pontoontodd

Yes, I think the main limitation to lifting these cars is you start to wear out the CVs very fast.

I'll take another look at the HVAC. The handle rusted out and fell apart a few years ago, during the Vegas to Reno as a matter of fact. So I got a new one from the dealer. And yes that was a huge improvement. It's not tight or high effort, it's like it's still latched shut. Sometimes if I pull up on one corner of the hatch it will pop open. I think on my friend's Forester we had to lengthen one of the control rods, I should probably check those. The key lock hasn't worked for a while but the power lock does, might be related to that.

I think you could just clearance that part of the subframe if you want it to go down more. A little bit will go a long ways. I like the old recovery tracks.

Does anyone have a good alternative to the stock 1st gen Outback (2nd gen Legacy) HVAC control? I think I've had two or three of them go bad now. I tried opening up one of them to clean the contacts and it's now in a million pieces. The hot/cold cable has always worked perfectly, I wish it had something like that to control which vents the air comes from. Also my 99 OB hatch is a real pain to open. Any advice on making that open more easily would be great too. The good news is that I did some shock tuning and got the 99 jumping better. Going to see how it works like this and then probably try a few more things when it's warm and dry.

If those are roads you're cutting the ruts in, you should wait until summer so you're not ruining them. If it's private property and they don't mind, you should straddle the ruts so you don't just make one deep set. Nice pictures, sort of reminds me of the UP. Do they log those woods often?

Went through the front struts on both Outbacks, wanted to change a few things and check them over. Replaced the one steel reservoir with an aluminum one and changed the valving. Made some chromoly steel front control arm brackets for the 99 OB. If they hold up well this year we'll probably make more next winter. Made the jig using a stock bracket that was in good shape. Not the strongest jig but seemed to work fine. One change I wanted to make was having longer slots than the stock brackets. The control arm and front crossmember is pushed back on the 99 on the driver's side so it's difficult to get a stock bracket bolted in even after elongating the slots. When you do get it in the arm is rubbing on it and I think that contributed to the failure last year. Welded. Painted and assembled. Had some group N bushings lying around, I had bought them not realizing those are brackets to fit an Impreza. It seems like many of the normal bushings are grease filled or something, maybe these will last longer. Also replaced the bolt on front wheel bearings while it was apart. They seemed fine. In the future I'll probably just keep a good spare in one of the cars. We've never had one fail and they're easy to replace. Replaced some CV boots, a ball joint, and an inner tie rod. They were all just a little loose or leaky. Replaced a brake disc that was pretty worn with another used one that is pretty thick.

I think the combination of sand blasting and salt is pretty hard to completely guard against. It's basically how accelerated corrosion testing used to take place at GM. I've been amazed how nicely painted and plated everything is on the cars we've bought from out west, some of them look like new even though they're 15+ years old with 200k+ miles on them. I'm going to give the etching primer a try. I plan on finishing fabricating those lateral links soon.

Thanks for the tip, I'll try that.

Yes, shims or valving washers. Once you have the shaft out you just have to take the nut off, restack the shims, and put it all back together.

Went through the rear end of the 99 Outback to fix a few issues and do some preventative maintenance. Put aluminum reservoirs on the struts hoping they'll run a little cooler. Changed the valving, put in new oil, and replaced a boot and the top bearings. I had a wheel bearing fail last year and I've been putting 20k miles a year on this car so I thought it'd be best to just replace the wheel bearings, seals, and hubs over the winter. Will probably do this every winter if I keep driving the car that much and it keeps them from failing on the road. That one parking brake shoe was really bad so I replaced all of them. I don't use it much but I think mud and sand get inside the drum and just eat the shoes. One CV boot was leaking, another one might have been leaking slightly, they were all at least a little cracked, and this one was worn over halfway through, so I replaced them all and repacked the CVs. I think I've already swapped out the trailing arm on the driver's side but this one on the passenger side was getting bad so I replaced that with a used one. They're $76 from the dealer so I'm thinking about getting a couple of them. While I had everything apart I figured I should do some body repair. It hadn't really failed completely but was starting to crack again, haven't done anything on this corner for about five years I think. Hard to see from this picture but the seam on the left is separated and the seam at the bottom where the floor meets the strut tower is pulling apart. Also that shiny piece laying on the floor was barely attached to the strut tower so I pulled it off and cleaned up all the rust and sealer. Welded those two seams and welded that extra sheet back on. Also added a piece of sheet metal to the bottom of that seam by the door (lower left). Painted to slow the rust. This is what it looked like in the wheel well after a little cleanup. Welded some of the seams, then added that big patch. You can see where I welded the extra sheet on the inside penetrating through. Burned/scraped more undercoating off. That big rusty crack on the right is welded on the inside of the car. Hammered for some strut and tire clearance. Painted. I've noticed a gasoline smell when I filled up the last couple times. Pretty sure this is the source. I've made these gaskets a couple times now, I think originally from cork and the last time from Buna N which is supposed to stand up to gasoline and alchohol. They're just shredded. I suppose some of the breakdown may be mechanical but I assume it's mainly chemical. Whatever they made that flap out of on the inside is still holding up great. Got some flourosilicone from McMaster, expensive but hopefully it'll last more than a couple years.

The off road shocks I've worked on you don't have to drain the oil to change shims. I've always charged all the ones I work on to 200psi, I think you can go to 250 or 300 on most. Ours have a floating piston in the reservoir.

I think changing shims is actually easier and cheaper than changing oil. If you're off that much I could see only a different oil will get you close though. You can't change the nitrogen pressure much, too little and you'll have cavitation, too much and you blow them up.

The viscosity of shock oil is certainly important. Also keep in mind that the "weight" system is almost meaningless. One brand's 10W might be thicker than another brand's 15W, etc. There are some charts online showing many different brands of shock oil and their viscosity at high and low temperatures. I've thought about changing out the oil in standard struts with something thicker for more damping but we've blown out the seals as it is, that would just happen more often with a thicker oil.

Were the springs inline with the sliding part of the strut or angled out at the bottom towards the tire? That makes a difference in theory and in practice. We have tried a few different kinds of bushings to find something we're happy with, the first few kinds tended to shrink when soaked in grease for a while. ID ground the last few sets of housings we made, that definitely helped, or at least vastly reduced the amount of hand sanding needed to make the bushings fit right. Also put grease fittings in between the bushings and we'll usually grease them all after a long weekend of riding, probably not necessary, annually would probably be enough. I have read one of the big problems with the STI inverted struts is that the grease dries out or washes out after a while, people add grease fittings to those.

Glad you like the videos. Hope to get some bigger jumps on video this spring. I don't completely understand your question about the struts. I'm not going to give out detailed plans on how to make them since I'm sort of trying to sell them. The fronts have 9" of stroke which gives 10" of wheel travel, the rears have 11" of stroke which gives 12" of wheel travel. Sorry if this comes across as rude, but if you have the ability to make them you probably don't need plans and could just go by all the pictures I've posted. There aren't many complicated machined parts but there are quite a few custom machined parts you'd at least need a lathe to make and I had ten springs custom wound for the front struts. If you look through page 25 of the thread that should give you a good idea of all the parts that go into the current design. On page 4 I posted a CAD drawing of the original inverted strut design, same basic design we're still using.

Sounds like you have the wrong O2 sensor. Which one is the plug that is in your car? I'd look up one for a year before or after your car's model year and see if it fits, return the ones that don't fit.

The recent cold temperatures (-30F/-20C) here have been a good test of my Subaru fleet's batteries. The Harbor Freight lithium jump starter has been worth its weight in gold, I think it's Vulcan brand. I have an older one from a different brand that doesn't always work anymore. The battery in my Impreza I got from a junkyard cranks slow as always, had to use the jump starter on it once or twice. The Odyssey (PC1230-75/86 760CCA) in my 1999 Outback would only hold a charge for a day, if I drove it every day it was usually fine but if it sat for a few days it wouldn't start. Unfortunately it's just past the four year warranty. That battery has been through a lot of vibration and heat and has been discharged many times. I decided to try a Duracell Ultra Platinum AGM with dual terminals (sli75dtagm 640CCA) from Batteries Plus since it's cheaper and so far it's been great, can sit for days and start right up. I think the terminals might be too far away for stock battery cables but I like the dual terminals, we've had the top post clamps come off/loose during desert races, having the cables also bolted to the side posts adds redundancy. I got an Oreilly super start platinum AGM (640CCA) for my 2002 Outback about two years ago and it works great. The last time I bought one I had to specifically ask them to look it up, apparently it doesn't come up as best fit for that car but it fits fine. Before I bought my 2001 Outback they put in a new Les Schwab battery (500CCA) about a year ago. In the past month or so it's started slow a few times and had to be jump started once or twice. It has a 60 month warranty but there's not a Les Schwab anywhere near here so I got another Oreilly AGM and it's been good.

yes for a second, we'll have to get some better jump videos this year Yes, the figure 8s are super fun, that's half the reason I go to the Badlands. A couple years ago we went there and we know how to get to one figure eight from one of the main trails but if you're just wandering it's hard to find and no one we asked even knew it existed. One of the guys who came with us kept asking why were were looking for it, we were having a good time riding the other trails. Then we found it and he went around it a few times and said he understood why we had to find it. In that last video it shows a larger one we just found last year, it's less intense than the small one but you can easily drive three cars in it at a time which is entertaining. Of course a stock Subaru can do it too, this video shows my Outback with long travel going a little faster and smoother than my friend's stock Forester: The other highlight of that park is driving the stream. You can't tell what you're running over so it's funny following a stock Subaru in one with long travel, watching them get bounced around while you're just lightly jostled. Also it seems really short these days since we can go so much faster with the long travel suspension.

If I understand you correctly I'm guessing it's your rack bushings. The bushings in my 99 Outback rack were bad when I bought it and I just swapped out the whole rack for one from a junkyard. The hardest part of that is getting to the power steering fittings near the passenger side of the engine. Looks like your boots were good though and it was pretty clean inside so that's surprising. It's hard to say for sure, post another little video of what you're seeing. We've had to replace a bunch of those u-joint steering shafts, as rusty as your car is I wouldn't be surprised if that's sloppy and noisy.

Video from our trip to Badlands off road park last fall, some of our best stunts from last year are in this video:

Do you mean where the inner tie rod threads into the rack? If that was loose it would certainly cause slop. Just pull the boot back, wipe the grease and oil off, and check it.

Pull the boot back and take a look. On the Outback should just be a spring that you can slide off and slide the boot out. Probably inner tie rod end or rack bushing.

If you go to subarupartwholesale.com you don't need a VIN. If you need a VIN, the easiest way is just to look up that car on ebay motors and find one for sale, I think they all list the VIN.

We've had good luck with these: https://autoshafts.com/i-23374251-cv-axle-shaft.html Bigger joints and shafts than most Subaru axles, haven't found anything like that for the rear yet. Oreilly's rear seem decent. Next best thing for the front axles are from the old front wheel drive Legacy, I think about '94, also larger joints and shafts than normal Subaru front axles.