I dont have that... Distributer gonna have to be replace, starting to get a little bit of shaft play :-\ so Ill have to build me another one... It runs much better, but its still a little rough, but it creeps a lot better now still getting a lot of rust sediment in the filters... it builds up FAST As for the gas tank, I could pull it, clean it, and coat it, and I think it definitely needs it. I'll prolly pull a tank off one of my other Brats that dont run so i have less downtime, and get me some of that stuff Connie has tried... Would be cool to have a bladder made for it but again thats big bucks that would be well spent on something else... We take care of the Coyote problem out here too, my buddy's uncle owns a large portion of the rattlesnake hills as a ranch and he told us to get rid of any coyotes. Even gave my buddy a brand new Savage .223 with a glass bedded stock and adjustable trigger (and a crappy scope :-\) Yeeha -Bill

Is this for an EA81 or EA82? I build lifts, and I have a pair of 4" strut lift blocks for an EA82 built and sitting, guy traded them cuz he wanted 5" in the front instead of 4". $40 plus shipping if they are what you need. -Bill

I have no love for new cars... Period. Id love to have a police intercepror, and I almost did, but some B**** at the auction bought ALL 12 OF THEM!!!!! and they were all '03-04 models :mad: Other than a Police cruiser I really dont have any desire to own anything newer than 1987... I cant really say I was hard on Rusty before this stupid carb/running like crap problem started, now Ive been flogging it hard trying to make something happen... Not sure what, but I just want some kind of results... Even if its a rod sticking out of the block. I drove that Brat like an old lady until this. Yeah I beat the snot outa all my other cars... Offroaders cant be babied... Im just really annoyed with this Brat, its doing the same thing now as it was last night before I pulled the carb. I just filled up on new gas too. I think I might run up to Triangle auto and get me a rebuild kit, in the meantime Ill swap the Weber from the Beast onto it and see what happens And before ANYONE suggests it, there is no chance ever of this being EJ swapped or converted to FI of any kind. For 1, the EA71 is 1" narrower than an EA81, so SPFI manifold wont fit. EJ swap wont happen cuz its not worth it in this car and I dont want to notch the frame. I understand carbs, they are simple to me, and I have 4 or 5 webers here to mix and match. I can do that for almost nothing, except for my time. Im just irritated that nothing I do has gotten results. Hopefully adjusting the valves will help, Im letting the engine cool off and then its off to do that -Bill

Oh I know exactly whats up with the tank... Its got rusty silt in it BAD. I replaced your filter with a clear OEM replacement... 2 days ago, and it was full of rust tonight. So I replaced it with another one tonight. I got a bunch of NOS stuff from Robbie, so i have some extra filters... The fuel pump works fine, but It could be the alternator going bad, now that i think of it... had the same symptoms in other rigs when that happened... Oh well 100 amp swap is emminent... -Bill

And dont get me wrong, I love to work on my cars,its what I live to do, but when i have done the same thing 3 times in 4 days, and fry my brain to solve a legitimate problem, and then it "magically" goes away after everything I try fails, its really frustrating.... On a side note, we did find a hog tonight, so that was pretty fun... -Bill

Its a straight up love/hate relationship, with all my subies. Love the cars, hate the hell that they put me through trying to keep them alive and well The Beast- my first sube, first lift, first wheeler, so Ive had all kinds of Bull**** happen with that one... It never ends The RX... Yeah. We all know how that one turned out... My black Brat... I guess for a car that was once in a junkyard its in remarkably good shape... Doesnt burn oil but I get to replace lots of abused parts :-\ This Brat (rusty)- Got a flat on my trailor on the way home with it, for starters. Its been a money pit since then, I have over 350 buck just into the brakes!!!! the front calipers were 100 bucks each and so far Ive had to re-tune/diagnose the engine every other day this week, this would be the 3rd time so far... But I love it, it really reminds me that I do live on the reservation, I only really get the indian radio station in town and overall I love the car. But it loved to make me hate it :-\ My hatch was cool, till it made noises, so I... made it into another ongoing project Then theres my American cars The lincoln- Balls to the wall, when the trans doesnt slip... also has a strange electrical fault in the column... keeps the 4 ways kinda on all the time... Blew a 350 in my 73 pick up... rod is hangin out the oil pan... I also really liked that truck... My 63 chevy pick up runs great, has an awesome sound system, but the gas tank leaks and the brakes... need work, to say the least... My F-250 turned expensive real fast... eirgo it aint done yet... I could go on, but you get the idea... -Bill

Seriously, almost every car I own loves to play mind games with me and mess with my head. So I got my '80 Brat running good yesterday, nice and smooth, good power, ran good at all rpms, everything was perfect. Today, it ran great all day, until about 7:30 or 8. I was up driving the hills searchin for some wild hogs and it would not run for ************ at just off idle, so when i tried to creep it just sputtered and lurched (really annoying). So when I got home, I started checking it out. No vacuum leaks anywhere, I sprayed the whole manifold with carb cleaner. Timing is set at 8 BTD like it should be. So I liberally applied carb cleaner to the carb, like I did last night, which worked that time. This time it only seemed to make it worse. So I changed the fuel filter again, I just changed it last night, but it was already full of sediment... Nothing. So I pull the Weber and tear it down, clean it up real good, and re-assemble it... Ran worse than before. At this point Im seriously screaming WTF at the top of my lungs, wondering why this car wont cooperate with me, Ive done nothing wrong to this car (yet) and I like it alot. So I figure what the hell, Ill take it for a test drive. I try to creep out my driveway, and its doin the same thing it did before I started working on it tonight, so I decide to punch it and see what happens... OMG it somehow grew balls because it could give Turbone's RX a challenge Im like WTF did I do, it all of a sudden got REALLY quick... It loves WOT, and after a couple passes, it idles perfect again, and runs amazing it still doesnt like to creep very well, but it is a million times better now than it was this evening. I have no clue what I did that made the difference, its like punching the gas and redline shifting it a few times seems to have auto-tuned it into a race car... I just dont understand how something so simple can make things so difficult sometimes... Tomorrow I plan to adjust the valves, they are a bit noisy... So we will see what happens after that... Maybe I should just leave it alone and maybe it will be good to me Sorry for the rant, but I just had to get it out, this car has been mentally terrorizing me since the day I got it. I love it to death though, it must just be cranky old man syndrome on the part of the car -Bill

Just registered, signed up to bring my newest brat, but I might change my mind... We will see... -Bill

The way I see it, if youre taking the trans apart to weld the front diff, thats cool as long as its never going to be street driven, I could see possible issues with that... But if it could be a multi purpose vehicle, then a good quality LSD would be the thing to swap in, although they are not cheap, I think i read the cheapest one was over 400 bucks which is why I will probably just run welded rear diffs and open fronts, until I build the subframe for my Brat, and run a T case, then I can have a rear LSD in the front and a welded rear -Bill

Ya know, there is a thread on here somewhere about front LSDs... the Legacy/impreza LSDs that you can buy aftermarket (clutch type, viscous type) are available and will fit in the EA gearbox... Apparently the EJ 5mts and EA5mts have the same front diff... -Bill

One of the first things I do is go down to Schwabs and get me a new set of tires, every rig, every time, unless I have a decent set of used ones layin around already. And I always carry a spare and some kind of jack and lugwrench Ive been there, thats why I do what i do -Bill P.S. thank you for not trashing those rims, I still want those if you ever decide to part with them