First Soob! 93 Loyale wagon ===>> College Adventuremobile project

[russellthehippo]

Hi all, I'm excited to be a new member of this community! Looks like a lot of good info and fun stuff gets shared here. I'm going to document my ride in this thread.

 

My beloved "Beast" - '92 Geo Metro - died a couple weeks ago (transmission) after getting me through two years of high school and three years of college.

I thought it would be hard to find anything as practical or as endearing as it was for me - boy was I wrong!

 

 

Enter Subaru! I am the proud new owner of this 1993 Loyale wagon with 4WD and the 5spd. Only 116,000 miles and in beautiful condition for only $1,500. It's mechanically sound - except for a hole in the muffler and a potentially busted catalytic converter (slight burning smell) - and starts, runs, and shifts like a dream. Old owner changed ball joints, struts, timing belts, battery, engine seals, water pump, fuel pump, and some other little stuff (with documentation ). So the first thing I did was drive it up a mountain on rough, muddy old logging roads, and the 4WD works like a dream even with stock 13 inch all-seasons. 

 

I have big plans to turn this into my next Adventuremobile and hope to get to at least 250,000 miles with regular TLC, or at least until autonomous electric vehicles render these fabulous cars functionally obsolete. First things first: I proceeded to take it home and rip out the ancient rotting speakers and the terrible cassette/radio head unit. 

Here's the plans:

Now:
I'm going to get new hatch struts - the old ones are pretty weak and future plans necessitate this.

Next I'm going to put in a solid sound system. I don't need to wake the neighbors, but I want to be able to hear my low- and mid-range bass and drum tones doing 65 mph with the windows down.   Plus, I want all my sound components hidden, out of the way of the Soob's extreme practicality. I'm going to put four of these thin-profile Kicker speakers in the doors, this shallow-mount 8" subwoofer in the liftgate with a custom enclosure - hopefully this isn't too hard/is possible - and hook it all together with this 4-channel Planet Audio 800W amp and this Bluetooth-ready head unit. Should be a massive sound upgrade without too much cost.

 

I'm also going to do the classic new-used car routine: new spark plugs & wires, change oil/filter, air filter, tranny fluid, steering fluid, flush coolant.

I'm also probably going to play it safe and replace the vacuum lines and radiator hoses, get new brakes, clean out the EGR (replace if necessary for $70 or just plug the vacuum line), and probably the entire exhaust system (might use a cat, might not - no emissions checks here in Idaho and I don't want to deal with the hassle). 

 

Later:

One thing I love is tailgate camping, with music/light coming from the car so you don't have to get out a bunch of complicated equipment. So with that in mind, I also want to put two or four speakers into the liftgate/trunk area to play some tunes out the back when the hatch is up. Also in the trunk I want to inset some LED light bars so I can light up a campsite or whatever else without taxing the battery too much. I kind of want to add a 120V plugin or two in the back as well. This all should complete a pretty dope hatch setup for camping, etc while complementing the sound system (but not breaking the bank). 

 

Next is a roof rack - probably some simple, cheap gutter-clamp rack with crossbars which I can use for mountain bikes, kayaks, and mattresses.  

If I get real adventurous I might add fog lights or a towing hitch. 

 

I'm aiming to keep the whole project under $3,000 total - so my modifications budget is $1,500. 

 

What do you guys think? What suggestions do you have? Which should I watch out for, replace, or modify on a '93 Loyale? Do you think this is doable within my budget? How do you think this Loyale would do on a 4,000-mile road trip to Juneau, Alaska and back? Any other PNW folks around?

 

I'm excited to join this community, get started on this project and hear your feedback.

 

Cheers!

 

 

[Mechanical_misfit]

Welcome to the club. Sweet loyale! I think your budget seems reasonable. You will find all the knowledge you could possibly need here for that car.

[MR_Loyale]

Congrats. My first new car is a 1993 Loyale sedan which I still drive today. Note that the original speakers on the Loyales used a common ground whereas modern speaker use separate negatives for each speaker and you cannot tie them together. 

 

What this means is you should not use the current speaker wire instead run your own. The risk is damage to your newer unit. Many a thread have been written about this over the years.

 

There are a couple of small coolant lines that tend to leak in old age and should be replaced as a preventative measure. One is in font of the throttle body and one is behind. These only tend to leak at high revs so making it hard to diagnose by looking at an idling engine.  Replacing any and all rubber under the hood is good prevention.

Edited June 23, 2017 by MR_Loyale

[el_freddo]

I love my L too!

 

Funnily enough it started off pretty much the same as what yours looks like in the pic above - hubcaps and all!

 

After a long time with the vehicle and working on it you could say it's "slightly modified"

 

I've made a rear cargo storage area for mine by mounting some captive nuts inside the chassis rails.  This fits my 42 litre Engel fridge, camp stove, food, tools, recovery gear and camp furniture etc.

 

Heaps of stuff you can do with the back of these, especially if you don't need your back seat - you have the potential to make an awesome storage/sleeping setup for one in there with a full length bed by tilting the front seat forward.

 

Cheers

Bennie