Help me save a 98 Impreza wagon.

[fishy]

Good day, fellow Subaru-minded folk!

 

I've recently picked up a 98 Impreza Brighton wagon on the cheap for a film project my friends and I are working on and being in east coast Canada the car is full of rust. Well the rear end is anyway. The rear wheel arches are a mess but I'm already gaining ground on those...

 

My main concern is the dreaded rusted out rear crossmember/subframe unit. On the driver's side there's a pretty good sized hole rotted through it. I'm fairly certain that I'm going to have to pull the crossmember to either repair or replace it but I wanted to know two things:

 

1) Does anyone have any life-saving tips for getting the crossmember out of a rusty old car? (I have an air impact gun which isn't SUPER potent, some hand tools, and some jack stands...)

2 Will the crossmember from a legacy or forester in that generation fit the impreza or are they different enough to be incompatible?

 

Any and all help appreciated. I've been reading lots about the crossmember curse but haven't really seen anything about cross-model compatibility.

[Fairtax4me]

Opposedforces.com can help you with parts interchangeability.

 

The cross member bolts go inside the frame where rust shouldn't get to them, but you never know. But you should be able to get them loose with a breaker bar and half inch socket if your Impact won't do it.

[fishy]

Opposedforces.com can help you with parts interchangeability.

 

The cross member bolts go inside the frame where rust shouldn't get to them, but you never know. But you should be able to get them loose with a breaker bar and half inch socket if your Impact won't do it.

 

 

Thanks for the info. I'm not yet familiar with opposedforces.com but it sure looks useful!