el_freddo Posted November 13 Share Posted November 13 For weight distribution you’re almost better off putting a quality fuel cell behind the front seats in the foot wells. Im loving the bracing work. My L series could do with this! Although if I tightened up the rear end like this the rest of the body would probably take up more of the body flex and create other issues… Cheers Bennie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontoontodd Posted November 13 Author Share Posted November 13 5 hours ago, el_freddo said: For weight distribution you’re almost better off putting a quality fuel cell behind the front seats in the foot wells. Im loving the bracing work. My L series could do with this! Although if I tightened up the rear end like this the rest of the body would probably take up more of the body flex and create other issues… Cheers Bennie We do have people riding in our back seats from time to time but boxy fuel cells in the rear wheel wells would be pretty simple, cheap, and low center of gravity. My green Impreza is a little front heavy though, plus putting the fuel tank in the tire well will be easier to slap a piece of sheet metal over for more fire/leak protection. Excellent point about the bracing. Certainly a valid concern, guess we'll see what happens. On the blue Forester in particular the LR strut tower appears to have been replaced in a crash and we've already had to weld it several times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontoontodd Posted November 13 Author Share Posted November 13 (edited) Video from our trip to the UP June 2022. Plan to catch up on these over the winter. Edited November 13 by pontoontodd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontoontodd Posted November 15 Author Share Posted November 15 (edited) Video from our trip to Minnesota (a little bit in northern WI on the way) August 2022. Decent trail riding but overall not as good as the UP, even more mosquito infested, and farther from home. Plenty of beaver dam breaking opportunities though. Next one will be our trip out west October 2022. Probably the most scenic trip we've ever taken. Might take a while to edit that one, got a good amount of video that week. Edited November 15 by pontoontodd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
travelvw Posted November 15 Share Posted November 15 Nice to see a rear bumper on yours and a rear strut tower bracing on B's that continues to come apart due to rust and wreck. Thanks for taking the time to edit and post these Mr P Todd! K Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontoontodd Posted November 15 Author Share Posted November 15 28 minutes ago, travelvw said: Nice to see a rear bumper on yours and a rear strut tower bracing on B's that continues to come apart due to rust and wreck. Thanks for taking the time to edit and post these Mr P Todd! K I'm sure the way we drive these cars has nothing to do with the strut towers coming apart, definitely just the rust and previous crash damage. You're welcome Mr T VW! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontoontodd Posted November 27 Author Share Posted November 27 B and I moved most of the rest of my business inventory to my machine shop across town. We took one trip with his Forester and my white Outback loaded with parts. Then while he was working on his car I loaded the white Outback up with another literal ton of parts. Almost as soon as we started driving the transmission acted like it was slipping. Got to the shop and unloaded everything, still slipping on the way back and has been ever since. I tried adding some brake fluid since my brother knows some people who've had temporary success with it but it didn't really seem to help. Plan to get a lower mileage replacement trans from a junkyard and hopefully a tan leather driver's seat while I'm at it. The Impreza has been taking a while to start fairly often since the swap after it sits overnight or longer. Sometimes it takes two or three tries before it starts. A while back I discovered this was because the crank position sensor wasn't generating enough voltage while cranking. Voltage signal on the Haltech oscilloscope looked decent but it wasn't enough. I lowered the threshold voltage and also added a column for 0RPM which seemed to help but still wasn't a complete fix. Then it just wouldn't start, was giving crank position and throttle body codes. I took apart the engine harness connector as that's been the source of most of my problems and the wire pulled out of the pin for the crank position sensor. I repinned that and checked the throttle body connections and it started and no longer had those errors but it was running rough, probably on five cylinders. I decided I'd had enough and ordered some closed barrel pin connectors and a tool from JR Ready. I'm not a huge fan as they're made in China and I don't like how closed barrel pins don't crimp on the insulation but M says they're the best thing they've found for wiring airplanes so I figure it might be good enough for trail riding in a Subaru. The week before we left I rewired the engine harness plug on the Impreza with some help from B. Shortened up the wires with a couple feet of excess length in the process. Directly wired the throttle body and MAP sensors to the ECU as they're pretty easy to unplug and then I'd have one less connection in line and fewer things to run through the connectors I added. Added four Deutsch connectors with closed barrel pins. I did zip tie them away from that bracket after I took that picture. Labeled and checked wires, pinned out the connectors, double checked wire color matches and tried to start the car Thursday. Only cranked but didn't fire. I checked various things, sensors seemed to be reading except the cam and crank position sensors. Then I realized I hadn't plugged that connector in. Then it fired up. Overall pretty happy with how that turned out, should be much easier to repin those connectors and the reduced wiring under the dash makes it cleaner and allows the glovebox to fit better. Bit of a last minute fix finishing that the day before we left but I'm glad I did it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontoontodd Posted December 1 Author Share Posted December 1 (edited) I wasn't the only one doing last minute prep on my car, slammo put his old skidplate on his daily driver and met up with us. Friday I picked up the bumpers from the paint shop but didn't have time to install before I left since I was packing the car. B and I drove down through Joplin MO and we found a campground south of there that had tent sites. Slammo and travelvw camped at this site. Saturday morning we headed south and met slammo and travelvw in Talihina OK. We drove east on highway 1 into AR. Did some trail riding there with travelvw mostly leading the way. Slammo and I both got to drive travelvw's bug. It rode quite rough as he has much too large torsion bars in the rear. He said the limited slip makes a big difference and it definitely looked like it on loose climbs, much less wheelspin than I would have expected. Travelvw's windshield washing technology: Near the end of the day we drove to the top of Eagle mountain. There was a rocky obstacle near the top that slammo left his car at the bottom of. B and travelvw were getting video so I took the most difficult line and put a hole in my RF tire sidewall. We swapped on the spare and drove to the top. A little off to the side of the building at the top there's a nice rocky outcrop with a good view. We camped at a site travelvw had been to before where two streams came together with some little rapids. We left slammo's car there for the day. Sunday morning I found this weirdly rotted out trunk near the campsite. We headed east. Hiked to a couple different old lookout towers, one a much longer hike and also more intact than the other. From the intact one you could see the hills/mountains generally run east/west. Views were good but it was overcast most of the weekend, on a sunny day they would have been great. Eventually travelvw had to head back north and we headed back west on some different trails. We went to the two footed oak tree which is bizarre. Went back to the campsite. We all planned to be back home Monday night so we figured we only had a few hours for trail riding Monday morning. We'd crossed a powerline grade near the campsite so we went to check that out first. It turned out to be a dead end but a decent hill climb. Headed north into Mena to get gas. Saw some plane junkyards at the airport. Decided to check out Top Walker Mountain road on the way north. Quite a few side trails on the way there. Drove to the end of the side trail/ridge on the map. There were a couple of narrower trails so we tried one of those, it dead ended at Round Mountain. Again, pretty good views but would be really cool in clearer weather. Before we got back on the tarmac for good we aired up and ate some sandwiches. We hadn't made it very far north when the Forester's engine suddenly stopped running going up a long grade and he pulled over on the (fortunately wide) shoulder. Engine cranked over fine, too well really, sounded like it had no compression so we assumed timing belt failure of some kind. Hooked up the tow bar to my Impreza. Had never towed with it before, has no wiring set up for towing. Towed Forester to the nearest off ramp. Slammo convinced us to do some wiring so we got some scotch locks and a four pin wiring pigtail from a parts store and wired up running lights and brake lights to the magnetic mount lights. Continued north, seemed a little squirrely when braking but not terrible. Slammo split off at Joplin to the north and we headed east. When I pulled into the next gas station in the dark it felt worse and I could see the Forester was clearly off center. Fortunately it has no problem driving over curbs. At this point only one leg of the tow bar was attached to the Forester. We straightened out the tabs and cranked all the bolts down and added a ratchet strap to keep the legs of the tow bar from spreading. After that it was much more stable the entire ride home. B took part of the timing cover off at one stop and confirmed the timing belt was loose. Didn't see this until after we got home. It's been a while since I've worked on EJ engines but I don't think you're supposed to see the timing belt through the cover and that looks like the wrong side of the belt. We both think the Impreza can hold grades better while towing the Forester than the Forester can while powering itself. I don't think we burned significantly more gas on the way home either but my speedo/odo still isn't working so I'm not sure. Overall a decent trip. Weather was pretty good. We never got stuck but I did get a flat tire and B's engine clearly needs some work. It probably needs new heads or at least valves. He does have two pairs of probably good heads in his basement. Impreza ran well all weekend. Did take three tries to start once but generally started pretty quickly so I'd say the rewiring was a success. I'm going to try a different crank position sensor and eventually probably shimming/shaving it up or down to get more cranking voltage. Edited December 2 by pontoontodd 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slammo Posted December 2 Share Posted December 2 Weekend was a blast, glad we could make it happen! My daily definitely has a few more dents and scratches than it used to, but well worth it! It's been too long since I've taken a Subaru off road. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
travelvw Posted December 2 Share Posted December 2 Oh no, timing belt failure! Otherwise, this topic needs to be changed to 'Long travel first gen IS faster and more reliable off-road'. That car is a beast! Great to see you guys, thanks for coming out to the Ozarks. K Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontoontodd Posted December 2 Author Share Posted December 2 Also forgot to mention, ran the AC on some fairly long climbs when it was 60F and temp gauge never budged. Not conclusive but I'm pretty sure under similar conditions it would have started going up on the trip out west, so hopefully the thermostat fixed that problem. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numbchux Posted December 2 Share Posted December 2 Yea, timing belt broken while running almost certainly needs most of the valves replaced. But they don't usually damage anything else Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontoontodd Posted December 2 Author Share Posted December 2 59 minutes ago, Numbchux said: Yea, timing belt broken while running almost certainly needs most of the valves replaced. But they don't usually damage anything else That'd be good. A little worried it messed up a piston or bore but guess we'll just have to wait and see. B dug out his best pair of heads, cleaned them up, and lapped in most of the valves this weekend. I worked on the tow bar a bit and installed the painted rear bumper on the Impreza. Already got a couple compliments on it running some errands in town this morning. Should make recovery easier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
el_freddo Posted December 3 Share Posted December 3 Man epic trips again, awesome to see some forum members jumping in on the action too! I didn’t realise travelvw was that close to you guys! I’m a bit jealous you guys can tow a vehicle like that using a hitch. I saw this as the laws over here in our nanny country (when it comes to vehicles) require the tow vehicle be 1.5 times the weight of the vehicle being towed from memory. So I can’t tow the brumby behind the family bus because the family bus isn’t heavy enough. But put it on a trailer and it’s all good. Must have something to do with no braking on the tow vehicle and steering becomes a bit more difficult I’d say. I digress… Shame about the cam belt! When was it done last? It’ll be interesting to see if the cogged idler was the culprit. Cheers Bennie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontoontodd Posted December 3 Author Share Posted December 3 9 hours ago, el_freddo said: Man epic trips again, awesome to see some forum members jumping in on the action too! I didn’t realise travelvw was that close to you guys! I’m a bit jealous you guys can tow a vehicle like that using a hitch. I saw this as the laws over here in our nanny country (when it comes to vehicles) require the tow vehicle be 1.5 times the weight of the vehicle being towed from memory. So I can’t tow the brumby behind the family bus because the family bus isn’t heavy enough. But put it on a trailer and it’s all good. Must have something to do with no braking on the tow vehicle and steering becomes a bit more difficult I’d say. I digress… Shame about the cam belt! When was it done last? It’ll be interesting to see if the cogged idler was the culprit. Cheers Bennie Travelvw isn't real close to us but close to Arkansas. We've met him and slammo down there a few times. Quite a few trails there and it's almost never too cold for tent camping. Kinda far from home for B and I so we tend to go there in the spring and fall when it's too cold or snowy in the UP. Closer than going out west though. Not going to tell you it's safe to flat tow like that but it's plenty stable with a decent tow bar. There's a significant number of people who will buy two (or three) vehicles at a time at an auction and link them together this way and drive them long distances. We see them fairly often on our way to Arkansas in particular. Most of them seem to survive. Braking is obviously half (or less) normal so you have to be careful. Towing with trailer brakes would be significantly safer. B thinks he did the belt about 35,000 miles ago. Can't remember for sure but I think he did the tensioner/idlers. Know the current best brand belt/tensioners/idler/water pump to use? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slammo Posted December 3 Share Posted December 3 Rear bumper looks sturdy, is that the same color as the front bumper? Would be really nice to have a way to use the towed vehicle's brakes when flat towing, but any solution I can come up with gets too complicated too quickly. Skid plate on my stock-height car definitely took a beating, will have to post pics later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontoontodd Posted December 3 Author Share Posted December 3 1 hour ago, slammo said: Rear bumper looks sturdy, is that the same color as the front bumper? Would be really nice to have a way to use the towed vehicle's brakes when flat towing, but any solution I can come up with gets too complicated too quickly. Skid plate on my stock-height car definitely took a beating, will have to post pics later. Yes, rear bumper same gray color as front, roughly matches the bottom of the body. Agreed on the towed vehicle braking. Maybe the simplest would be to have an extra master cylinder plumbed in that the tongue would push on. Have seen this on some boat trailers. Could just have the extra master on a hose and store it somewhere on the vehicle when not towing. Also have discussed wiring a trailer light pigtail into the front of each car so we don't have to use the magnetic lights. But all of those things require a significant amount of work on all of the cars. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontoontodd Posted December 3 Author Share Posted December 3 1 hour ago, slammo said: Rear bumper looks sturdy, is that the same color as the front bumper? Would be really nice to have a way to use the towed vehicle's brakes when flat towing, but any solution I can come up with gets too complicated too quickly. Skid plate on my stock-height car definitely took a beating, will have to post pics later. Yes, rear bumper same gray color as front, roughly matches the bottom of the body. Agreed on the towed vehicle braking. Maybe the simplest would be to have an extra master cylinder plumbed in that the tongue would push on. Have seen this on some boat trailers. Could just have the extra master on a hose and store it somewhere on the vehicle when not towing. Also have discussed wiring a trailer light pigtail into the front of each car so we don't have to use the magnetic lights. But all of those things require a significant amount of work on all of the cars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slammo Posted December 3 Share Posted December 3 (edited) Yeah the light wiring harness/plug seems 100% worth it, better to do that all in your own garage rather than having to wing it on the road. Plus, magnetic trailer lights would be one less thing to carry. Turns out taking a stock-height Subaru off road can be pretty hard on the skid plate. Glad I wasn't trying to keep up with the long travel cars all weekend haha. Looking forward to getting mine put together soon-ish. Edited December 3 by slammo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
el_freddo Posted December 5 Share Posted December 5 On 12/4/2024 at 7:32 AM, pontoontodd said: There's a significant number of people who will buy two (or three) vehicles at a time at an auction and link them together this way and drive them long distances. We see them fairly often on our way to Arkansas in particular. Most of them seem to survive. Braking is obviously half (or less) normal so you have to be careful. That’s nuts! You’d never hear away with that over here!! Not having any provision to utilise the towed vehicle’s brakes is the major issue - I couldn’t imaging two or three towed vehicles being much fun at all, regardless of how oversized your “utes” are over there (we're seeing more and more of them on our roads down here and they suck unless actually used for their towing capacity). We do have road trains though, and down in Victoria where I’m located we’re finally seeing them on our roads - only two trailers or B-triple configurations, much like NSW does. I believe QLD, NT, SA and WA all do three trailers with WA having a five trailer combo in the mining areas! Awesome bit of engineering and I wouldn’t mind driving one myself sometime… I digress. Cheers Bennie 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontoontodd Posted December 6 Author Share Posted December 6 Finally edited and posted video from our trip out west in 2022. short version: long version: maybe the most scenic off road trip we've ever done Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontoontodd Posted December 8 Author Share Posted December 8 Got the tire with the hole in the sidewall replaced under the Discount tire road hazard warranty. When I got the wheel back I noticed this crack through one of the spokes. Not sure how we didn't notice that, maybe the tire machine opened it up a bit. M stopped by to plug a tire on his wife's late model Outback. He noticed my tire reamer is quite worn. It's been used a few times. I tried a different crank position sensor on the Impreza, same voltage as the old one while cranking. Been starting fine but just want to be sure. I also replaced the RF tie rod which was quite sloppy, that was the corner I cracked the wheel and popped the tire on. B worked on his heads some more, got one almost fully assembled and started lapping valves on the other one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numbchux Posted December 9 Share Posted December 9 Woa. That's a serious and alarming crack 😲 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
el_freddo Posted December 10 Share Posted December 10 Geez, you guys know how to break stuff good. I’m glad you found that now. I’m surprised the tyre joint didn’t contact you about it as they did the work or alert you about it when they handed the completed work back to you! Cheers Bennie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontoontodd Posted December 10 Author Share Posted December 10 14 hours ago, el_freddo said: Geez, you guys know how to break stuff good. I’m glad you found that now. I’m surprised the tyre joint didn’t contact you about it as they did the work or alert you about it when they handed the completed work back to you! Cheers Bennie This is nothing, you should have seen us when we were racing the buggy. I did tell them it was cracked (at the time I'd only seen the small crack in the bead area and they've seen that before) and I didn't want them to put the new tire on it but I wanted it back. So they might have thought I'd already noticed the larger crack. Only one out of five spokes is broken though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now