1982gl4

I've done it. Finding a car to donate the parts would be your best bet. Unfortunately where I live these are long gone due to rust. Thanks to a road trip out west, and some nice forum members I collected all of the parts. Here are some pics of when I did it. http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/121769-1984-gl-wagon-fwd-build/page-15 You will have to scroll down some.

Worked on the brat some more today. Fixed all the rust in the lower section of the passenger side. Welded in a new tow hook mount should be good and strong now! I have just about all of the welding finished up. I have two small spots to finish and then its on to filler and paint. New tow hook mount. Its welded on the back side with more plate steel for support. Welded this section back to the brat, It broke away right below where the bumper mounts.

Got some long overdue work done on this today. Finished up welding on the passenger's side of the engine bay. I only have a small section on the driver's side to weld up by the firewall, and found I need to fix one of the tow hook mounts as it has rusted out due to it being hit sometime in the past. Not really sure how I'm going to fix it yet but I'll figure it out in in the next few days. I also ground down all the welds, the bay is almost ready for a little filler and some paint. Rust that needs to be fixed

Got a chance to work on this a little bit this morning. My dad and I spent some time with the headlight wiring they were wired incorrectly for the H4's and repined all the connectors so they work as they should now. before they were super dim, and the high beam indicator was on whenever the lights were. I haven't done anything with the five lug, as I have been finishing my two vw's to sell, and rebuilding a 94 toyota 3.0. Now that those projects are finishing up I have some time to work on my old subarus again.

Today was a pretty productive day. After I rebuilt the entire exhaust on my jetta, I got to work on this some. Replaced, and relocated the purge valve. One of the several old 2.2's I had around donated one, it was slightly different from the turbo, as it didn't have a pig tail, but still plugged in just fine and it works. My parts car had one relocated as well, but i tested in and it didn't work. So far no check engine light. I also disconnected the seatbelt light due to the manual belt conversion it never stopped blinking, it was super annoying at night. So nice not to have lights on everywhere! In it's new location Just a nice pic from the drive home

Looks good as always man!

Rebuilt the power steering rack in my legacy turbo, and swapped in my manual seat belts, which involved a custom headliner, and while i was there I resealed the sunroof. Now I just have to fix the oil leak.

I put my rack back together today. I ran into one problem, where one of the new seals for the pinion housing tore as I was sliding parts together. Luckily I had another rack at home out of a forester that I took some parts from to complete this one. It's all back together and not leaking anymore (from the rack anyway..) New power steering lines went in, and I did a four wheel alignment after I put the rack back in. I was surprised to see the rear out as I just did it when I put my sway bars on last year. I'm glad we have a press at work. In order to change the lower seals in the pinion housing the bearing needs to be pressed off. Up next I'll be looking for a 6 speed hopefully, and I also found another oil line leaking today on the passenger's side head just above the up pipe so that is going to be changed this week after I call the subaru dealership!

Thanks! It's coming along, I still have a long way to go, but it just takes time. Tonight I pulled the power steering rack out of the car and apart and started in on the rebuild. So far I only have about an hour into it. I'll be finishing it up and re aligning it tomorrow. Can't wait to start driving this again! Hopefully no more leaks. After that its time to start looking for a transmission.

Headliner is done! Thanks to a friend that came over. Started by putting the headliner back in the car, and then cutting both front outer edges. From the B pillar back there is no need to change it as the trim all fits from there back. I then cut new cardboard to go in the place of the stuff I had just cut out, and used foil tape to hold it all together (I saw someone on another forum using it to repair dents he had in a headliner before he recovered it. The tape seamed like it would work great for this as it holds some shape as well.) After the taping was done, it was pulled back out and taped on the back side, and the edges. Then it was on to recovering. I picked up some gray suede at JoAnn Fabric. Recovering was easy as I have done that a few times now, and then we installed it. Up next I had to trim the old felt seals for the auto belts so the new seat belt trim would clear and sit flush. After that everything matched right up. I just have to deal with my seat belt light now. Foiled up Glued but not cut Installed No more gap! Where I trimmed the seal, Can't even tell on the driver's side. May have to cut the passenger side again.

Looks like it is great shape. I love my 84 fwd, they are great cars, and get awesome milage.

Yesterday it was raining all day so I didn't take the sunroof out of this and worked on my datsun down at work instead. Today however it wasn't raining (as bad anyway) I was able to pull the sunroof assembly with the help of my dad. Took it all apart cleaned it up and sealed it. Hopefully no more leaks! I also blew out the drains, and ziptied them back on so they wont fall off. It had been resealed at one point on the drivers side. It looks like whoever did it, did it from inside of the car just on the drivers side (so not very well). The wind deflector was also removed and the nuts were never put back on causing the rails to be loose and probably to leak as well. Unfortunately my parts car was also missing the deflector so I just put some nuts back on and called it a day. My power steering parts also came in this week so I will fix that soon. Next weekend is modify and install headliner! Only one pic for today. Apart on the kitchen table.

The trunk was cut out in the front, and a ford ( I don't remember if it was an escort, or taurus) radiator was used and put at an angle. Some small sections between the bumper and front air dam were cut out. Then it was sealed off from the back side so the radiator isn't visible from the trunk, the metal there also forces the air over the radiator. Tubing was ran from front to rear to carry the coolant. As far as compared to the stock engine. Way more power, way smother, and it is more reliable. I have a bus with a type IV engine, and I can say it is a decent motor, and they can be built to be pretty decent performers for what they are, but it is still nothing I would put (or want) in a sports car. The 914 is a 76, I think by that point they had about 85hp, the dohc 2.5 in there now is 165hp and the 2.2 was 135hp. He used a fwd impreza five speed with hybrid porsche, subaru cv shafts, and the shift pattern is 180* off from a normal subaru, third to reverse shifts are not recommended.

Porsche 914 is a great canidate. My dad has one that has been swapped. (we actually started with a 2.2, but now has a 2.5 dohc in it for more power) Faster than you can believe, reliable (slightly less now, with the 2.5), handles amazing, and great mpg on top of everything else.

Dove into some projects today. it started off with me wanting to clean the carpets, and ended up with me pulling the headliner out and starting in on the manual seat belt swap! The seat belt swap went well with the belts themselves. I didn't have the lower b pillar cover so I cut a small section of the US ones allowing the belts to move, I may have to notch them a bit more when the time comes. I have the upper trim for the a pillar. I'm going to modify my headliner (basically add some to the edges), and recover it to make everything appear stock instead of cutting the auto belts up and using the stock a pillar trim. Next weekend I need to pull the sunroof and see if I can reseal that to keep me from getting soaked every time it rains. I took a brief look at the sunroof after the headliner had come out. The drain tubes have shrunk to the point of almost not being attached in the front. It looks like a leak could be there for sure... and more in the other typical places. Drivers side in place The dreaded headliner gap The notch I cut in the lower trim. Headliner out Ceaned the carpet, they still dont look great, but I'm working on it. passenger side, upper trim not installed yet sunroof drain falling off

Looks like a normal 03 to me... Dust shields rot off all the time don't worry about it. Make sure you check the front control arms, front perimeter frame, rear brake lines, and rear subframe with it looking like that, those areas are very prone to rust up here.

On my 1984 fwd wagon I had a weber, and swapped to spfi. I went from 29mpg around town to 31, but I haven't yet driven it on the highway to see what my gains are there. Power seems to be very similar between the two, a bit smoother with the FI. I will say it sounded way better with the weber!

New tires ordered, and I dug the front hubs out of the snow. I need to pull them apart so I can clean and paint them. I need to figure out what to do with front struts and cv's and then I'll be ready to swap everything over. I still need to order e-brake cables as well, but its slowly coming together!

This looks amazing. I'd say more but I'm speechless.

I have tweaked a couple offroading. They are pretty strong, but I decided while I was working on them why not add some strength. I doubt with the action this car sees I would ever damage one.

Finished up the control arms tonight at work. They came out well. Up next front spindles. I'll be digging those out of the snow this weekend and install new wheel bearings and ball joints.

Worked on the control arms more tonight, got both bushing removed, and spent some time messing around with them and welding them. I'll just say they are a fair bit stronger now. I put the bushings in the freezer tonight and I will be putting those in tomorrow and hopefully painting the arms after the install.

Something is making a hellacious noise in the front of this now... Seems to be doing it when I let the clutch out or under acceleration/deceleration. I'm thinking the trans mount or the motor mounts have given up. Could be the pitch stopper but I checked that when I got home. I also found the clunk I have been hearing in my front end. Looks like the steering u-joint has developed a very small amount of play. So it looks like I have some work to do. I'll put it on the lift tomorrow and see what is going on.

Thanks man! Sent you a PM.

Started working on the control arms for the five lug swap today. I bought a tool from Mac for the job, worked well on the largest drill I had around. Only took me a few minutes to drill each of them out. The EJ ball joints seem to fit very well now. I just need to do a little grinding so I can get the castle nuts all the way on. I need to change the control arm bushings (already have new ones from subaru) that should be pretty easy at work. And then I can start rebuilding the hubs, and figuring out the front axels and front struts. Rear should be pretty straight forward. Progress will be slow as the car isn't out yet and I may need to have surgery on my knee...