pontoontodd

So this is an Outback? What year? Where is the rust? Underhood pics? What are your plans for this one? Do you still have the old one?

How much is the car? How much does the shop want to replace the head gaskets and mill the heads (basically always needed on the EZ engines from what I've read)? What year is it and how many miles? Is there any rust visible anywhere on the car? If you can buy the car and have the head gaskets replaced for less than you'd pay for a car that doesn't need head gaskets then it's a good deal. Supposedly the EZ engines have very few head gaskets problems but of the six engines I've had in three different cars, only one of them has no head gasket leak. Most of them are very minor, you just have to add coolant every 500 miles or so. In the long run I think you'd be better off with a rust free Cherokee or Toyota for the low speed off roading you're trying to do. Are you still driving your 2001 OB? I'd just run some longer bolts all the way through the floor and get that trailing arm mount back in place for the time being. Even a big ratchet strap through the floor would hold it well enough for pavement driving while you get a replacement.

That's a good question and one we want to answer over the winter. I'm guessing with the cage, jacks, and fuel cell it's almost 4000#. On a trip like that we have a good 500# of cargo in it, figure 300-400# for driver and passenger, so 4500# ++ loaded. During a desert race it's closer to 200# of cargo (tools, spares, etc). The main reason we're not bottoming out is the long travel struts with spring rates and damping for hard driving. This car bottomed out all the time on the stock struts and springs when driven hard without the cage, jacks, fuel cell, H6, etc.

Overall it was a good trip. We made progress tuning the shocks and got some ideas for how to improve them further. End of the V2R course didn't seem too bad so we're planning on trying that again next year. Frame fix was one of our best yet. Have to improve some things over the winter. No CV axle replacements so the softer springs on the Forester probably helped with that. I put just over 5000 miles on my car. Got 18-20mpg on the highway, considerably better than the 17mpg I am used to with the EZ30. Wondering if the fuel pump or an injector is going bad. Optimistically it could be due to improved flow through the new (to the car) cats. Only used two quarts of engine oil, B said the Forester's oil consumption was less than that. The three big things I decided we should do to my black Outback before the V2R are: rear strut tower reconstruction and addition of tubes to rollcage front skidplate lowering/adding engine clearance – already started on this safety wiring and/or cotter pinning all suspension fasteners and exhaust manifold nuts There are many other modifications, inspections, and preventative maintenances that are on the list too. I've been thinking about it for a while but T made us think about weight reduction more, we think we can take 100# or more out of the car fairly easily while lowering the center of gravity.

Saturday morning we headed north up SW #18 Smoky Mountain road, it was a wide and fairly smooth dirt road. We actually saw people camping and on an ATV. There were a few decent jumps on this road, one was a cattle guard just before a fairly hard right hand turn. We got some video of the cars hitting that. There was another big uphill tabletop that we decided would have to wait for another trip. By the time we got to the town of Escalante it was time to drive straight home on pavement. Just north of the town of Escalante there was a narrow ridge road with no guardrails with amazing views. Driving through Escalante we saw probably the best overlooks of the trip, it's over 10k feet and you can see a huge amount of red rock formations down at 5k feet, like looking out of a plane. We drove through Escalante and Capitol Reef national parks but didn't have time to really check them out. We passed Swingarm City stunt area and avoided the temptation to spend time there. We camped at a big sandy lake in Nebraska. Sunday morning we packed up and continued driving back. I had noticed a slight vibration but thought maybe it was just the concrete. Somewhere in Iowa I heard a pop and the vibration increased. Pulled over and didn't see any obvious problems or leaks so we got off at the next exit and drove to a parking lot. The front u-joint was sloppy, somehow one of the cups had come out. Put in a new one and snapring and continued. We all got home without any more problems.

Friday morning we tried going up a few trails that we could see from the campsite but they were ultimately gated off. Found the tunnel/underpass to get to the main dune/rock area. There's a large hill you can drive up either on fairly extreme rock crawling trails or a long soft sandy grade. We weren't able to get all the way to the top in the sand so we decided to go elsewhere. The next trail we went to was Massey SW #15 Skutumpah Road. We had to drive through Zion National park, scenery was amazing but we had to wait a couple times for a half hour due to traffic/construction. We did see mountain goats sitting about 20' off the road I think going through Zion. When we got to the start of the road there was a sign indicating it was closed 15 miles ahead (it's a 33 mile long road). We decided to drive up it and see if it was actually closed (it was, but I think more than 15 miles in) and then took some side roads/trails instead. These followed some soft sandy/gravelly washes through some small canyons until we got to 95. Many soft sandy sections and portions that were cut/milled into solid rock. Those road beds probably don't require much maintenance. After we drove east on 95 we drove Massey SW #20 Nipple Creek / Tibbet canyon which was my favorite on this trip. It was a good Subaru difficulty level – the average lifted Forester/Outback could probably have done it but I don't think my stock Impreza could have. Fun sections in canyon washes and some awesome views. I think it was on this trail we observed that we'd driven for a few hours with no signs of current or former human habitation aside from the road we were driving on. Then we drove up SW #21 Smoky Hollow trail. We camped out on a big flat tailings pile from an old coal mine. We made a campfire and burned oily rags, cardboard, wood, a cow pie, and coal all at the same time.

Thursday morning we drove the rest of the way back to Vegas and dropped R off at his WRX and he drove home. While we were in town we figured we should fix the Outback strut tower better. We bought an angle grinder, assortment of wheels, extension cord, and a decent ratchet strap from Harbor Freight and rented a welder and bought some steel strap and tubing from Home Depot. We drove around town for about an hour through a big city park, checking out some RV campgrounds, following Google's directions onto an army base, and looking behind the Home Depot and Harbor Freight for outlets with no luck. So we proceeded with plan G – renting a generator from Home Depot. Their largest model is 6800 watts and is wheelbarrow style with handles and wheels. Guy asked if we needed help loading it in our vehicle and we just told him no. I used the piece of welding glass we keep in the car. I'm shocked they rent welders to the public without even suggesting they buy or rent a welding helmet. Fabrication went relatively smoothly, welds turned out OK for flux core. Ran two strips from the strut mount plate down to some solidish sheet metal. Added a couple tubes from just above the strut mount to the bottom of the main roll hoop and the top of the trailing arm mount. It's no spare tire inflated against the roof but it held the rest of the week. We've been talking about a portable welder all year and now we're convinced we need to come up with something. A flux core spool gun wouldn't take up much space or weigh much. Two batteries or a modified alternator would probably work as a power source. Packed everything back up, got dinner at a Mexican restaurant near there, and headed out of town. Hit a random trail/dirt road in AZ along 15 that had a few little jumps on it. Got to Sand Hollow State Park near St. George, UT after dark and paid the primitive camping fee and found a spot along the edge of the lake with a picnic table. Lake has swimmer's itch (caused by the snails that live there). It was crawling with golf carts, Jeeps, etc. Had a small praying mantis on my tent while I was setting it up.

We drove up the highway to the closest PRC (public road crossing) to the end of the V2R course, 42 miles from the end. As soon as we got on the highway I felt like the car was leaning to the right a bit but quickly forgot about it. Not too far in to the race course, B's car was running hot in the soft washes so we stopped to let it cool off. While we were stopped, Z suggested looking for the source of the noise coming from the back of the Outback. There was a 1-2” gap in the crack in the RR strut tower that I'd welded up before the trip. Weld itself seemed to hold, there's just not much structure left there. We got out the heavy duty safety wire and a couple ratchet straps, jacked up the car and pulled the strut tower back down to about where it was. We found a rock to jam in the frame and hose clamped that in place. We got going again and went by a smaller lake bed that had a burned out first generation Mazda RX7 next to it. We spent some time examining that. It's amazing to me how hot a car fire can get, the transmission case was even melted on this one and the springs were fully compressed from losing their temper. We then got to a rocky wash that's part of the course but were able to drive through it without any problems. We drove up a long rocky grade, maybe five miles uphill through 6-8” rocks. Not extremely steep but had to keep moving due to the lack of low range. Made it through that alright and there was nothing too rough beyond that. Unfortunately we did not get pictures or videos of these rough sections. When we started coming down the far side of the mountain there was some new equipment parked along the road that had been smoothing it out. Perhaps they will smooth out the entire road. Near the end of the course we came up to what at first looked like a fairly tall, steep hillclimb. We were able to get a run at it in second and downshift to first most of the way up and made it to the top more easily than expected. Made it to Dayton, got fuel and burgers, and drove back south. Got to Tonopah about 10PM and decided to stay there for the night. I thought we'd really be missing a great opportunity if we didn't stay at the “world famous” Clown Motel so we did that. The rooms aren't anything special but the price was decent, beds were alright, and the shower was higher pressure than I'm used to. In one room was a large painting of Jason from Friday the 13th.

Wednesday morning we ate breakfast and packed up. While we were packing up and telling stories, B pointed out a switchback trail up a mountain across the highway and we of course all thought it was a great idea to try to drive the Subarus up it. It was fairly steep and rocky but we made it up about 2/3 of the way pretty quickly. Eventually I got to a point where I ran out of power/gearing and slowly backed down to the previous switchback/intersection and waited. B and R got quite a bit higher, they think near the top, and the trail eventually got too loose and steep so he had to come back down. He had trouble getting it back in high range so we decided he should not use low range the rest of the trip unless absolutely necessary.

If you can get all the allen bolts out it probably wouldn't be too bad. Just warning you it's more complicated than doing a water pump on an EJ. It will just keep leaking more, eventually it'll leak bad enough you'll have to add coolant every time you drive it. If you let it go long enough you'd probably also have timing chain issues and start bending valves.

Eventually we decided to see other parts of Nevada, repacked T's car and aired back up. He rode with me in my Outback down the ~5 mile whooped out road/trail to the main gravel road. We were going 50mph and he was amazed the whole time by what the car could do. There were a few spots where we'd get air going into a sweeping turn, it was a fun stretch. Our next stops were a few spots along the 2016 and 2017 V2R courses that we'd wanted to revisit. The first one was a highway underpass the course went through in 2017. Took about a five mile trail to get there eventually driving in a wash. A concrete tunnel goes under the highway that's only about 8 feet tall. There were various scrape marks down the roof of it from trucks and buggies that barely fit. On the opposite side of the highway is a giant pile of 2' rocks the highway department piled up to reduce erosion. We did not drive through it but decided if it was part of the course again we'd just have to take it slow and hope for the best. Then we drove up the highway to some other trails leading to a cattle guard jump along a gravel road we'd hit at about 80mph during the 2017 race. We were going slightly downhill, the opposite direction we'd raced in, and figured we could just try it at increasing speeds so the first time I hit it at 65 and we got some air, seemed like we could hit it faster. T pulls up and says he hit it at 80. We didn't believe him at first. Hit it both ways a few times, seemed like 80 uphill and 90 downhill was about all my Outback could do. Landed fine. Apparently T hit it uphill once and had a bouncy squirrelly landing so he parked his car. We continued up the former race course, part of which was surprisingly overgrown. We cut over to the 2016 course to go over a mountain and hit a different jump. On the way to the downhill jump we were circling a dry lake bed so we decided to drive down to that. We got some pictures and videos of the cars driving around on the lake bed. The surface was sticky, I couldn't get my car to slide around at all and didn't want to roll it. One end had many bushes about a hundred feet apart, it was fun to drive through them at speed. The lake bed was almost three miles across the long way. At one point Z was riding with me and we both felt disoriented with tan in every direction for a mile or so and I slowed down. We drove the long grade up the mountain and had some of the shifting back and forth between third and fourth we'd experienced in 2016. Except then we had the four cylinder and I think it was second and third. At the top the tailing pile had shifted the road over to the side. I think it was downhill from that we drove the narrow switchback trail through the pine forest. B still wonders how the trophy trucks get through that section – it has a bunch of tight, narrow U turns. We hit the downhill jump at 70mph which just felt like the car was getting light but the cameramen did say we were leaving the ground. I didn't feel comfortable going over 70mph on that road so we continued up to Tonopah. T parked his car and B and I tried to drive a switchback up a small mountain/large hill but it turned out to be a bit of a maze so we came back down. We did get a good view of town and some wild horses though. Looks like the road leading down from that saddle into town has a bunch of jumps along it but we went back down to where T was parked. We continued on the race course that follows some white hard ground that tasted salty, appeared to be a few foot deep salt deposit that went on for miles. We continued to some concrete barriers in the wash at a break in an old railroad grade where there were a lot of spectators. We couldn't figure out at first how the trophy trucks make it through there, the gap between the barriers is maybe 7' wide, but then we decided they must just drive over one side (these concrete piers are about 2' high). There was an old oil pan embedded in the wash, we decided someone probably thought they were going to clear one of the concrete barriers and then it ripped their oil pan off. We took a short trail to the highway and drove into Tonopah for gas and to cook some food. Talked to T, he decided to stay the night in Tonopah and decide his fate in the morning. We warned him that the last forty miles of the V2R course we wanted to run the next day would be too rough for his car. We drove to a city park and cooked dogs. Then we headed farther up 95 and camped at Walker lake. On the way down the road to the campground there were signs for the former lake levels in increasingly recent years. Z said he read that as the river has been diverted for agriculture the lake has been draining. It was quite salty.

We asked J for a good place to camp north of town and he recommended some sand dunes just off 95 so we drove up there and camped overnight. Those are the dunes just to the right of the sign beyond the power lines. Tuesday morning we ate breakfast, packed up, and drove the last few miles to the big dune. It was certainly described accurately, the center dune was hundreds of feet high with no tire tracks going to the top of it. I was driving over one dune when we suddenly got to a sharp drop off the other side so I turned to avoid it and got stuck shortly afterwards because I was going too slow. We aired down the tires and got it out with the sand ramps and pushing. Aired down the other cars, and took turns driving each others' cars around the dunes. T's suspension was bottoming out easily so we unpacked his cargo while we drove around the dunes. I found one good little jump, the last time I hit it the driver's side got up much higher than the passenger side. Since it was soft sand the landing was fine.

If the water pump seal is leaking, coolant will come from the weep hole. It's just to the driver's side (left side of the car looking forward) of the crank behind the timing covers, same as the EJ. The water pump replacement isn't much easier than head gaskets on the EZ though, you have to remove the timing chain cover, chains, tensioners, etc. It's about sixty allen bolts, some of which will strip out, so it's really a lot easier to do with the engine out of the car.

We met with J and he took us to some whoops outside of town that were a little too big to run fast over with the Subarus. He was fairly impressed with what they could do and took us to some smaller ones along a dirt/gravel road. They were similar to the super whoops in the UP but narrow and on top of a crowned trail so we couldn't comfortably go much over 30mph. Unfortunately there was a ditch I didn't see until the last second and didn't slow down enough to prevent from plowing into the opposite side of it. It cracked one of the coolant fittings for the oil cooler. B and Z went into town to get some fittings and we took off the skidplate and cleaned things up and talked with J. After we got it back together we ran the cars over the whoops again (including T's for reference). J recommended valving changes at both ends. He had a small bottle that was good for charging maybe eight shocks but wasn't fully pressurized. I asked him if he had a vice and he asked if we had a receiver. I told him we have 1.25” receivers and he says with a look of disgust “that's not a receiver.” We were able to C clamp it to the rear bumper of the Outback. He also had a little toolkit that had an allen wrench and spanner wrench we needed. He left to pick up some steel as we figured it would take about four hours to go through all the shocks in the desert. It didn't feel a lot better in the car, mainly we noticed the car stayed almost perfectly level but bounced up and down. It definitely looked better from outside on video. He also took us to a deeply whooped out recent racecourse leading to some embedded rocks, B and I both thought the Outback rode better over them than with the old shock tuning in Texas. J had mentioned earlier in the day he'd never owned a car, only pickup trucks, but was looking up Subarus on Craigslist by the end of the day.

R and I each drove our cars to Jean, NV Sunday night. Filled up at the largest Chevron station in the world - 96 pumps and 60 bathroom stalls. We met B and Z at the check in counter in the Terrible casino. Monday morning I got up early as usual to check over the suspension on my Outback and met T in the parking lot. He had driven his Outback XT 5MT there from San Diego to join us in some trail riding in NV. T is crazy about weight reduction on his car, says it's down to 3000#. For instance, the rear doors are gutted and the glass has been replaced with carbon fiber that's fixed in place. The five of us had breakfast and checked out the off road hall of fame. One interesting combination was a Jeep and a Rokon that had driven the Darien gap (first two wheeled vehicle to do so).

I went on a 13 day trip of just over 5000 miles a few weeks ago. This trip report will be multiple posts and it will take me a couple days to put them up. Tuesday night I camped in Nebraska. Wednesday afternoon I decided to take a break from driving on the interstate and check out Sager's Canyon trail in UT just off 70. It was fun. Fairly smooth so probably recently graded, many turns and a few jumps. Part of it went through a narrow canyon and had a fairly steep climb out but nothing too difficult. At the top I got out of the car to try to hike to the top of the bluff but it eventually just became a vertical wall. Tried to get to a couple campgrounds in southwest UT just off the highway but they were closed due to a past fire. Took longer than expected to find another campground but I eventually did. I spent the next few days with my brother and a couple friends in southern CA. Meanwhile Z and B were driving B's blue long travel Forester to meet us near Vegas. On the way they stopped at Black Dragon Canyon for a lunch break on the UT/CO border.

The later EZ engines with variable valve timing should have better low end torque, the little I've read about them confirms that. I haven't driven turbo cars much, and the ones I have driven/ridden in have been stock suspension. So I haven't really been able to drive them as hard as mine. From my limited experience I'd say a WRX/XT is similar to an EZ30 with a 5MT. A modified WRX/STI would certainly be faster, the only one I've ridden in certainly was but it only really started pulling hard over 3000RPM. So I would lean towards an EZ36, add a supercharger if that's not enough. Unfortunately none of the EZ cars came with a manual trans in the US and the auto seems to really sap a lot of power.

That's an interesting comparison. It would be a lot less work to lift an Outback an inch or two than to start with a Legacy and replace all the struts and add subframe spacers. But if you can get a Legacy a lot cheaper maybe it would be worth it. I personally prefer wagons, from a quick internet search Subaru stopped selling Legacy wagons in 2006 in the US.

Lifting a Legacy wouldn't be too bad if you can get them cheaper or less rusty than an Outback and get the EZ30 that way. I personally prefer Outbacks too but the Foresters do have advantages. My experience with an automatic Subaru is that it robs a lot of power but other people love them. I agree the 1.2 dual range would help but not much. The 1.6 often leaves you wanting more. I don't know why you wouldn't want a turbo Subaru, the increased power helps a lot in sand and other unpaved driving situations. Although the lag is annoying, they will build boost even at low RPMs if you're under load for a while. You're tired of me saying this, but I think a lot of the problems you describe are due to driving style. If you're driving slow, yes the VDC helps in two wheels up diagonal situations. You'll be slipping the clutch a lot in a manual transmission car too. If you just drive faster, momentum solves all those problems. I'm not talking 50mph, just enough to get over obstacles without stalling out. It looks like a lot of what you drive on is sandy; low weight, horsepower, and momentum is really the key in sand. If you're not willing to drive a Subaru that way and want to crawl, you really should get a Jeep or Toyota. I think you'd be happy with a Cherokee.

I don't know much about the dual range transmissions, we've only had one. As far as I know they have an open front diff, viscous center and rear, so yeah, effectively 1WD in the wrong situation. I still think my Outback has too much traction more often than too little though. I've never driven an EZ with the variable valve timing, I assume it's a significant improvement. The first gen EZ30 is pretty quick with a manual trans but the auto slows it down quite a bit. Calling any stock Subaru a beast is an exaggeration though. The average street vehicle sold in the US now has 300hp.

B's Forester didn't require any CV axle swaps on our long trip out west (more on that soon). Should measure angle at ride height again but it definitely rides and handles better with the softer springs. You were right about the strut tower. I've only dented/cracked those alloys in desert races. It's just a whole different level of abuse than trail riding. Thanks for posting your AR video.

How much oil and coolant do you have to add how often? Liters/1000km? The oil leak might be valve cover gaskets, can't remember if you said you'd done those recently. Does your steering rack leak? It seems like they usually do. If it's a liter every few thousand kilometers I would just make sure you keep the oil and coolant topped off. I'm sure you're tired of me saying this but just keep it full of oil and coolant and keep saving money for a rust free car.

I noticed both the front wheels on the Outback were cracked/dented. Let's blame that Texas desert race. This was the worst, I think this is one I hammered/chiseled in Texas to make it round enough to hold air. They still held air but I had them swapped out with some non cracked wheels. While we had the struts out of my black Outback one of my friends pointed out the RR wheel well / strut tower was starting to crack more. You should know the drill by now. If I keep this car for much longer I should really rebuild those more thoroughly and/or add some tubing. On our last trip a couple guys were driving my car in soft sand and before I could stop them there was clutch smoke coming out of the car (stuck in soft sand). So I figured I'd replace the clutch disc. Only one I could get in a few days was an ACT that's 228mm (stock is 225mm). Measured pressure plate, looked like there was plenty of room. Old one (Exedy, I think stage 1) actually measured within about .005" of new thickness but I put the new one in. Went to test drive it today and it would shift in all the gears with engine off but not with engine running (clutch pedal up or down). Clutch was moving the slave cylinder about 1/2" which I think is normal. Thought about it for a bit and then started it in gear with clutch and brake pedals pushed down. Started fine, made some noise, pumped clutch pedal a few times which made decreasing amounts of noise. After a couple cycles it seemed to work fine. Drove it for about 45 minutes in town with lots of stops and starts and seemed to work perfect. Couple times I applied some brake pressure and full throttle and clutch never slipped. Have driven it for hours now and seems to be working great. With some bushings and ball joints replaced, the car was much quieter so it became very clear that the RR CV axle was making noise under load. It's been making noise all summer I think, definitely on the last trip, so I replaced that and now the car is pretty quiet (compared to usual). Drives straight and vibration free on the highway which is a good thing since we plan on going on a long trip soon. Figured out the problem with the one radiator fan not working was a fuse inside the car in the small fuse block so that was a relief. Wired in a DPDT momentary toggle switch to manually operate the HVAC actuator. Have it wired in parallel with the stock control that seems to not work at all anymore. Pin 8 (red/black) is 12V ignition on, pin 12 (black) is ground, wired those to the center terminals of the switch. Pin 4 (blue/black) and pin 13 (yellow) go to the actuator, wired those to the other terminals of the switch so it can reverse polarity. Wanted to put it just below the cupholders but didn't quite fit. Seems to work but I plan on using it as little as possible to not burn out the actuator. Should have done this years ago. Ultimately I think if you had a strong enough HVAC fan you could just have it come out everywhere all the time and adjust the fan speed and aim the vents. Maybe even have the center vents spring loaded so they only open when the fan is on high. I also wonder if some new cars and/or any standalones have an option to cycle the AC compressor based on throttle position. Like with the AC on low it would only run the compressor at or near idle, with the AC on high it would only shut off at full throttle (yes I know most cars do that), some middle position it would turn on and off at half throttle, etc. B worked on his hatch and trim some more. I welded a tube to a bolt and a big washer to support the middle of his floor panel that goes over the spare tire well so he can put things in there aside from a spare tire that's smaller than the other ones on his car. Also drilled and tapped a hole in his bumper for a clamp bolt for a flag. He says the softer springs might ride a little better but definitely make the car more stable when cornering. CV axle angles didn't change much from the stiff springs which is weird, haven't check to see if or how much the springs we pulled out had sagged but it wasn't too much.

Yeah, we all thought you'd like that one. Will have to take you there when you go to the UP with us next year. It's a long distance from the nearest pavement or campground host. While I had the suspension apart I replaced the rear bushings in the front lower control arms. I tried the Whiteline bushings again, I think they lastest longer than OEM and are cheaper. We went through all the struts on my black Outback and B's Forester. The main goal with mine was replacing some sloppy bushings, I also went through them and replaced some other seals and things. The main goal with B's was to put on softer springs to get it to sit lower and ride softer, they're about 2/3 the spring rate of what was on the car. C stopped by and replaced our windshields too. I bent the radiator support/skidplate down somewhere between 1/2" and 2" depending on how you measure it. Seems to have more engine to skidplate clearance which was my main goal. Welded those big rectangular tubes to the skidplate. One thing I added this time we didn't do last time are those square tubes to pull down on top of the radiator support tube. Without those you're just pulling down on the skidplate tabs. Both times we've done this we've stopped when the tabs start to rip that tube. I welded the cracks and stopped there.

A few things with sand driving that became more clear after our last trip were: Power to weight ratio and keeping your momentum is most important. There was at least one loop we were able to do in the turbo Forester and the H6 Outback that the NA Forester just didn't have the power to drive around. Low range doesn't help much. On moderately soft sandy roads it was an advantage starting and stopping but on climbs it was no substitute for momentum and power. Lowering tire pressures seemed to help but we didn't do it enough to see how much. Over the weekend we did some work on the cars. My friend replaced the rear wheel bearing in his Forester that was getting loose. We pulled the exhaust, driveshaft, front axles, and transmission out of my black Outback. I was worried about the clutch so I'd ordered a new disc. The old one was almost as thick as the new one so I guess I have a good spare now. The hanger bearing on the driveshaft had a little slop so I put on a different used one that didn't have any slop. I replaced the other two u-joints also. One wasn't bad, the other one was notchy and one leg was badly brinnelled. I didn't get a good picture but you can see where the needles had dug into the leg of the cross: Put the driveshaft and transmission back in. Adjusted the parking brake. I still plan on going through all the struts before our next trip. Going to replace some bushings and tie rods that are sloppy. Exhaust is cracked so I tack welded it while it was in place, need to fully weld that now that it's out of the car. Messed with the fan wiring a bit. Both fuses blew when I drove it in the mudhole and I replaced them and they were both working. Later on that weekend I noticed the passenger side (sub) fan is not working. The fuse is getting 12V and the power terminals at the relays are getting 12V but the coils aren't getting 12V. So that might be difficult to track down. I'm also going to try to get the HVAC controls working, my current plan is to wire in a switch to control the actuator directly.