el_freddo

Is the cup holder not a standard feature? Over here I’m 99% sure this was standard across the AUDM range. Our Gen3 Liberty(Legacy)/Outback’s that are dual range only have one cup holder in the dashboard. The second one is removed for the dual range lever. Even the rear seats gets two fold out cup holders in the back of the console. That area rear of the front wheels is always an area to open up and clean out with new to you 2nd hand vehicles for the exact reason you’ve shown above! Cheers Bennie

I’ll dig up the pics of the EJ gearbox crossmembers that I’ve got. You may have already seen them though. I like the ones that are bent to shape rather than having a break with a welded in section. There’s one xmem that has a section of half pipe welded in to clear the sway bar, that’s the one I’m not keen on. I like your idea of the centre piece of the cross member to pass under the sway bar before bending upwards for the rear mount. As for gear selector rear mount, you could make up a plate that covers the trans hole while providing a bent section to drop into the trans tunnel for the mount to bolt to. This plate can have a shaped hole to fit the EJ gear lever boot, so it provides two uses. A rubber “gasket” under this plate would be needed to create a seal Cheers Bennie

My EJ22E has the charcoal canister in the engine bay in roughly the same place that the old EA82 one sat. Maybe the later models have the canister in the rear, but clearly not all models do... I should’ve mentioned that my L series was EJ swapped ten years ago, hence why I made the initial comment above Cheers Bennie

I’ve always filled my L series to the brim. Not the same setup as the EJ models but still has the charcoal canister in the engine bay all the same. No issues in ten plus years. If I go with the single click and stop filling the fuel gauge isn’t on full. If doing this is it is best to be doing a bit of a drive before stopping the vehicle for the night/a period of time Cheers Bennie

Investigate the check engine light, you may genuinely have a dodgy sensor. If the ECU runs the engine and hasn’t fried, it will continue like this. With the old ECU, find a new replacement resistor and place that in. Then you can swap the ECUs to see if it works. Mans your check engine light should illuminate with the ignition ON, engine OFF. Cheers Bennie

Re: how’s to tell if it’s the tensioner - read my first post in this thread As for driving with a tensioner like that, I’m not sure. We replaced ours as soon as we could and reduced the use of the vehicle where possible. Ours didn’t bounce like the ones you can find on YouTube. You can see the belt bouncing in this one: Here’s another good one. I didn’t know about the trick of applying pressure to the tensioner. You don’t need the harmonic balancer on to test this. I hope this helps. Cheers Bennie

Find out if it’s the tensioner first. If it’s the tensioner there’s no damage to the engine. If it’s piston slap I guess you’ll have to live with it. Cheers Bennie

Copy paste the link GD! Copy and paste! As Mike said, it could be the tensioner. Easy diagnosis is to remove the driver’s side cam cover and visually inspect the tensioner in action - sometimes you can see it bouncing up and down. Other times you need to use a stethoscope (carefully!) to diagnose. The use of a stethoscope will tell you where the noise is coming from - bottom end, tensioner area or the top end, possibly - I’ve never used this method for piston slap. I hope for you it’s a tensioner. Replace before driving as this can cause big issues for the healthy running of your engine if the belt is allowed to skip teeth. When’s your cam belt replacement due? Get a full kit from a quality source - Japanese parts are best! Cheers Bennie

You’re only swapping interior bits, so you should be right on direct swapping. Colour scheme might be a bit different to what you have now though. Cheers Bennie

12mm seems quite large! Why not use a liberty filter from the Gen1? It’s mounted in the engine bay. They also fit in the L series efi filter mount if you happen to have one. Cheers Bennie

If that’s the case you might be better off sourcing heats that still retain their hardness/haven’t been overheated. Cheers Bennie

Have you checked the dust shield on the brake rotor? And what are your brake pads looking like? Is the noise a consistent grind, does it come and go or change in intensity with different engine loads or vehicle speeds? Cheers Bennie

Yep, what carfreak said. That’s my understanding and experience too. Cheers Bennie

Yes, sorry Jono, also. My statement was specific to alexbouy’s reply. How are you doing the gearbox crossmember? An old Ausubi forum member that’s a good mate of mine reckons that back in the day he made mounts from the stock brumby crossmember fit the AWD EJ gearbox without the “H” style EJ crossmember. I’m thinking of looking into that when the time comes. Cheers Bennie edit: what box and diff ratio/tyre size are you going to run with?

That sucks when it happens. They should pass on the torch to those that will keep it alive. Cheers Bennie

I’m looking at doing the same but in my brumby, so I too am watching to see what the outcome is Cheers Bennie

@Mitchy - there is a bit of effort involved with a swap like this. But it’s nothing compared to a dashboard swap or removal of an EJ dashboard - a common occurrence went people “drop” and EJ turbo into their non turbo Subaru. This is my second dash install and my fifth removal in the MY platform. It’s very similar to the L series dash removal and install process, as I’m sure it is for the EJ dashboard. I’ve worked out the indicator issue - it was the plug to the indicator stalk cluster. The plug on my indicator wiring had one pin that’s been hot enough to melt the plastic of the plug, changing the pin’s position slightly. With a small tweak with a pair of pliers I was able to seat the plug properly with its mate and I had indicators again. I also located the plug for the intermittent wiper relay canister to live on. It was tucked right up behind the instrument cluster. For now I’ll place the single looped wire plug on there so my wipers will at least self return. Then I’ll go hunting for my intermittent relay canister to fit for my wipers to work with the four position switch - off, intermittent, low, high. Such high level of luxury! The windscreen was fitted yesterday. So now I can focus on getting the rest of the interior back together and sort out the rust in the tray - clean it up and seal the metal. Cheers Bennie

Mitchy, are you aiming for more lift than this, or are you happy with that height? In the before and after pics it’s difficult to see the difference, it looks like it’s maybe an inch or two at best. The lighting unfortunately makes it hard. I do like how you’ve positioned the car on the same angle though! Cheers Bennie

That 4wd transfer case won’t come off until you remove the gear on the back of the pinion shaft for the 4wd action. It’s a bloody stupid design with the pinions haft fitting through a hole only big enough for the pinion shaft. Once this gear is off, the 4wd transfer housing can be removed, then the four retainer bolts in the pinion shaft bearing housing can be removed. After the case half bolts are removed the cases should split apart with some persuasion from a rubber mallet. And I don’t recall any reverse lockout device or 10mm headed bolt on the selector fork in the 4spd box, only the 5 and phase1 EJ boxes. 4spd box = nothing like the 5spd box until you’re at the 4th gear and forwards from there. Even then the concept of the low range is the same but the layout is different. Cheers Bennie

And if you’re pulling the interior from another vehicle you’ll have everything you need for this conversion/swap. Wiring will be under the carpet of the donor, if not in your vehicle, you’ll probably find that the under carpet wiring will plug in under the dashboard somewhere on your vehicle. Cheers Bennie

http://offroadingsubarus.com/macpherson-strut-to-top-wishbone-conversion/ here’s the link to the strut delete I was talking about ages ago - used strictly for racing and jumping HIGH! Strut and spring swap would be so much easier! Even if you built your own spring compressor like what’s shown in the video posted earlier. If you got separate strut and spring orders in, your probably have it all put together by now! Cheers Bennie

Go easy on the throttle - drive like a a grandpa and you’ll extend the life of the 4speed Cheers Bennie

Awesome! I loved my L series in the snow! What I found was the engine would run hot because the radiator was cooling the coolant too low/quickly. A piece of cardboard over half of the radiator had temps sitting where they should. Only difference there is that I’m running an EJ22 - where the thermostat is on the cold inlet side of the engine! Your EA82 will have the thermostat on the hot side so it shouldn’t be effected in the same manner - unless you’re getting a frozen radiator (I’ve seen that happen before in very frosty conditions if you don’t warm the whole cooling system up properly). Other thing to investigate is the possibility of a leaking heat gasket. And do you have true AWD or part time 4wd? The true AWD box has a vacuum operated diff lock solenoid and if it hasn’t been toyed with, it comes with a poor low range of 1.19:1 - good for rallying in low range! If you’ve got the part time 4wd box and a non turbo, you’ll have the good 1.59:1 I really miss driving in the snow! Cheers Bennie

The RXII coupe and the Vortex (XT4) and the XT6 are the sources for these gearboxes. The low range is on the gearbox input shaft, it sits above the front diff before any power goes through to the drive gears. There is no swapping of stub axles or ring gears wth this swap. The ring and pinion swap is for a diff ratio change. By dodgy I meant that it’s a low range that’s not very low. It’s a 20% reduction vs a 60% reduction for the good low range. They’re just ratio changes. Cheers Bennie

If a blocked fuel line - remove filler cap and blow compressed air back into the tank through the fuel outlet line. If this clears the line, pull tank out and give it a good flush. Cheers Bennie