wagonist

The ride height looks awesome. Will be looking at getting to that height for my wagon. What did you do to the suspension?

Remember that there's no synchro on reverse. If the teeth aren't lined up exactly, the gears won't mesh. Try putting the car into 2nd gear, and then back to reverse. But check the bushes in the gear linkages aren't perished.

I think the common consensus is to fit the 23 spline stub axles into the box, but I like your idea. I know a good driveshaft place in Sydney. I had to get some "custom" shafts made up for my Excel. It has an Elantra gearbox (which has a diff that's 20mm wider and the car uses shafts that push inside like rear diff on WRX), and then uses the Elantra steering knuckles (so I could fit larger brakes), I couldn't use the Elantra shafts as they were way too long, and the Excel ones (despite having the correct splines to fit the Elantra ends) were now also too long. I showed him the spline for the inner CV, and the spline for the outer CV, along with the length required, and also spec'd as thick as possible shafts (cos I'm running a Quaife diff (hence needing the Elantra box) on tarmac motorkhanas. He mixed & matched parts together to get what I needed.

Good luck. Sometimes you just need patience to find the right thing at the right time. My "race car" started out as a front damaged car from the auctions for $500 about 8 years ago (you can buy straight ones for less than this now), threw away the interior, stripped the insulation off the floor, spot welded the strut towers (the front LCA mounts are particularly bad on this model as they are cantilevered forwards off the bottom of the firewall only...), fitted rally upside-down coilovers & swaybars. Originally built to fit into a 1 make rally series which allowed no mods to brakes, engine, gearbox, ECU. I took so long to build it that the rally series started to dwindle, so started modifying it. Bought a crashed 04 Elantra. Fitted the steering knuckles which allowed Mitsubishi EVO III front brakes, also EVO III (actually FTO) rear calipers and their mounting brackets on Elantra rear rotors to delete the rear drums. Mitsi hand brake cables & brake master bolted up directly. Found out from US forums that the front LSD to suit a USDM turbo 4wd Mitsi Eclipse fits the Elantra box, ordered a Quaife torsen, fitted it into the box myself & then fitted that onto the standard engine with some custom (mixed & matched off the shelf items) driveshafts to suit. The box bolted directly up to the engine, but the 2L & 1.5L flywheels have different bolt holes despite being identical in dimensions, so I got that redrilled & rebalanced. Fitted a bolt in cage, which required fitment of harnesses as the main hoop blocked the B pillar mounts. Plans for this year are to finish installing the 2L Elantra engine from the wreck (which will give a nice 30% increase in power, and finally fit the racing seats I've had sitting around for years. Kind of wish I'd sold it years ago though. The rear wheel arches are narrow, so I've had problems with the rear tyres either rubbing on the coilover spring, or catching on the outer guard (my new neighbour thought I'd converted it to RWD cos of the black rubber on the rear guards). I can't get it lower so that the handling is better, and Hyundai engines in the past haven't really been built around performance. A Mitsubishi Mirage is much more modifiable and had a racing model from Ralliart.

unfortunately, they've snapped off just low enough into the nuts that nothing is sticking out

I installed a turbo halfcut which had it. 14 wires that much actually. When you consider: power, earth, on signal, speedo signal, brake signal, clutch signal, tacho signal, signals out to cruise motor, there's test plug wires, ... adds up pretty quickly.

Never seen a left handed drill bit. So the aim is to get something smaller than the bolt & drill into it? By spinning the wrong way, try to break it loose from the thread?

So, trying to reinstall some parts back onto my car now that I've got a garage with a roof height that's not ridiculously short. Tailgate struts back in, but snapped one of the lower bolts just above the tiallights. And another that holds the bonnet (sorry, hood ) onto it's hinges. Can't get vice grips onto either. Any suggestions?

Considering how fiddly it has been for me, I'd just get an aftermarket solenoid to fit into the driver's door that goes with your remote control. Need to rewire the dashboard, plus the driver's door using factory parts. No chance of getting any parts before I leave (9 days & counting). Most of the wrecks here are the DL version as GLs stopped in 1990 when the Liberty (Legacy) was released, so I haven't seen one in ages locally.

I feel for you trying to find wheels. Sounds tough. I scored a set of 15" for $100 that a mate was going to throw out. Going to go onto my Hyundai race car as I can't get tyres for the 16s anymore. The 16s might end up on my wagon.

I'm attempting to do this with my RHD car. I've got a passenger door solenoid from a US car, and the "tailgate lock" switch from an 85-87 GL Touring wagon (not sure if the US GL wagon had this switch). The only thing I'm trying to change is to swap this switch wit hte rear wiper switch, because otherwise it's on the door side of the steering wheel, and too easily accessible through the window for thieves (I think the main reason that Subaru deleted this switch on post 87 models & integrated the tailgate lock into the full central locking wiring. I'd be tempted to bring one over for you as I'll be in LV in about 5 weeks time, but GL wrecks are impossibly thin on the ground here now. But the exchange rate is great if you want one posted

The weather's not looking good, and seeing as I have no windows, my car's not going out. But some teasers.

Except that Subarus already have a very large offset, and putting on spacers thick enough for this moves the wheels out a long way.

Moved my project car from my previous house to my new (old, long story) location. I've now got a garage roof with lights and high enough that I could open the tailgate far enough to fit the struts back in. Snapped one of the bolts off though Started sorting out the mess that's been stored in the car, refitted the rear spoiler. bolted up the tailgate latch, refitted the unpainted bonnet (hood ) My old car club has an "80s" photoshoot tonight, so planning to drag it out on the trailer for fun. Should be a very square affair Just been too busy moving and getting ready for my honeymoon to the US as we leave in 2 weeks. And dreading the woeful exchange rate that the Aus $ has currently

Interesting motoring article. Good to see that the journalist tradition of not getting every fact right was true back then also Most people would've loved for it to have a 1.592 low range. To the OP, if you want your car to be rare, import your car to Australia. I guarantee it will be the only GL10 (let alone GL10 coupe) here...

There was another thread recently about doing this conversion on the later models, and there was a link to a plug in harness.

Do a search on 4wd conversion to get answers about that part. The XTs have an almost separate engine harness which runs all the way through the car as the ECU is mounted under the rear parcel shelf. This harness includes the wiring for the front wiper and maybe one or 2 other things. But basically, if you can figure out the feeds to & from this harness (power, tacho signal, oil pressure signal, coolant temp signal) that are from the body loom, it could be "simply" laid in your car to run the engine. Except you'll have a lot of left over wiring from your harness.

Sedan, wagon, coupe are all the same wheelbase. Only difference in the floor is behind the rear wheels. I'd be surprised if you need to drill any holes for the rear diff bracket, every 2wd sedan I've ever seen had the threaded holes already there (XTs are a different story). But I'm in another country where 90% of them sold were 4wd wagons. The only thing usually missing is the centre bearing brackets for the tailshaft. The tailshaft centre bearing brackets are spot welded onto the car. If you've got a spare car, then cut them out of the floor, grind the floor metal off, bolt them onto the tailshaft so you can position them in the trans tunnel correctly, then weld them back on. Don't forget to remove the front seats & centre console, and lift the carpet, otherwise you'll catch it on fire...

As others have said, just get the damn thing as tight as you can, even beyond the torque spec. I usually use my home rattle gun which doesn't have a torque cutoff setting. It's a large steel bolt going into a large piece of steel with a "coarsish" thread, you're going to have trouble damaging it.

If you already have a tacho cluster, then that part is easy. The plugs should be identical. The centre part will already have a "Lo" light, it's just never been used. Need to trace the wire & hook it up to the tranny. The volts gauge will work straight away, no wiring change necessary. For the oil pressure gauge to work, move the wiring connector from the idiot light on the engine to the sender, then reroute the wire from the light on the dash to the cluster instead. If you don't have a tacho cluster already, then it'd be easier to buy aftermarket gauges, cos while the plugs in the back of the cluster are the same shape, none of the pins are the same, nor are most on the correct side plug.

Here, the spec was separated by the low roof vs high roof. The only low roof in a higher spec (and had the side trims on the tailgate), but still only manual windows, were the GL 2WD & single range 4wd, which were only sold here in 85 and maybe 86. I need to find someone good at photoshop to do some dummy renditions of how I'm thinking my car will look (and whether the effort to achieve this will be worthwhile). Problem is that I checked out a GTii Touring Wagon over the holidays, and whilst mine's got no rust, it's rust around the windscreen isn't so bad as I thought. Now I'm in 2 minds whether to put my RX checkered interior in that one, or strip that one & do a swap into my bodyshell. Both need a paint job (but mine only cos it's now about 5 different colours...)

Not as simple as that. Different markets & different years had different front diff ratios. The rear diff ratio must be the same. You can check each tranny by removing the drain plug, marking on of the teeth on the crown wheel, then spinning the gearbox by hand to count the teeth. 37 means you've got a 3.7 39 means 3.9 Is the matching rear diff for the dual range box available?

BTW, I'm waiting for the "donk" photoshop version

mmmm, kind of like the blackout roof on that one too. Thought about also doing that with mine, because the other thing I don't like about the touring wagons is that because the tailgate window is higher, the garnish beside them also extends higher, and then don't line up with the rain rails. But then it'll also hide the factory rubber rear spoiler I've got. Something that's really unique.

^^ ditto