jmoss5723

Nah, your only about 45 minutes away. I find myself in Franklin fairly often. Off the road already? You're even more paranoid about rust than I am! No snow or salt yet, so I'm not putting the Ski Wagon or BRAT away for a few weeks probably. If I head up to Franklin any time soon, I'll let you know ahead of time and maybe we can do a quick meet. Otherwise we should meet up in the spring when all the cars are out!

Jawn, I'm located pretty close to you and I have a pair of Mill Supply rocker panels NIB for a Loyale that I have no use for currently. It looks like you could use them and I could definitely be persuaded to give them up pretty cheap. If you want them let me know. Either way, we should do a subie meet up. I'd love to see your xt6 since I've never actually seen one in person, and I can bring the Ski Wagon or BRAT to share.

I'm interested in one for sure.

This sounds promising. I'll try to dig around in there. Thanks!

My brother wants to lift his 1997 OBW. A set of 2004 Forester springs showed up locally on craigslist for cheap. I've done a little bit of poking around and I can't find any definitive answers. If the info is out there and I'm missing it, just point me in the right direction. I know that a lot of different spring/strut/car combos have been done. I know that you can put gen1 Forester springs on the gen1 OBW struts. I know that you can put gen2 forester springs and struts onto a gen1 OBW. What I do NOT know is whether or not we can put the springs from a gen2 forester onto my brother's gen1 OBW struts. Are the springs the same diameter, etc.? Is there actually a point - significant height or spring rate difference? Or should we just make 1 inch spacers?

The best tips are these: Replace the spark plugs while you have the valve covers off and make sure you have a 10mm ratcheting box wrench for getting at all the VC bolts. I just did the VCGs on my wife's H6 a few weeks ago. Definitely unmount the engine and jack it up. I did not disconnect the exhaust when I did it. I got enough movement with it still in place.To get at everything, you have to take out all of the plastic intake plumbing, battery, and washer bottle. You also need to take off the injector covers, and unplug all the coil packs. At this point, you'll have quite a few wires, vacuum lines, and bolts out. Be organized or you'll mess stuff up. It is all very straight-forward, just a little bit involved. The other thing I did while I was in there was terminate the intake plumbing at the passenger side fender. i already had pretty much all of it out and I eliminated all of it that was not strictly necessary ( big wide flat piece that sucks air from in front of the grill, and gigantic snorkus inside of the fender). Now I just pull air from inside of the fender, I have more room to work in the engine bay in the future, and I've eliminated a little bit of turbulence in the intake air. Of course none of this is really necessary.

That's a decent idea. I'm pretty sold on using the lower line, but now I'm going to have to consider going higher. Now I REALLY want to see it mocked up on the computer...

So I'm definitely going to do this paint job. I'd really love to see it photo shopped first so I have a clear idea what it'll look like. Any takers?

i can rule out my cars as being in this picture. Those BRATs have no jumpseats, so they are definitely newer than mine.

Well now I know. Do the 86-87s have dummy panels like the driver's side in the earlier models, or is the panel smooth?

I'm pretty sure all gen2 brats have a side step. Every one that I've seen in person does, and I've never noticed any without in pictures.

Duh! Why didn't I think of that?! So much wisdom on this site.

Seems like if air is struggling to escape through the funnel, it would have the same issue through the dipstick tube with the funnel pulled up. Wouldn't it just run out of the funnel and up over the top of the tube? Now this has me wondering, do these transmissions have a breather tube? If yes, is it hooked to a vacuum line or is it just a passive breather? I'd think if it DOES have a breather and the tranny is burping when I fill it, maybe that breather is clogged? the fact that it is burping makes me think it must not have one.

1/4 INCH BOLTS?! And you've wheeled and JUMPED it? You must have a death wish!

Yesterday I changed the tranny oil in the BRAT. It had been having some trouble in second gear with crunchy shifting and popping out of gear when cold. I suppose it was more like it wouldn't get all the way into gear and would pop out. Once I really got it into second, it would hold fine. Also, it wouldn't let me get into first until I was as close to completely stopped as you can get. Obviously changing the oil won't eliminate these problems entirely, but I figured it would probably help and it would give me some insight into what might be going on inside the tranny. The oil was really cloudy, but no major metal pieces, which is always good. I filled it up with Valvoline 80-90 because I'm poor and a gallon is only $20. The oil went in REALLY slowly, which seemed weird to me. the funnel was sitting there full and the level went down at about 1 quart/5 minutes. Every once in a while a big air bubble would pop up and oil would flow better for a little bit. Anyways, the tranny is noticeably better now, but certainly not perfect.

The Ski Team Wagon would be PERFECT for this. It has the history, looks, and quirkiness to pique curiousity. Plus, it is solid enough to restore and rare enough to be worth it. Looks like I need to move to GA, NC, SC, AL, or TN! 1983 GL wagon previously owned and operated by the US Ski Team. It has had the interior restored and much of the rust removed. It desperately needs to have the the body worked on, new paint sprayed, and new decals put on. Some exhaust work, a transmission swap, and a little carb tuning could go a long way, too. This poor car has been kicked around the subaru community for several years with no one able to make the final push to get it finished. I drove halfway across the country and picked it up a few weeks ago with the intention of restoring it. I saw it for sale and I couldn't bear to see it sold to some craigslister who would beat it up. It will be a SLOW process, as I am a young dad with too many bills and too few days in the week, but I plan to get it done a little bit at a time, probably over the next few years.

I might have those parts. I can try to check tonight.

If you end up needing to replace the horn, wire up a pair of these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/HELLA-SUPERTONE-PANTHER-HORN-KIT-CHEVROLET-CHEVY-COLORADO-SILVERADO-ALL-YEAR-/301304220824?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item4627218c98&vxp=mtr I got mine in 3 days. The installation is a breeze and they are super loud. I installed them on my Forester and it took less than an hour, including taking off the grill and DS headlight to get the stock horn wiring. The yellow looks awful, IMO. It was easy enough to take the little grilles off and paint them black. If you aren't putting them somewhere visible, I guess it doesn't matter. The little "meep meep" horns on these subarus don't adequately get the attention of bad drivers, in my experience. Plus, these are great for scaring the sh@t out of my wife when she walks around the front of my car.

Sweet! I gotta say it was sad how underappreciated this pair of vehicles was by the general walmart population. I'm sure everyone is dying to know which hot piece of masculinity is which. Left to right: Jimbo, me, my brother/co-driver.

We changed the tranny oil because it needed to be done anyway and we figured "Hey, maybe it'll help." Problem solved.

Yes kidding! I recognized my brother-in-law's usual username, location, and problem we just looked at the other day. I thought I'd poke a little fun at him. Especially since he just bought this car!

Oops. Double post.

It's probably toast. Better just buy a new car.

Get an exhaust leak! DOT does it for free around here every winter

Me too! Jimbo has it. I was there, but I still haven't see the pic.