Bratastick

Fooled around a little more last night and found another area that was covered up by a previous repair. The front fender was replaced at some point due to an accident. Looks like they just tried to pull some of the smashed area out then covered it with bondo. Some had fallen out, it was about a 1/4 inch thick.

yes, I've been looking for some sort of siphon spray gun with a flexible hose on the end that I could connect to my air compressor. I've seen one at Eastwood and Amazon that go on a spray can, but they don't get that good of a review.

I agree, metal would be preferred as to strength, and this is in an important location. I would guess finding a good rocker panel would be near to impossible, so fabricating will be the only option. I've got some 16 gauge cold rolled, but it's really stiff and hard to work with. What is a good sheet steel to use?

That's always the issue on a fix like this. I can prep the area inside and out with some rust remover/preventative then do a patch that does not require heat (fiberglass or some type of panel bonding) and call it good. The issue with welding a patch on is that once done there is not a way to recoat to mitigate a continuation of rust caused by heat during welding since there's no way to get back in there. It's a boxed in area. Do you know of anyway to do that?

I'm finally digging into my 82 Brat to get some of these rust issues repaired. Thought I'd tackle the worst one first. This is on the drivers side below the back of the drivers door. Looks like where the back section of the body was welded to the front section. Seems to be an overlap and a great place for rust to form. There's a similar place on the passenger side, but not quite as bad. Do I need to repair this as a structural fix or just cover it up and paint over it? There are a couple of other smaller rust through spots on the rockers, but they are mainly small and I'll probably fiberglass those.

I've been running these gabriel struts now for a few months and they just don't ride very well. They are definitely are riding at the top of the stroke. Is it possible to get original oil struts? Does Subaru still sell them?

82 gl has dual not quad

Bought some replacement struts off Amazon, Gabriel G55726, and have installed them. When the old ones came off they didn't really have any rebound. Pretty much would stay put wherever you put them. I'm guessing that indicated they were shot? Had 100k on them. I suspect they were original. The replacement ones are completely extended at rest. They push down with resistance as you would expect. It seems though that when installed there's not enough weight to compress them and they stay at their full extended amount. Is that right? When I go over bumps they "top out" I can hear it.

I ordered a rebuilt one, it had the wrong trigger mechanism even though it said it was correct. Ordered a second, same problem. I ended up using my old electronics. The rest was good and what I needed.

I just finished reworking mine in my 82 Brat. PO had poorly installed a Radio Shack cassette deck and equalizer along with running screws through the shift console to hold the shift boot. Somewhere along the way they decided that it should be spray painted black. Not sure what kind of paint it was but it didn't stick very well to the plastic so it was looking pretty shabby. The good part is that a couple shots of carb cleaner caused the paint to wrinkle and could be easily scrapped off. I pulled the radio and equalizer out and remounted them with some better bracing. They were great vintage looking units and both amazingly worked really well. There are some scrapes on the plastic, but overall all looks pretty good after the black paint came off. I pulled a shift console out of my parts car. It was a faded looking blue. I picked up a spay can of the Dupicolor vinyl paint in dark grey. Not really dark as some of the other plastic parts, but close enough and looks better than the one with the screw holes. Also sprayed the vinyl boot, which was blue. Not sure how it will hold up, but figure if it doesn't I can make a new one using it as a pattern.

Thanks. I'm getting a little flat spot when transitioning to the secondary and first thought was the accelerator pump.

I'm getting good squirt action on the primary barrel, isn't the secondary barrel supposed to squirt as well? It's there just no output.

Got back under there today and checked the radius rod and bushing. While the bushing shows some age it's all there and looks just like the one on the left. Nothing under there is bent or out of place. There is some denting of the lower part of the body as though it was run over some rocks, but really nothing that would cause the problem. I've looked through my manual but there is not a measurement diagram like I've seen in other service manuals. The radius rod has about a half inch of threads beyond the nut. Might be able extend it this much, but that's probably not going to make up the difference since it's at an angle. Thoughts?

Rats were literally in my Brat... fell out when I removed the driver side defroster duct.

close to the rear.

finally got into the rat problem. Found a huge nest that was clogging up the duct from the blower. I don't think there is a nest blocking flaps keeping the lever from moving. Looks like the lower flap is stuck, and really stiff. Needs a little exercise and maybe a squirt of lube. Why do they have to cut their own hole?

The radius arm is also going affect the caster, isn't it? Looks like the upper strut mount is really the only adjustment and that would be for camber?

I got my SJR 2" front lift on my Brat. I'm still getting some tire rub on the right side. Running 195/70-14 tires. When tires are going straight ahead the rear of the right tire is about a half inch closer to the fender than the left side. It was this way even before putting the lift on. I've been under and looked everything over pretty good and I don't see any accident damage or anything bent due to hitting a huge pot hole or anything. It pulls to the right. I'm not sure if this is the cause of that or if it's just a toe adjustment that's a problem. I've trimmed the fender a little, but mainly the tire is rubbing the pinch weld and the mount for the inner fender liner. What kind of adjustments are there to fix this? What about making the strut rod a little longer? Will an alignment get this fixed? When putting the new struts and blocks in, I didn't really see much adjustment other than the strut top adjustment and the tie rods. I didn't really want to do a lot of cutting as this is a fairly unmolested body.

The big part of the shaft is not solid. The chrome section goes into it and will actually turn. It maybe some sort of way to try and reduce vibration, don't know. I used a wet towel to wrap as much of it as possible then used the torch to heat the part just above the knuckle. Bent it to the left then up slightly. Seems like it's going to work.

82 brat after a lift install I'm having trouble getting into reverse. Gear selector is hitting the hi/lo lever. Is it possible to bend the shifter in the area that's wider? Is that just a hollow tube?

Now that I have the threaded bolt through the shaft and shifter, and the minimal 2" lift, it won't go in reverse at all. The shifter butts right into the range lever. Is there a typical mod to either of the levers to correct the problem?

R-12 used to be 99 cents a can, when I was a kid they sold BB machine guns that used the stuff. I've got about half dozen cans thinking about sending it to ebay.

I ended up doing the taping the shaft maneuver instead of replacing the bushings. Has tightened it up. The lower bushing is still there but seems a little sloppy. Seems like it should be nylon rather than rubber? After the 2 inch lift it really won't go into reverse if you're in 4wd low. Is that typical and other than shifting out of 4wd low is there a work around?

I'm thinking about drilling one of the factory 13" rims to 6 lug

that is weird, thanks for doing that the photos really help