WoodsWagon

I'm bringing a T-wag out from out west in a month, so thanks for keeping an eye out for me, but I'm all ready commited. You can attest to how beat my car is. Fun to drive though.

Yeah, everyone in class had a good laugh about me finding a matching donor tranny in the woods. It was out in the state forest, someone had dumped an EA82, carbed with the tranny, and a th350. Stripped them both down and built one out of the pile of parts. Everthing was torqued to specs with an impact gun. Specs are EJ22, EA82 dual range, LSD rear, GCK front halfshafts, 235/75r15 BFG A/T's. 90miles commuting each day, wheeling when I can. I've used the car for a fair number of recovery missions, the largest being an extended cab K2500 buried to the axles in snow. Plus getting the car stuck is often brutal on the transmission, as the only way I can get the car out is by myself. The body of the car is literaly cracking apart, and at this point in the game it's bracing and damage control. The rear subframe has had all 4 of it's attachment points welded and braced. A chunk of the body will tear off, and I'll weld and patch it back on. Up front, the radius rod mounts have been patched up by Konrad a few times now. THe drivers side has plating on the inside floor with bolts running through to plating on the outside of the firewall to try and keep the mount from pushing back through the floor. I've got to weld in a new captured nut for the front left rear subframe mount becuse that has torn out. I've got a crack running from that point up towards the gas tank, so that's some seriously compromise structure.

GCK's use tripod style DOJ's. This is the third D/R tranny I've blown out of this car, this was the first one I blew, I put another set of gears in it while driving the car with a tranny I picked up, when that one blew, I put the rebuilt old one back in. It lasted from january to now and blew. It sheared off the bottom of the case right around where the drainplug goes. So now I'm putting a fresh used D/R tranny that I hope will last out this cars last 8 1/2 months on the road.

So now it's late April, and the transmission I put in to replace this one has let go. It was a transmission I had blown up before, and I put rear drive gears into it out of a trans I found dumped in the woods. Lasted 5mo's before it grenaded, and it really let go. Something in the front diff went, jammed into the side of the case, and cracked the bottom of the housing. All my gear oil left a trail of shame as I limped it back home. So here I am, another sunday, another tranny swap.

I've done this twice now, and I'm not looking forward to the next time. I've found pulling the forward link off, the E-brake cable off, the brake caliper(or hose) off, and taking the strut bolts out and the axle nut off lets you crank the hub assembly down. This lets you get a puddle of PB (or Aerokroil in my case) to sit around the middle portion of the bolt. Spray both ends and sit with the impact gun on it for minutes. Switch gun directions every now and then. Use the torch as needed to warm up the center portion of the bolt, but be carefull not to get it glowing orange and try to turn it as it will twist and jam. You usually can't take out the lateral link bolts on the crossmember because the gas tank sits right next to where you need to get a torch in to heat the nuts. Plus the heads are usually rusted off. Or bust out the sawzall and buy new bolt and busings.

It's not the axle nut, it's the nut on the long bolt that goes through the two lateral links. If he can't get the nut off, then he certainly won't be able to get the lateral link bolt out of the bushings. Rear wheel bearings on an older EJ platform can be hell if they're rusty. The bearings aren't that hard to do once you get the rear axle out, it's getting the hub out far enough to pull the axle out that's the hard part. Easily a clusterfck job that can balloon into an afternoon of torches and frustration.

they use the same bulbs as the climate controll, but they are soldered directly to the radio display board. If you are careful, you can use a solder wick or a sucker to take off the old bulbs, and then solder new bulbs in. It's not that bad, it just takes patience, and a soldering iron, not a gun.

Mine's a clutch type, so it probably behaves quite a bit differently than the VLSD. I wouldn't think the shock loading trick would work with a VLSD, as they depend on slippage to heat up and lock.

I bet he did exactly this, and then hooked up the steering coupler to center the wheel a turn off. Is your airbag light on? Do your horn and cruise controll work? All of these can be fubared if the steering wheel was freespun or if it was put on a turn off and turned to full lock. The clockspring, which is a flexible wiring cable for all those systems to allow the wheel to turn can be snapped by people making just this mistake. Some mechanics are toolbags... try and avoid those ones.

Here's it the day I got it running:

It's been said that the subaru LSD diffs are OK for wheeling, but when you lift a wheel you're still just as screwed as if you had an open diff. I've found out this isn't entirely true, and used it twice to get the car moving again. Both times I had one front wheel and one rear wheel off the ground, not traction what so ever. If you just let the clutch out, the two wheels free spin. Knowing that the LSD uses the torque load on the carrier to lock up the clutches, I've found that bringing the RPM's up to about 2.5k and dumping the clutch will cause the rear diff to lock temporarily. This is caused by the inertia of the free wheel forcing the diff to lock up. You get about 2 feet of movement each time. So that's how you use a LSD when a wheel's off the ground. I'm not responsible for any driveshafts, or transmission rear drive gears that you grenade doing this. Anyone with a lick of sense will know that doing a clutch dump is highly abusive to your drivetrain. But if you find yourself in a similar situation, it will work.

Toyotas up to the mid 90's had them too. Makes it a lot easier to patch the tank when you can drain it out quick.

I'm starting to notice that the unibody of my loyale is becomeing a wear item. The more and more frequent welding of the suspension mounting points back to the rest of the body was the first sign, but I had a much more suprising sign present it's self recently. I used to brag that I could open and shut all the doors normally with the car flexed out, AKA two opposing wheels off the ground. Not true anymore. The back hatch door shifts sideways about 3/4" when you go to open it, enough that it hits the taillight when you slam it shut. The side doors get more finiky about hitting the striker right. All bad signs. I have to think that all those little spot welds that hold the car together have each been worked, and now have some bend to them. I guess that offroading abuse is catching up to the old wagon. 177k indicated, 184k actual, and the body is done. I knew it was it's last year when I got it inspected in january, but this confirms it.

Good lord yes, I can attest to that. For strength, nothing beats solid axles. Use nissan ones if you want to stay manufacturer specific.

Changing the ATF a few times should help the shifting and torque bind. It;s really easy, there is a drain plug on the transmission pan, so you don't have to drop the pan like american cars. Change it, run it through the gear position, and change it again. Do this like 3 times, then drive in some figure 8's, using power in the straight X of the 8, and coasting around the U turn. Should take care of your mild case of TB.

Make sure to cross-brace the spacers to each other. If you don't, it rips the captured nuts out of the body pretty quick under abuse. Outbacks also have different rear control arm bushing mounts in the front, the mount is stepped down a ways, and different trailing arm link mounts in the rear.

I seem to have been doing more of it recently. Do you have a problem with me calling out someone blatantly whoring their product in the wrong forum? Especially when they have Occupation: Cam PIMP In their profile? What's the point of having the market place if you can sell whatever you want in the general forums. If I'm acting like a cranky jerk, it probably has something to do with me pulling my back working on a hyundai this afternoon and then driving home on some of the worst washboard roads you could imagine.

Can I direct you to the vendors forum? http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=&f=35 This is the New Gen forum, for people who need help or want to show off something they've done. Not the forum for selling stuff, esp. under titles meant to sucker people into looking. PS, there isn't a lot of STI owners around here. We buy whole cars for the price of a set of camshafts.

Yep, that pretty much describes my driving style. I'm running 235/75r15's, and beating the bag out of the drivetrain on and off-road. The 4wd rear output gears are what let go in the D/R's. Remember that the EJ22 makes a lot more low end torque than the EA82T for the same horsepower rating. Low end torque is what kills drivetrain parts. The impact loading of pounding through the gears isn't good, and the RWD antics I've done seals their fates.

And here's a pic of a 92 legacy with 98 outback struts: Reused the legacy springs ans strut caps. Just did the rear outback lift of a 95 impreza using 98 legacy outback struts. Used the legacy strut caps because the impreza ones had torn apart. Had to open up the 3 cap stud holes in the body and run them without their rubbers and put washers in to fit it all, but it works.

You can start by not cross-posting between the new gen and retrofitting forums. Then you can visit http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/ and become a member. 2.5 rs's are nice cars. The tranny loosing 2nd at 18k and the engine blowing at 70k means that this car has had the everliving************ beaten out of it. Everything, from brakes to suspension to what's left of the driveline will be loose and worn. Plan on upgrading most of that. WRX and STI swaps are common, and well documented on NASIOC. You'll find a lot more info for the impreza platform there than here.

Times 10. I'm killing D/R's and I only have 135hp. I'm also killing axles on a 5 month interval, and rear ends on a 10 month interval. The EA drivetrain isn't meant to handle the torque of an oversized engine COMBINED with an abusive driver. If you're planning on putting in an EJ257, you are probably an abusive driver. I know I am.

I believe SJR was doing that on one of his wagons. Used it for running on sand.

That's a direct copy of the way the BYB lifts are done in regards to extending the rear strut. Your left rear strut cap is bent, but probably will last a while. Your right side strut needs replacement. The shelf on the strut that the rubber bushing and washer sit on is sheared. You'll need a new strut, strut cap, and bushing washer. Once you replace the right rear, do the bounce test on the other 3 corners of the car. With that many hard landings, the struts are liable to be blown internally.

We should have taken pictures of the turbo sammi we built. It was an EFI one, we plumbed up the turbo on the drivers side, it ended up being about where the jack used to be. Would have been fun, but the turbo we used was toast, it blew loads of oil and woudn't really spool up. Most we could get out of it was a gust on hard rev. Sammi's are tough little trucks. I've got a soft spot for them. Pity they were unjustly killed off by consumer reports.