long travel Outbacks or making Subarus faster and more reliable offroad

[el_freddo]

11 hours ago, pontoontodd said:

This is nothing, you should have seen us when we were racing the buggy.

I can understand a race vehicle copping stuff like this, but a slightly modified passenger vehicle that does some mild offroading is another thing (oh, and for those that didn’t pick up on it, ^ insert sarcasm here). 

11 hours ago, pontoontodd said:

Only one out of five spokes is broken though

Well going by Meatloaf’s theory, you’re doing better than two out of three, so that ain’t bad - if you’re game!  

Cheers 

Bennie

[pontoontodd]

Video from our trip to the UP last year.  If you like extracting Subarus from mud you'll love this one:

 

[pontoontodd]

When I pulled the white Outback in the garage after firing it up outside in single digit (F) temps and doing a lot of steering it had puked some power steering fluid out.

When I was jacking it up to replace the automatic transmission I assumed was bad, I noticed the RR axle was pulled out of the rear diff. 

I thought I'd looked for that but apparently not.  Good reminder to diagnose thoroughly before undergoing major repairs.  The diff side seal was shot so I knew at a minimum we had to remove the axle.  Also you can see the inside of the diff carrier is quite worn but I wasn't too worried about that.

Noticed the inboard joint pulled apart easily, that was strangely worn like it had been overextended and wiped out the big snapring and groove.  Balls were no longer shiny and smooth.  Fortunately I had a spare axle for that corner.

Insert several hours of cussing here.  Seemed like the snapring wasn't really holding the axle in very firmly so I foolishly tried bending the snapring a little smaller.  Then the axle wouldn't go in at all.  Was able to remove and install that snapring a few times (of the course of said hours) but then it would be too small for the axle to go in all the way.  After some testing on other axles and diffs it just seems like they're pretty easy to pop out.  Seems like in the past they've taken some significant effort to remove.  Eventually I noticed the crosspin had turned (while the diff was still in the car).  At that point I figured we should just swap the diff.

Rollpin must be broken, haven't fully disassembled.

By removing both the rear cover studs we were able to swap the diff with only one axle/suspension corner disassembled, which is a huge time savings.  Took the car on a test drive, seems back to its normal level of slush.

While I was cussing, B replaced the side mirrors.

After the test drive, we installed the sandblasted and repainted front bumper and skidplate.

Doesn't match the lower half of the car nearly as well as the bumpers on the Impreza match it but I got them all painted together and figured this would be better than its previous rusty state.

So I guess we're doing a long term test on what a little brake fluid in your auto trans does.  I will change that soon but even a drain and refill on an auto trans only changes about half the fluid.

[pontoontodd]

I did change the auto trans fluid in the white Outback.  It seems to be driving as normally as a 4EAT can.

Got B's car back in the garage.  Timing belt is shredded into a few pieces.  All the idlers spin free and the tensioner was extended.

Removed the engine, took off the intake and heads.  All(?) the valves were bent.

You can see where a few of them hit the pistons.

Since he's had a few of these engines start to burn a lot of oil and we're assuming those were due to stuck rings, while we had the heads off we removed the pistons and replaced the rings.  First pin came out fairly easily but we made a tool for the slide hammer to remove the rest.  After we made and used this tool B noticed the Subaru FSM recommends using their tool which looks just like it.

The old oil control rings barely floated.  None of the rings stuck very far beyond the piston either and had about double the gap specified.  Bores were within .001" round and taper which amazed me for an engine with about 150k miles on it.  Gapped the new rings (they were all good out of the box) and put the pistons back in.  B had lapped all the valves and replaced the valve stem seals in a better used pair of heads he had.  New head gaskets, head bolts, seals, timing set, etc.

Tried the old packing with grease and hammering in a pin to push the pilot bearing out trick.  That didn't work.

So we replaced the pilot bearing in the conventional manner.

When I was tightening down the longest bolt for the PS pump it stripped out of the block.  Not enough room between engine and condenser to fit a drill and drill bit so I could install a thread repair.  Fortunately I was able to tap the hole deeper and use a longer bolt.

Cranked a few times for about ten seconds each with the coil pack unplugged so we could get some oil circulating.  Once we plugged that back in it fired right up.  Seems to idle a little low and rough to me but I don't know what's normal.  Runs smooth when you rev it up a little to 1000-2000RPM.  No noticeable leaks or smoke.  Just drove it out of the garage and back in the driveway but seems to be ready for another off road adventure.

Edited December 24, 2024 by pontoontodd

[Numbchux]

Yea, sometimes grease isn't thick enough and will push past the ball bearings. A slice or 2 of bread actually works better.

[travelvw]

On 12/24/2024 at 5:45 PM, pontoontodd said:

Just drove it out of the garage and back in the driveway but seems to be ready for another off road adventure.

Sweeeet!

K

[pontoontodd]

B and I decided to break in the engine on the Forester.  Didn't start and idle well at first.  Had a code for coolant temp high.  I found the coolant temp sensor and we hadn't plugged the connector in so B did that.  Seemed to idle smooth but he tried to do as little of that as possible.  Went out of town and tried to run it at moderate load and RPM for 20-30 minutes.  Ran as well as expected, temps were stable, sucked some coolant out of the overflow when it cooled off.

B's big project was replacing his hatch.  It'd been beat for a while, he got a better one over a year ago, wanted to wait until he had a good rear bumper to protect it.  Added some wire plugs because the junkyard had cut the wiring.  Swapped over wiper motor, lock, and actuator, got everything working.

[pontoontodd]

B's Forester continues to run well, isn't consuming much oil.

We started work on some rear strut tower braces for my Impreza. 

Didn't have couplers or enough tubing for a crossbar but we probably have over half the work done. 

Still have to space the seat latches and relocate the seat belts and add a spare tire mount too.

I've been fixated on carrying more fuel since our last trip out west.  Would have allowed us to get even farther off the beaten path before having to return to civilization for fuel.  I looked into rectangular off the shelf gas tanks but none of them seem to fit well in the spare tire well.  My latest idea is to just make one.  Two pieces of aluminum, fairly simply cut and bent. 

Can keep the floor flat this way, should hold 10-12 gallons.  Thinking I'll just make the flat flaps wide enough to bolt in under the strut tower braces.  Fairly easy/simple mounting and might stiffen the chassis a bit without adding a lot of weight.  Thinking 1/8" thick aluminum, two ports in the front, one high, one low.  Already have some of the parts.

Took the Impreza down to southern IL over the weekend.  Drove on a lot of icy/snowy back roads on our way to various hiking trails.  A few that were dirt but nothing real crazy.  One time we stopped on an icy uphill grade because there was another car parked off to the side and I decided to ask them if they needed anything.  They didn't but at first I was getting just some rear wheel spin trying to drive back up the hill.  Locked the center diff and drove up without any drama, after about ten or twenty seconds of that I unlocked it, never had to use it the rest of the weekend.