pontoontodd

UP trip video from 2022

M finally decided the old Impreza wasn't worth fixing. Compression had gotten so low the car would roll in gear with the engine off. In a way this is the one that started all of our Subaru off pavement adventures after I hit a deer over a decade ago. A little disappointing it didn't hit 300,000 miles. Certainly the most entertainment per dollar of any car I've ever owned. inside of the gas tank: Some of the parts we scavenged. The main things I wanted were the wheels (and tires), shifter/console (although most of that doesn't fit my '98), and the front axles and knuckles. The knuckles had been upgraded to the bolt on wheel bearing style and it had the big front wheel drive style axles. We considered removing the transmission (since it's the older style 5MT with the top inspection plate) and a few other things but had to draw the line somewhere. That left us with the question of how to make it roll. The simplest/cheapest idea I could come up with was to weld a tube to the bottom of the control arms (they're kinda rusty and I already have a few pairs of good stock ones). Then I welded some short pieces of tubing inside some space savers to act as hubs. These weren't centered or anything but it was just for getting the car out of the garage and on the flatbed. "hubs" were retained by tack welds. Gave us some hot Carolina squat action. Don't worry we kept the chrome lug nuts and only used a couple old rusty lug nuts per wheel to put some crappy tires on the back. M specifically told the tow company they should come with a flat bed but they didn't. He insisted the guy look at how poorly the "front axle" was attached but the guy was unconcerned. Put the front end on a dolly and dragged it out of town. Frightening. A day or two later when I unloaded the parts the one taillight still had plenty of blinker fluid in it. Have made some progress on the green Impreza too. Will try to post a few pictures sometime. Unfortunately I've been busy with other things. Mainly buying a building to move my machine tools into. In the long run that should be great but it's kept me from finishing the Impreza.

Some last minute rust repair before the last trip I forgot to post. Black Outback's muffler is quite rusty and started leaking. This is after hitting it with the wire wheel, a big chunk of it evaporated. Welded on a patch. High temp paint. Maybe a waste of time but did make the exhaust significantly quieter. On to the Impreza. Most of the fab work is done. Bumper and skids about as welded as they can get on the car. Made mounts for the stock turn signals (without those they blink fast). They'll be mostly behind a sheet metal panel below the bumper. B made fan mounts, only have one right now but you can see the tabs for both sides. Headlights and a few other things I just set in place for pictures. Made mounts for light bars just under the headlights. B figured out radiator mounting a while back. Obtained the right section of harness for the PS, alt, and AC compressor. B mounted the airbox a while back, I popped another hole in it. Might epoxy a tube on that eventually, still need to cut a hole in the hood scoop blockoff panel for those. I had the exhaust mostly laid out and then B reminded me about the gas tank guard. Pressed a divot in the skinny muffler to fit that. Probably won't restrict flow too much. Also made the ends out of round but phased 90 from the middle (you can kind of see in picture below). Skinny muffler in place. If/when I fab a rear bumper I can raise the big muffler an inch or two. Front portion of exhaust is basically done. Going to add a flange/gasket where this will meet up with the skinny muffler. If anyone has a recommendation on a 2.5" flange/gasket I'm all ears. Have to remove the various crossmembers/skids/bumper for finish welding and paint. Still need to find power steering lines and reservoir (2015ish H6 Outback) if anyone has a line on those. Also need to swap in DBW gas pedal and manual brake/clutch pedals and clutch hydraulics. Most of what's left is wiring. I think I have that mostly figured out. Might mount the Haltech where the passenger air bag was and make that panel easily removable.

Really need to make straight cut low ranges over the winter. The plus side is that the low range was still working fine all weekend just making a ton of noise. Yes, trying to get the Impreza going, then part out the black Outback.

I'm not going to say it stayed extremely clean (we tried) but there wasn't really any dust to worry about. Dirt falling off the bottom of the car, yes. If not for the cage we would have parted the black Outback out a long time ago. Or so I keep saying.

Went to the UP the last weekend of July with three Subarus and five people. B wasn't able to join us. Before the trip I was checking my notes and realized there was a crack in one of the rear uprights of the black outback so I welded that. The rear tires on the white Outback were almost completely bald so I put some less bald tires on it. I had looked before we went and saw a large area of public land east of Sagola we hadn't explored. There were several fire towers and the ELF (extremely low frequency transmitter) in the area too. Didn't expect much of those but gave us something to roughly wander towards. Fire towers turned out to not exist or be on private property which is about what I expected. When we went to where the ELF was originally marked on my GPS we couldn't find anything. Later Z looked it up and we did make it there but it's some kind of secure gov't facility so we didn't get to see anything. On the way up I was driving the black Outback when suddenly I looked down and the coolant temp gauge was pegged. It had been right where it normally is for hours so I figured it might be the sender or gauge or something. Pulled into a shady spot in a parking lot. Realized it was the same hose that had rotted out on us out west and replaced it with a spare I had. The oil leak there keeps eating those hoses. Left that skidplate off for the time being figuring we'd just reinstall it at camp. Crossed into Michigan and started wandering off pavement. Z got his Forester high centered and stuck on a stump (between engine skid and trans crossmember). Lifted it off with the high lift and threw some wood under the tire. This part of the UP was rockier than most of the UP but not like the Keeweenaw. Trying to follow a powerline grade Z got his Forester stuck in some soft mud. Good reminder that any time you see even a slight trickle of flowing water up there the ground is probably going to be super soft. At this point I realized I'd left my brand new speed strap and folding recovery ramps at home. Then we broke my 2” speed strap, it's seen a lot of abuse but I was still a little surprised. Z had a tow strap and with a combo of that and my marginal speed straps we were able to get his car out. One of those situations where we tried about ten iterations of straps thinking each one would work, might have been just as fast to winch or jack him out of there. Went the other way on that powerline grade which had some good rock ledges and climbs but didn't go very far before going off into the woods. Before one fairly big drop we decided we should put the one skidplate back on the black Outback so we did that while V cooked the burgers since it was supper time. Maybe the first time we've cooked supper before getting to camp. Saw a (juvenile?) porcupine standing in the road, got a few good pictures of it before it walked off into the brush. Late in the day the black Outback started making some fairly high frequency drivetrain noises proportional to wheel speed like a gear in the transmission was rubbing on something. M was driving and I played with the shifters and then it went away. Found a FS campground and stayed the night there. The next morning we did a little more trail riding but the transmission noise was back. It was making enough noise even in neutral that we didn't think flat towing it would be a good idea. We discussed a few options and decided the best would be to try to fix it. I have been carrying a stock DCCD so plan B was to install that and plug the shifter holes. We went back to the campsite we'd stayed at the night before since it was decent, close to toilets, and there had been no one else in the whole campground. Of course during the day two other campers showed up and occupied the spots on either side of us. Disassembly went fairly smoothly but time consuming. Realized we'd need gear oil so Z and V drove to town to get that and some groceries so V could cook us some fajitas since we knew he'd have plenty of time. The main problem seemed to be thrust forces (from the helical gears I assume) wore out one of the snapring groove lands to the point that one of the snaprings was just floating around in the middle of the low range. We just removed the snapring, the part it'd been holding on was already galled/peened in place. M and I tried about ten times to put the low range back in the trans and then put the cover on with no success. Finally we put the low range in the cover and put the whole thing on and it went right together. One trick we used was to tie the split needle bearing on the front output shaft on with a blade of grass since it would instantly dispose of itself, before that those bearings kept falling out of place during assembly even though we'd greased them. As it turned out the grass fell out during assembly but did its job. Then we put everything else back on and I took it on a test drive around the campground before dark. Seemed to work fine but still a little noisy. Camped again in the same spot we had on Friday night, something else I don't think we've ever done before. Sunday we had a solid day of trail riding with no major issues. Found a stunt area, unplugged a culvert that'd been dammed up by beavers, then Z got properly stuck in the mud in a clearcut area. Probably over 100' from the nearest fairly solid ground. Set up the winch and swapped the Anderson connector from the white car on to his battery. Winched off of several different stumps with the snatch block and eventually got him on to solid ground. Good reminder that having a winch you can put on either end of any car is far superior to having it permanently mounted to one end of one car. He was then able to drive through the clearcut along the trail back to where we were parked. The whole thing took under two hours with surprised us. I got the black Outback stuck after turning around and trying to climb up a steep bank. A backed the white Ouback back to where we were. By then I remembered I had a proper elastic snatch strap and soft shackles so we used those. They hit much softer than the speed straps. I couldn't really even feel when it hit even though A was taking a 10-20' run at it. He eventually pulled me up the little bank. Somehow the rear bumper cover of the white Outback had come off so we cobbled that back on and continued. Monday morning while we were following the black Outback it seemed like the rear camber on it would be both tilted to left, then both straight. Eventually A decided to pull over because it was steering itself. The subframe had pulled out of the remains of the unibody on both sides. We also had brackets connecting it to the skidframe which had mostly ripped off. We sort of straightened out the brackets and hose clamped them back on and ratchet strapped the subframe up into place. (We were able to ratchet strap the subframe back up to the body, not shown) A managed to navigate us down a fairly long and almost entirely off pavement route south. Got to an abandoned railroad track. Had to restrap the rear subframe a couple more times. The last time A came up with the idea of strapping the subframe to the skidframe laterally which helped a lot. Black outback is probably finally and properly totaled. Needs a trans rebuild, radiator, coolant hose, rear diff is no longer limited slip, rear axles and wheel bearings are ticking time bombs, and most importantly needs some serious body/frame repair for the rear subframe. In the meantime it is still driveable if I need to drive it around town some. Really need to get the Impreza running. Will try to post an update on that soon.

Wife and I have been doing a lot of kayaking day trips, mostly in northern and central IL. Took a weekend trip a couple weeks ago and found some interesting trails. Had to control myself as we had no tools or spare parts and were traveling in one car.

Video from our trip to Missouri last year. Have made some progress on the Impreza too, will post an update on that fairly soon.

Finally got video edited and posted from our Kentucky trip last year. https://youtu.be/1KxQLa__Ogk

Thanks K. I would have done levers instead of cables on the Outback but I kept thinking it'd be totalled by now. Should be much easier shifting. Yeah rear suspension is just about ready to weld and paint. Skid plate does hang a little lower than most of our other cars in order to protect the headers, hopefully that won't be too much of an issue. I think the biggest improvement over the black Outback will be the 1000#ish weight reduction.

Hard to tell from the pictures but this is after some massaging and trimming we did to get the condenser farther forward, maybe 1/2-3/4"? One of the little things we did was to bend the bracket/line on the driver's side (LF) of the condenser to give us a little more room for the radiator. One issue was this corner of the radiator support had a big radius/gusset to it so B notched that out and patched it back in. I have some grommets that will fit that washer for the radiator mount posts. Other side we've got a tube tacked in with a piece of hose for the post. Bottom of radiator will probably also be padded with rubber and will rest on radiator support. Radiator is for a 99-05 Mazda Miata and fits without any trimming or modifications. About a half dozen companies make thicker core aluminum radiators for those cars, this one has a 42mm thick core. Just narrow enough that it sits alongside the passenger side (LF) cam phasers. Unfortunately I think I should find/make some 90 degree bent water necks for the top tank. I might be able to get a hose with a tight enough bend to clear the PS pulley but I want to get one welded on the other side anyhow. While I'm at it I'll probably put a 1.5" water neck in the bottom and at a more downward angle for more clearance to the timing cover. Again, this one would probably work as is but it's smaller than stock (1 3/8"?) and the hose would be very close to the timing cover.

Box for rear trailing arms is still very close to the wheel. Might even rub just from the weld bead sticking out when finished if I just welded them as is. I plan on tweaking those for a little more clearance before welding. Shortened up the links on the driver's side by 1/8". While I was at it I refit the tube to the bottoms of the bushing sleeves rather than centered for some shock clearance. Not ideal structurally in tension/compression but that's almost certainly not how they'll fail. With the shorter links the inner CV still has a little room before it bottoms out at full droop. We also put a tire on and stuffed it up as high as it'd go with the jack and I still think rolling the fender and removing the rear bumper cover will be enough. High/low and lock/unlock shift levers/linkage tacked up: Seems like most of the compliance is in the trans mount so it should be stiff enough. There is an alarming amount of slop in those in line ball joints though, I need to find some better version of those or replace them with rod ends. B was able to shift high/low and lock/unlock while I turned the driveshaft. High/low is pretty easy, lock/unlock takes considerably more effort and turning. This is the same experience as in the Outback with the cables but is definitely easier with the levers. They have about a 2:1 mechanical advantage and you can actually push or pull hard with one hand. Plan on bending the right side lever to the right. Plan on just poking holes in that rubber boot for them to pass through, they don't move much at that level. B did say the left lever (hi/lo, requires more travel) does get close to the dash in low but that can be adjusted.

Checking rear suspension travel, interferences, and axle lengths. At full bump the RR inner CV is almost extended all the way, balls are pretty close to the big snapring. Over a half inch from being bottomed out at full droop. LR is a little over 1/4" from being bottomed out at full droop. LR at full bump still has a lot of travel before it's fully extended. So I'll probably shorten the lateral links 1/16 or 1/8". Bottom of shock shaft hits lateral link at full droop, will probably bend lateral links to give a little clearance. This got me thinking about how we could get more travel. The shocks still have some to spare. Springs get close to coil bind and we've actually broken a couple of them so we don't want to work those any harder. Could potentially mount the springs in line with the strut bodies like most the aftermarket does but we seemed to have a lot of friction when we did that. With these axles there's quite a bit of room in both directions before they're the limiting factor. Wheel well is already going to need some rolling at a minimum so more bump travel would require either serious body surgery or more subframe lift. Really just need to tune what we have.

built from scratch, see post 85 and the next few afterwards

Here you go, rear suspension fully mocked up with fabricated links, front axles, and billet knuckles with bolt on wheel bearings. Might shorten the lateral links a bit but have to check. Should work as is. B and I got the engine and trans skids/mounts mostly fit and tacked up. Trans mount bracket, wanted it to protect the studs. Brackets bolted on in stock crossmember location need to be gusseted/trimmed. It hangs down a little farther than I'd like but is only about 1/4" lower than the headers and I didn't want those to be the lowest point. Should be a bit stronger than most of our engine/trans skids. Needs a few lateral tubes in front of oil pan and headers. And obviously some sheet/plate.

Wow! That's perhaps the greatest website I've ever seen. It's like going back fifteen years when the internet was useful. Thanks a million for the tip! Probably getting the headers ceramic coated but yeah I hope they won't stay clean and shiny long. Not that anyone will see them. Someone else online suggested what you just did with the pipes side by side, would definitely be the way to go but I just don't have time to make everything from scratch. Otherwise I'd finally build a two seat buggy.

Video from our trip to OK, TX, and NM with slammo.

Got the right rear billet knuckle finished. I made a couple of legit trailing arms using sleeves Z turned up. Sleeves are about 50% thicker than OEM and made out of chromoly so hopefully they will stay round unlike the used one in the background. So I think we can now fully mock up the rear suspension. I finally got brackets and bolts for the AC compressor so B got the accessories and belt on. We wanted to shorten the primary tubes on the headers for more ground clearance. They slide in bores in the flange and are welded inside. First step B cut them off about 1" from the flange. Then I bored them out on the Bridgeport. After that it was easy to knock the rest of the tube off and B ground the welds a bit. Then we were able to pry/hammer the tubes back in the flanges and tack welded them on. Passenger side one was pretty good but we wound up angling the drivers side tubes toward the center of the car for more clearance to the crossmember. We'll probably cut off the flange on that one and extend it for more clearance but they're about as far up as I feel comfortable with. I want some clearance to the crossmember and rack boots. B also removed the auto shifter and put in the STI shifter but we need a rear pivot bushing. On the plus side it looks like we should have a decent amount of room for the hi/low and lock/unlock shifters in front of the stock shifter and room for a steering brake (two handle?) next to the parking brake. It appears that a 99-2005 Miata radiator should fit beside the passenger side cam phasers so I plan on getting one of those. One nice thing is that there are at least a half dozen companies making thicker core all aluminum radiators for those Miatas. I think I'm going to go with the CSR. Main reason for wanting aluminum tanks is then I can get a second inlet welded in the top tank.

Finally getting some video editing done, more to come in the next few weeks.

Thanks Bennie, from where I sit we have a lot of work ahead of us to get the Impreza running but I'm looking forward to driving it. Finally got video from our 2021 Vegas to Reno finish edited and posted on Youtube. Six minute version: https://youtu.be/zaS10G5Nnws Thirteen minute version: https://youtu.be/CzU8stsycP4

Wired in a connector for DBW TB and installed that. Installed low range in my other good 6MT for the Impreza. EZ30"D" radiator on left, EJ22 radiator from 98 Impreza on right. EJ22 and 4EAT from 98 Impreza. EZ36 and 6MT in 98 Impreza. Biggest issue seems to be radiator clearance. I've seen at least one person put this engine in this car with AC and a ~2" thick radiator but the lower passenger side cam phaser was basically rubbing on their radiator. Seems to be the same for me, which wouldn't be good for off road use. Going to shop around for some narrower radiators, should be a decent fit if we can just avoid those cam phasers. Not a lot of room in front, stock condenser wouldn't fit in front of radiator support due to headlights, would be a tight fit for condenser and fans between that and front bumper anyhow. Yes at this stage it wouldn't be too difficult to shift the bumper forward a bit but it already sticks out pretty far. On the plus side, should be a pretty straight shot for a skid from the radiator support to the front crossmember, might have to drop it down a bit for the oil pan but the timing covers are pretty high up. Headers need to be shortened vertically and probably at least the driver's side extended to put the flange in a better spot. They're not bolted up 100% so might look a little off. Plenty of room in trans tunnel. Z turned up some trailing arm sleeves for the front pivot. He also did some test fitting on the R180 to female front axle diff stubs. I have the RR billet knuckle almost done. So we're closer to getting that whole package figured out. While we were doing a bunch of this disassembly and assembly we weighed a bunch of things: 11# 98 Impreza EJ22 alternator 14# 2013 Outback EZ36 alternator 466# 98 Impreza EJ22 engine and 4EAT w/ PS pump, engine mounts, starter, engine oil 362# 2013 Outback EZ36 engine w/ flywheel, clutch, PS pump, engine mounts 198# 2007 STI 6MT 127# 5MT So the EZ36 & 6MT is only about 100# heavier than the EJ22 & 4EAT.

Do you have some kind of OBDII scan tool / app? Might tell you something, at a minimum whether the ECU is coming on. Is it getting fuel?

Still need a few parts before we put the engine and trans in. B replaced some of the coolant hoses and put the Kein engine mounts on. I put the used H6 radiator in. Bottom lines up perfect, need to move the top mounts but that'll be easy. It'll be tight with the EZ36 even with no fans. Modified the trailing arm fixture to also fixture longer lateral links. Tacked up a set. Waiting on Whiteline bushings so we can easily test fit these. Much easier to swap in and out than the stock bushings. B's driveshaft has been vibrating occasionally. He thought it was the center support bearing. He filled the old one out of his green Forester with urethane and then swapped it out. As he was doing that he noticed the front u-joint on his driveshaft was extremely worn, probably missing all the needles in two cups. Good thing he replaced it but the one he just put in vibrates over 55mph. Didn't get marked when it got disassembled so we'll probably try clocking it 180. TT called today and told me the writing on the rear diff of the red Impreza was just his way of telling me when he'd replaced the fluid. So that five bolt diff is probably stock. Maybe the one bolt diffs were a base model automatic thing?

Glad you're getting it out and using it. I'm sure we'd all love to see more pictures of it in action. I don't know much about Subaru turbo engines so I'm no help there. With equal power I wouldn't be surprised if the Honda is faster on the straights, it's probably lighter and has less air and drivetrain drag right?

Originally put this together for a friend, then realized it might be helpful to others wanting to do an STI swap. Basically everything you'd need to upgrade the drivetrain. Prices are roughly what I've paid in the last few months in US dollars. Yes you can use an automatic driveshaft and swap the flange from R160 to R180 but the STI driveshaft has significantly bigger u joints. If you find the right swap kit you can probably get a cheaper total price but I already had the trans. That's what I did in my black Outback, for instance just used the stock clutch and flywheel and only replaced the disc and release bearing. Can also buy a lot of these things from the dealer but they're more expensive. Conversely some of it you can buy on rockauto etc for close to used prices but I'd rather have factory parts for most of this. $2500 trans used 2006+ to fit our planetary low range $200 driveshaft used - get one same wheelbase as the car you're putting it in, 2007 STI seems to fit first gen Impreza perfect, got a newer one that fit my Legacy Outback. $715 diff used 2006+ $150 shifter used -2013? at some point they made the shifter longer I've been told $150 flywheel used but resurfaced $10 flywheel bolts (800610740) $8 flywheel pilot bearing (816212020) $12 flywheel dust cover (30216AA070) IMO required for off pavement use $6 pressure plate bolts (800508310) $450 clutch/pressure plate/release bearing Exedy FJK1000 from Rock Auto, looks like rallysportdirect is cheaper but not in stock $92 ACT monoloc from IAG - definitely optional $70 clutch slave used $10 clutch line 37250FE052 $23 clutch hose 37251FE030 $2 clutch hose banjo bolt 112925161 $2 clutch hose crush washers 114130151 $104 Trans mount 6MT 41022FE010 $75 starter used Probably not required but in order to run female front axles you need: $96 front axle stubs 4EAT 38415AA070 $5 front axle stub seals RF806730031 $5 front axle stub seals LF806730032 $2 snaprings for front axle stubs 805329010 Also since my car is an auto I needed: $35 clutch master used $75 STI pedals used (I think any Subaru manual trans pedals would work, looks like even Forester pedals would bolt in) Finally, you need one of the following: STI CV axles (rear at least), knuckles/hubs, brakes - can't fit 15s and are a larger wheel bolt pattern Slammo says "04 STi rear knuckles let you stay 5x100 and use stock 04 STi rear axles with an R180, and you can fit the WRX 2-pot calipers without adapters, but you have to use special rotors since the STi parking brake drum is a bigger diameter" but those 04 STI rear knuckles are rare. Suberdave's conversion races - maybe these would work OK on a lighter car if driven carefully but then what's the point? Definitely the cheapest route but at least moves the weak link to the axle which can be replaced in the field in a reasonable amount of time. Billet rear knuckles and R180 to front CV axle stubs - probably cheaper than STI knuckles, hubs, and brakes, and I think the best solution for reasons already discussed.