Hello, new 1971 ff-1 owner

[frogmonk]

Hi all,

 

I'm not new to Subarus and have been a member of USMB for a while as a lurker. I've mainly visited the boards for reference information.

 

I've owned a total of eight Subarus. Three Foresters ('98 na,'04 XT, '04 XT), a Legacy wagon ('97), an SVX ('97), a WRX wagon ('02), a Baja Turbo ('05), and the newest acquisition is a 1971 ft-1 with 73K miles. I still have an '04 Forester XT that's modded, the '05 Baja, my daily driver that's also modded.

 

I found the ft-1 locally and quickly bought it since it was running and drivable. It had a hair over 72k miles and I drove it for 45 minutes on snow to get it into my garage. About 90% its parts are intact and work with the exception of the radio and parking lights. All other parts work including wipers, headlamps, hazards and turn signals. The drivers visor and inside door pull/handle are broken. My main concern with this car is its scarcity and finding replacement parts.

 

After some searching I found USMB to have the most members who own older Subaru's that are active on the boards, therefore the best source of information. I would like to be able to communicate with others who own ff-1's since there is limited amount of information out there about the car, and very few owners who are actively restoring or even driving these cars.

 

I am currently contemplating how much I will do to this car. I don't have any experience with restoration, so I'm guessing I will decide how far to go once I find out how much it will cost. For now, I foresee working the ft-1 and maintaining it as be a long term endeavor.

 

I'm glad to be here and looking forward to meeting others who are also working on these cars.

 

-Roman

Edited March 10, 2014 by frogmonk

[Scooner]

Welcome, I remember seeing this on craigslist, some of the guys on here were talking about how bad they thought the body putty must be, is it really bad or is that just paint on the sides?

[frogmonk]

Thanks for the warm welcome! The bondo work is actually done over sheet metal repair. There was a ton of snow here that just finally melted so I haven't done anything to the car aside from getting a new battery. The splotches you see in the pics is dirt. I'd like to give it a wash once it gets a little warmer. The guy who sold it to me buys and sells cars and didn't want to put more money in to it. The surface needs to be sanded a bit more and then primed. I'm still trying to decide how I should go about restoring the car. I don't really want to dump too much money into it and want to preserve as much of its originality. I'm open to suggestions.

[rustyra24]

Thats awesome look forward to the build.

[belacane]

Awesome ride! Looking forward to more.  Welcome

[frogmonk]

Hi all, just to update this thread, I have been looking around my area the last few months for an estimate to getting body work and paint done on the car. The estimates were spread out but none were cheap. I'm still up in the air about learning how to restore a car by myself or actually paying someone, but it looks like too much money will be involved in getting this car in a restored condition. All parts are intact in it with some needing repairs because they're broken, but the car runs well.

In fact I've been driving her around occasionally where I live just to keep the fluids flowing, but got the courage to finally see how she would do on the highway. I'm glad to say the she did not fall apart and ran like a top. I got her up to 65 mph but didn't push much higher. I kept thinking about the lack of replacement parts if she ever broke down. The only parts I've replaced are the battery and the dry-rotted white wall tires. Pretty amazing for an original car to drive and handle like it did on the expressway.

 

In case any of you have any kind of knowledge on replacement parts, I'm interested in sourcing out replacement rubber moldings that go around the doors and windows. I also need replacement inside door handles, window crank handles with knobs and a steering wheel. These parts are all in the car but they need repairs. Finding replacements will save a lot of time in repairs.

 

Stay tuned for the next update.