1982gl4

I really like what you are doing with this! keep up the good work man. Glad you got it running!

Probably next summer I would imagine, she's got a long way to go before it's tip top, but getting a harness and ecu that I have time to work with is a big step in the right direction. I may start stripping it down tonight. And pulling the MS out. Ideally I'd like to get that to run my spare legacy turbo so I have no down time if I decide to put it in my SS. I also need to figure out rear coilovers, and an e-brake. I may go the nissan caliper root. I also need to put my new gas tank in this, and I may put a stock harness back in the brat as well. Right now it has an 84 turbo harness which has way too much going on...

Bump from the dead. Decided I have spent far too much time away from this, and it is time to get it running. Today I pulled a 97 legacy into the shop and tore into it. It has been freed of its wiring harness. Up next I'll be trimming it down to put into the brat. I haven't given up on the standalone, but I decided against it in this project. I may need it for my legacy more than this. Great thing about my legacy parts car is that it's a brighton, so no options, and far less to cut out of the harness. Gutted Time to dive into this again, didn't really want to start in on another harness this soon after my wagon spfi, but I feel like I should do it while i have that one fresh in my mind...

Haha I don't know how sweet or nice it is, but it should get the job done once I weld it up. Today I took it out for a test run in stock form. I actually like the auto I have to say, you just hold it to the floor until it goes, and no clutch to deal with... Anyway all was going well until I skidded over a stump coming down one of the trails on my property. This ripped the mustache bar out of the floor, and hit the gas tank enough to separate the two halves of it at the seem. So now that is leaking. Kind of sucks, but it's not really a big deal just some more welding that needs to be done. Everything needs to come out for the lift anyway... As far as the gas tank goes, I'm going to get a boat tank for it, or something of similar nature. Pic of carnage. You can see the tank leaking, and the CV at an odd angle...

No problem, I was going to post up a pic of the stock ones, but I couldn't find it. I just had my ea81 all apart I was hoping I had one. It must be challenging trying to bring back something that is so heavily modified. Looks like you are doing a great job at it so far!

Stock only has three bolt holes so they wont work. Making your own sounds like the best bet.

Well looks like my trans pan fix is going to work, nothing is leaking yet. Fingers crossed it stays that way until I swap in a D/R. I took it for a few mile drive this morning up and down the road, and then up into the field. It did well for very bald tires. Everything seems to work with the exception of the wipers which I need to figure out, I've had them not work before on an ea81, usually it ends up being a bad ground. I guess next I'll be building a lift, and then welding everything up. So I need to figure out what to oder for steel. Couple of pics from this morning. And the new tires, they have a bit of dry rot between tread, but will be perfect for this. Almost new tread too!

Sweet fozy man! Love the front bumper and skid plate.

For the price I couldn't say no. As far as how they do off road, they are pretty capable. I mean there are better/easier things to modify for offroading. As far as a light 4x4 I think they do pretty well. But I really enjoy wheeling old subarus, not something everyone does, and the major thing for me, is that I have parts. I can take one of these out in the woods give it hell, break something, and not care because I have two parts cars, and two sheds filled with parts. For me it is economical I guess. We don't have insane off road trails here either, most of it is pretty light. There are some challenging places, but for the most part I'm using the trails around my property. Sweet! They are a bit of an odd ball, my sister dubbed this one "The Black Sheep" tonight due to it's color, and odd options. Not sure that it will ever be road legal again, but I would like to fix the floors and rust, and besides that I really don't see much wrong with it. So I guess it could happen. I've always wanted to lift one of these, as this one isn't in great shape, it seems like a good starting point as I won't feel bad if I give it a dent or two. Tonight I brought it into the garage to see if I could do anything about the transmission pan. Turns out I could. It was rusted on the back side, so i welded in a new section on the back side. I then siliconed over the top of it with ultra grey. In the a.m. I'll put some new atf in it and take it for a very loud drive. (Yay for open y-pipes...) Feels nice to have two brats in the garage again. I got a harness for the other one out of a legacy, so I may get back to that fairly soon. I'm sick of standalone and want it to run... I also welded the hood back on the black one, it's nice that it opens and shuts now instead of catching on the cowl and bending....

Picked this up about five miles from my house wednesday night, which is pretty amazing considering I haven't seen a brat in the last two years up here. Paid 350 for it, and it's pretty rotten underneath as they all are up here, but it's good in the important areas for what I plan on doing with it. The rear suspension is still solid, and the strut towers aren't rotted out yet, along with the shock towers in the rear. Floors and rockers are no good, but I should be able to do something with that. This is a really oddly optioned brat, it's a GL with no t-tops, and it is an auto.... It only has 84k on the clock, and it seems to run very well. Right now the trans pan is rotted out, so I can move it, but only for a very short time before it runs out. I plan to replace my nissan off roader with this. So I'll be lifting it either 2 or 4 inch not sure which yet. I have 27" mud kings for it on Peugeot wheels. I'm going to weld some floors in so i don't fall out of it, and replace the rockers with square stock and then attach rock sliders to those. Skid plates made from old street signs the state garage gave me. And probably put in a five speed D/R I have around, because I don't think I'll be able to stand then auto. I'll probably make some custom bumpers front and rear, and that should be about it. Progress is going to be slow, as I don't have a ton of time, and I don't want to spend much money on it. But is should be a great light wheeler when I'm done. Pics It really looks pretty decent for one around here. And then you look underneath, some one patched it, but it was not a good job at all.

Hello from a classic VW owner (71 super vert, and a 71 westy) Man this thing should crank when it is done. Very cool project. The air cooled's seem to go well with Subaru engines. My dad has a 914 with a EJ25 DOHC, it's amazing. It's fast, fits well, gets great mpg, and it's not broken down every five seconds! Looking forward to seeing this up and going

Adjusted the valves, timing, and changed the oil today. I still think it could use a bit more timing advance, but it idles much smoother now. I'm driving it quite a bit, and I'm very interested to see what it is getting for milage. Starting to gather things for the five lug swap. Picked up some new ej ball joints, and I'm looking for the spare set of ea81 control arms I have around somewhere....

I'd say today was pretty successful, I drove the car 50 miles, and nothing eventful happened at all. I swapped on my Subaru alloys as they have much better tread, and don't go flat after a day. I'll be using these until I five lug it. Not sure when that is going to be as I really want to enjoy it some before I have to park it for winter.... I took it to the Stowe Antique Car show, I was one of two Japanese cars there, the other was a Datsun 240. A lot of people seemed to take interest as there are none of these left here. It was also great to talk to some car guys, and see what everyone else brought. I really like this show because of the verity of cars that show up. Here are a few pics of today, I didn't take a ton, as I was talking to people most of the day, mostly about VW's as I recently acquired a 72 bus...

Looks like a great start. What are your plans for it? I love my fwd wagon, it's been an awesome car and it gets great milage!

Wrapped some things up in the engine bay tonight. I got a smaller battery for it, which fits in the bay much better, and it weighs about half as much as the old one. I had to make a hold down for it, I also mounted my ej fuel filter, using a modified bracket off a legacy, and the stock mount for the gl. I also wired in my hellas again, and hooked up the parking lights. I relocated the coolant overflow I had with the old carb set up to the other side of the bay, because the battery is now taking up its old space. Tomorrow it goes to a car show, and for it's first real drive since the swap so hopefully all goes well.

Thanks! The idea is to leave it mostly stock looking on the outside and inside. It's going to get a FMIC, but after that the exterior is going to stay the same as it looks now, eventually I'll fix all the dents it has, and give it a fresh coat of pearl white (probably next year, maybe the year after). I too am a fan of the pre facelift legacys. They look so much more aggressive than the post. When I started looking at theses I knew it had to be a 1991. Thanks I love my wheels, I found them on craigslist about 20 miles from my house! I had them on my wrx, but there's no way I was going to let them go when I sold that! If you do end up with a first gen legacy you will not regret it. I've had many of these cars, and I like this one more than any other new gen subaru I've owned to date (I'm still a sucker for ea81's)

Thanks! It's running pretty well. I still need to time it correctly, and put in a couple of resistors to make the check engine light stay off. Other than that, it seems to have a bit more power than it did even with a weber, and it seems to rev more freely. It's amazing how smooth it is now too, theres no hesitation of any kind, the only thing is that it doesn't sound as cool as it did with the webber

Finished up my fi swap, here are a couple of pics!

Last week my friend came up from Virginia, and we got in some cruising, and also got a few great shots. This is his wrx wagon. our cars on top of the mountain we drove up (an amazing road) couple of rollers of mine. I also got some parts this week! Manual seat belts! I can not wait to put these in.

Thanks! That's what I was going for, I really wanted to keep a semi stock appearance. Someone that knows these old subarus would take a second look, but someone that didn't know would think it came this way. Now I just need to get cracking on the five lug!

Very cool project, glad to see it went to a good home. I'll be keeping an eye on this build from here on out!

It's all back together now. I took it for a drive last night, seems to go pretty good. I need to time it now and then I think it will be great. It does have some check engine light issues right now, but I know why. I need to get some resistors for the egr, and purge solenoids. And on top of that I don't have the clutch switch hooked up as I didn't feel like swapping peddles right now... The radiator fans didn't come on during the drive last night so I have to figure that out, probably just a bad connection. I'm also having issues with the headlights due to the odd way these light are powered/grounded. I have the high beams working well, but the low beams I'm having issues with.... Some pics now that is is all back together!

Looking sick, love the stance. I need to get my 84 down low. That and a five lug will be happening after I finish the spfi swap.

Figured out the problem. Turns out there was supposed to be a condenser. I grabbed one off my old coil, and boom, it started. Runs great, only ran it about 20 sec due to no radiator, now I need to put it together enough to take it for a test drive!! Here's a video of it running: http://s1207.photobucket.com/user/1982gl4/media/Cali%20wagon/Caliwagonlives_zpsaf016bb3.mp4.html