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That looks great! I think I'm gonna hit the garage and fab that up RIGHT NOW. Much better design than what I have. Nice! I'd rather do strut top than weld the strut. That way if I blow one and have to replace it, it's a unbolt/bolt in replacement. I can do it on the side of the road in 10 minutes.

Welding oil pans suck. It's near impossible to get all the oil residue out, and it makes for crappy welds. And you need perfect leak free welds...

most important thing is to not leave coolant in the cylinders. It'll rust the walls and rings. Get it out and dump some oil in there to keep it from rusting. Or just run it.

TheLoyale can get an 8 page long thread about a car he hasn't even bought yet, and never actually ended up buying. Then turn it into a 40 page long thread.... I don't think a little bit of hijacking will hurt haha. I'm gonna mod up my legacy with a pwm DCCD controller, I'll order double parts and we can do your forester too.

I like the paint job on the air cleaner box! That's cool.

Replacing the rear transfer clutches isn't particularly hard or expensive on the 4eat anyway. If you toast 'em, replace 'em. If you're offroading it, doing the switched clutch mod will probably significantly increase their life. That way the computer isn't slipping them, then grabbing them when you lift a wheel.

The 4eat is a different story than a 3at. I abuse the living hell out of the 4eat. It's rated for towing 2000lbs, and I've definitely flat towed cars over 3000. I also don't care if I kill it, it has 246k miles... But the 3at is .... not as strong. I'd rather pull stuff with, and beat on a d/r than the 3at. Which I've also abused the hell out of, and no issues...

Probably using it for more than driving to work... They don't exactly take well to abuse.

Interesting, I've never seen a picture of it done that way before. I make my rear lift straps with a double bend in them to drop the strut straight down and keep it turned the same way. That looks a hell of a lot easier with just one 45° angle!

I'm not surprised that a manual transmission car is faster than the 3at. The 3AT is like driving a 5speed that's missing 1st and 5th gear...

I'd love to have one of those so damn bad!! Beautiful car.

That's kind of mickey mouse, but my point remains. You have a fuse on a wire that's rated higher than the expected load. If that wire shorts out, the fuse may not blow. I don't care about the other one, at this point it's irrelevant. You technically shouldn't do that anyway. What I'm saying is, the stock wiring is supposed to work just fine for a car in stock electrical configuration. Yours apparently isn't, so there's something wrong somewhere. Before you go blindly throwing parts at the problem to try and fix it, figure out what the problem is in the first place. Throwing parts at a situation when you don't know what's wrong just makes things worse. It might simply be a corroded wire. And, if it is the alt getting tired, no amount of adding wires and making a dangerous charging system is going to fix the problem.

Have you taken a meter and actually tested the voltage? Going by a dash gauge isn't the best way to diagnose an electrical problem. You need to take a multimeter and check at the battery and at the alt. Check for line loss between the two. And check the charge control circuit. There's a signal wire, if it's corroded the alt can put out too low voltage. Before you blindly go swapping to a new alternator, rule out wiring as the problem. For all you know, you'll get the new one in there with the same issue. Also, don't use a fuse rated significantly higher than the expected load. The stock unit is 60amp. It will likely melt and catch one fire before it blows a 100a fuse, especially if it is getting a little bit tired.

It's not the strut top bolts. It's the top hat bearing. It can get loose the same as a wheel bearing can. And it will cause play and clunking. With the wheel off the ground, wobble the wheel side to side as if you are checking tie rods. Look up at the top of the rod/piston. You'll be able to see if it has play.

I get stuff like that from a machine shop. My front lift blocks are 2x2 3/16" (pretty sure 3/16", not 1/4"). It's not something you want to underbuild though. Failing suspension is bad and dangerous. No reason to try to save a few bucks when the consequence is crashing your car due to failed suspension.

Are the front wheel bearings loose any? Just because they're fresh doesn't mean they're not bad... Have you checked the strut tops? When I was doing my oil change I checked the front wheels like usual for tie rod, bearing, or ball joint play. And to my surprise, there was play on the right front wheel. Turns out it was in the strut top bearing. And yes, there has been a bit of a clunk in that corner. Not where I expected to find it. Other things that can cause clunking or alignment to slip is bad bushings. Control arm and radius rod bushings. If they're bad, everything will move around when it wants and mess up the alignment. If you still have it, swap bar bushings can cause clunking.

That picture was probably taken 20 years ago. Cars, trucks, tires, everything used to be smaller then.

Napa by me has dupli-color match paint, I think I've seen that GM blue before. Thought about getting it for my valve covers.

I'd never thought of zip ties! That's a great idea. Usually I just use bailing wire to secure the boots on. Zip ties is a good idea.

Presslab: Thank you! I'll look that up. TheLoyale: I haven't taken the snap ring off yet that holds the race/balls on. But I did notice that a lot of kits include that, so I figured it might be a common situation for it to break/bend.

That's what's on there now. I can take them apart and put them back together without ruining them. I have a tricky trick I mean the retaining ring that keeps the axle together. The one you have to pop out to get the cup off the axle assy. That was stuck in the groove and bent up coming out.

Tho closest kit is in Ohio, not only is it expensive, they want $10 shipping. So it's faster, cheaper, and easier to order it online.

Ah, it's probably the same thing if it's the same with EJ. I'm pretty sure it is, just curious. I've found some better kits listed as automatic not as manual. So I wasn't sure. I broke the retainer ring taking it apart (it was wicked stuck and bent up). So I want a kit that comes with one of those...

I'd really like to know if auto and manual boots change. Anyone know?

You probably won't find that exact style in stainless, but I know you can get stainless wing nuts. I use them on boats all the time.