pontoontodd

Glad you like it. The upper arms are a little questionable but there is a lot of 1/2" steel plate in them and they seem to be holding up well so far. The upper arm mounts need to be reinforced a bit though. It would have been much simpler to go with long travel struts in the front but I don't think we could have gotten 12" of wheel travel that way. I really want to get some good video of this in action but unfortunately it will be a few weeks. UHMW on the belly is a good idea. I don't really have much interest in crawling though, or many places where it's needed within 500 miles of here, so probably no dual range. I have lot of other ideas, but an M62 supercharger is pretty high on the list. I've seen a few clean installs with a TMIC.

Drove the car a few times now and it's already much better than before. It can use some tuning, especially in the front, and there are a few minor issues to work out, but overall I'm happy with it. Probably be a few weeks before I can get good video up.

Full droop: This is current ride height. Front is sitting about 2" too high (trying to get both ends to sit in the middle of the travel and about where they were with the 1.5" lift and stock struts), but the rear is about right with these springs.

Rear inverted strut construction Had to ID grind the initial springs to fit over the strut body. The springs we're using now fit without grinding. Had to clearance the wheelwell for the strut body, shifted it away from the spindle for tire clearance, and it swings in at full droop, so first I notched the bottom of the "frame rail": hammered the crap out of it and welded it back together: Strut body with camber adjustment: Long travel (11" at the strut) vs stock (8"): Installed:

Nests from laser cut parts: Front end construction:

Thanks. We're doing inverted struts in the rear now and everything is in double shear. Most of these pix were just mockup, checking clearances, bump steer, etc. I am nervous about the CV life, but I guess we'll find out. Should sit about the same at ride height but obviously flexes more.

Yes, even with a 1.5" lift they rub the fenderwells near the footwell area bad. And that part of the body is pretty solid so it's tough to just hammer it back. You should also hammer flat the rib in front of the struts that the splash guard mounts to. One of the things we'll accomplish with this suspension is moving the front wheels forward and out enough to prevent them from rubbing in the rear of the wheelwell. Maybe still a little in the front of the wheelwell at full bump and steering. Thanks for the compliment. Might be able to drive it in a few days.

lower arm construction:

CAD model of front suspension.

Front lower arm mocked up about 1/2" farther outboard and 1 1/2" forward of stock balljoint. This helps tire clearance with the upper arm and wheel well and the axle can extend enough and still have some travel left. Also gives us about 10 degrees of caster. Going to make lower arms out of laser cut 1/8" plate, box construction. After a lot of trial and error we've arrived at this upper arm mockup. Everything will be fully boxed and gusseted, this was just to figure out wheel, tire, and spindle clearance. The outer part of the arm will be made out of 1/2" plate, most of the rest will be 1/8" plate. 12" travel with full steering with some rubbing at full bump and steer. Some hammering of the wheel wells should fix most of the rubbing. Bump travel limited by tire rubbing in wheel well and axle hitting our upper arm rod end. Droop travel limited by both ends of the tie rod binding. Plan on using 2" coilover reservoir shocks with 6" travel. Any suggestions?

After trying the five link setup and a single Y shaped trailing link, it seems it would be simplest to just make an inverted strut for the rear. The reduced camber change solves some clearance problems and it should be overall easier and cheaper to make than the other options we tried. Since the stock rear struts are so long it looks like we can still get 11" of travel. Mockup picture to test clearances/binding: CAD model using a 2" smooth body reservoir shock below. Upper spring perch not shown. Also we'll probably use a stud mount on top. Still planning on a-arms and coilover shocks in the front, pictures of that coming soon.

We finished mocking up the rear suspension over the weekend. Main goals were increased travel, more tire clearance, and getting rid of the struts. Also, we wanted this to be bolt on and use as many stock components as possible. This is all just roughly laid out for checking geometry and clearance. The brackets will all be boxed and gusseted. Side view of rear suspension at full bump, ride height, and full droop. Trailing arm frame bracket replaced, two trailing links reduce spindle rotation compared to one Y shaped trailing link. Probably make all of the rear links out of CNC bent 1.25 x .120 4130. Links bent inward to provide more than stock tire clearance. Rear view of rear suspension at ride height and full droop. Droop limited by inner CV bottoming out. More droop possible by increasing camber change but more camber change increases clearance issues at full bump. View of rear suspension looking outward at full bump. Upper link contacts frame in several spots, upper link contacts axle, axle nearly contacts frame. Tire barely clears shock body at full bump. Oversized tire with 1/4" wheel spacer. Should be able to have spring collar above tire if shock mounted "upside down." Tire rubs wheel well at full bump. Oversized tire with 1/4" wheel spacer. Might be able to hammer adequate clearance in body. Full bump and full droop with stock sized tire. 11.5" of travel. Some toe out at full bump. Almost done with the front, I'll post that up soon. Suggestions?

Still running the Hankooks on the Outback, they seem to work well. I think you actually want some wheelspin in a lot of offroad situations with stock gearing and power levels. An aggressive tire can actually keep you from getting up a hill or bog you down too much in a soft section. I think I'd try Cooper Discoverer ATs based on this article: http://expeditionportal.com/where-the-rubber-meets-the-road/ They probably look different because I went to the more common black steel wheels after the Forester steel wheels bent. Right now I'm running alloys which are about 15# lighter and seem to hold up fine.

What drivetrain are you going to use?

pre lift:

video of a recent trip to the Badlands off road park:

Swapped out the rack from one out of a parts car. The one in my Outback had some slop in the driver's side bushing since I bought it. I also noticed after taking it out that there was some gear lash. The one I put in has no slop either place. The most difficult part was disconnecting the lines. I ended up cutting the lines on the old rack and removing the flare nuts with a socket. Does anyone know what this thing under the rack is for? Maybe some kind of tuned mass damper? I left it out when I put everything back together.

The TPS reading to the ECU seems good, gradually goes up and down with the gas pedal. I have the following trouble codes: P0136 O2 sensor circuit (rear?) P0183 fuel temp sensor A circuit high P0301-304 cyl 1-4 misfire P0440 evaporative emission system P0453 evaporative emission system pressure sensor switch high P1507 idle control system malfunction I did replace the rear O2 sensor a few months ago and may not have cleared the codes afterwards.

Went up to Michigan over the weekend, didn't do any off roading but got this picture of a deer standing behind the car: The perspective makes it look tiny, it's just far away. About halfway home, we stopped for gas and when we got back on the highway the engine ran very rough between half and 3/4 throttle. At idle and light cruise, it was fine, and seemed to run well and make decent power at full throttle. This is sort of what it used to do when it got wet, which doesn't seem to be a problem anymore with the silicone around the plug wires. In the past when this happened, such as one time this summer after stopping on the highway to fill up with gas, you can just shut the car off for a few seconds, start it back up, and it will run great. Not this time. I tried coasting with the engine off several times and restarting the car after 10-20 seconds and it still ran poorly. After a half hour of just driving around the problem it gradually got better and ran fine the rest of the way home. I should also mention this thing has been getting terrible gas mileage, around 20 on the highway. I am going to check trouble codes and the resistance on the TPS, any other ideas?

Painted and swapped on the front fender and doors from a parts car onto the driver's side. It looked like this, mainly from misjudging one tree this summer: The most difficult part was removing the door lock cylinder. I finally figured out that if you unbolt this part of the window mechanism: Then jog the power window up and down while pulling up on the glass, you can open up a gap like this: And get to the bolt (green circle) with a 1/4" drive ratchet. I did a lot of wet sanding, priming, etc on the doors and front fender. Used Krylon which I'd heard was the best aerosol on the market, not real happy with how those turned out. Not quite the glossy appearance of stock. Wound up using Rustoleum on the rear fender which matched much better. Also used Duplicolor Champagne Pearl to respray the side moldings, one of which was black. That was a decent color match. Decided to just paint over the pinstriping and arches around the wheel wells for simplicity. Turned out OK, still have to pop the dent out of the rear fender somehow.

Exhaust manifold appeared to be leaking so I welded up the edge, ground it flat, and replaced the gaskets on both sides.

I've done a bunch of minor things to the car since our last trip. Cleaned the car, swapped the city wheels/tires and bumper covers back on. The headlight adjusters were corroded to the point where they couldn't be turned so I put in some other headlights from a parts car. Replaced a bulb in the third brake light. Changed the oil and filter. Changed the air filter - it was extremely dusty. Also replaced the right rear wheel bearing which was a PITA. Quite a bit more involved than the fronts with the parking brake, drum hardware, the long bolt that cannot be removed, etc. Any suggestions on swapping out an outer door handle/lock cylinder on the driver's door? The bolt right above the lock cylinder is nearly impossible to get at with the window mechanism in place.

Welding - yes the welds on the strut towers look terrible but they're probably at least as strong as the original spot welds and adhesive from the factory. Normally I MIG weld thin wall steel tubing. If you try to do that with a continuous bead you either blow holes in it or have a cold start for the first 1/4" or so with no penetration. Hence the trigger welding or whatever you want to call it. Yes, on some of these parts, especially the winch mount, I could have run continuous beads and gotten better penetration. Spares - many of our trips are well over 1000 miles if you include highway mileage getting there and back. 500 miles off pavement a few times. That said we're not exactly in BFE with no other means of survival or escape. We have never broken an axle, had a few with torn boots and making noise but never had to replace one on the trail. Only one bent control arm so far. I like the rest of your list, most of those things we've packed, recently got some extra lug nuts and fuel pump. Thanks for the suggestions.

We've always wanted to drive across Michigan's Upper Peninsula off pavement, so a few weeks ago we flat towed my friend’s 01 Forester to the UP with my 99 OB. During the first morning of off roading I felt the brake pedal go soft while we were driving through the woods. We stopped at the next semi level clearing and discovered that a small stream of brake fluid would spray out of the LR brake line (where it goes into the hose) when you stepped on the pedal. Tried a few crimping techniques and eventually just left a small vice grips on the line zip tied to the subframe mount. I tried to avoid using the brakes the rest of the day and used very little brake fluid. I think it was also this day we decided to try a slightly swampy trail and immediately got the OB stuck. Put the winch on the back and winched it mainly out of the ruts, then pulled it out the rest of the way with the Forester. The duty cycle on the HF Badlands 5000# winch is only about 5% which makes progress very slow, but it did work. We also wound up using a snatchblock (pulley). If you plan to winch your Subaru a lot, I’d recommend going with a 9000# winch or at least something with a higher duty cycle. Considering we only used it twice during this whole trip, I'm glad I didn't spend any more money or bring something heavier. We also need a better tree strap to snatch block/winch cable attachment. Might have been able to get it out with the snatch strap and ramps, which would have been a lot faster, but we wanted to try the winch. We got to Escanaba and found an O Reillys open until 8PM. I pulled off the flare nut end of the line and got a piece of hard line, union, flare nut, and line cutting and flaring tools. Installed all that and bled the line in the parking lot and didn’t leak any more brake fluid the rest of the trip. We finished up while they were closing and one of the employees who had helped us came up and told us that he’d seen a bunch of lifted Subarus but had never seen one that’s obviously been off road. Wednesday morning we came across a tree that had fallen across the trail but pointed away from where we were. It was a bit too low to drive under. The trail was relatively wide and cleared out so we figured it went somewhere. We decided to attach the snatch block to a tree on the far side and pull the fallen tree away from us with the winch. As we were starting this process, two guys pulled up on an ATV and wanted us to get out of the way so they could get through because they thought it was supposed to rain soon. They were barely able to get the ATV under the fallen tree and both hopped back on it, the guy in the rear holding a couple of gallon jugs. Before we got the tree out of the way, maybe ten minutes later, they came back through. Shortly after that we sawed the top off the tree, which had gotten caught on other trees. Then we sawed partway through the tree maybe 1/3 of the way up. Then we resumed winching, which quickly broke the tree at our cut, and we were able to get through. That trail went on for miles with no side trails, driveways, shacks, etc. We eventually got to a stream where a bridge no longer existed to cross it. The remains of the bridge appeared to be downstream a bit and we didn’t see any good way to drive through/around and had to go all the way back. The guys on the ATV are probably still laughing at us for moving that tree out of the way to get to a dead end and we’re still wondering what was in those gallon jugs. It took us four days and 550 miles (about 90% off pavement) to get to the Mackinac Bridge. We went back on US2, which took about five hours and 300 miles on pavement. We each had a loose rear wheel bearing on the way home. The tablet GPS worked great and definitely seems like the cheap and effective way to go. I would definitely like to pack lighter in the future, but I'm not sure what to leave at home. For this trip we had a spare front strut w/ spring, both spare rear struts (no springs, I don't have any good ones or hats, and they're different left and right, correct?). Front spindle/bearing/hub assemblies which I'll probably leave home next time. Front control arms, tie rod (inner and outer), ball joints. Front and rear CV axles. I've had to replace a few fronts now (not on the trail). Radiator & fans. We've never had an issue on the trail but have heard it's a common problem and would hate to be in the middle of the woods with a bad one. Wheel & tire. Oil, air, and fuel filters, spark plugs & wires, fuel pump, fasteners. Any suggestions on what spare parts we should or shouldn't take?