All Activity

Also - it looks like you've already fixed it good enough for rural TN if it doesn't leak coolant. LOL

You can just twist, pull, bend them back into shape. They're not that structurally important relative to the bumper beam, the top radiator support is very flimsy, it's not that stout. I've put on gloves and yanked them by hand forward a few inches before. Not gonna do that to a bent bumper beam. They're welded in place so the job is 300% harder if you have to cut and weld, which I've done before. Yes, totally repairable and easy. d If you want original show room lines it'll be harder than being okay with your hood lines being 2 mm off. I'm pretty sure TN Is very favorable to this but You should look into state laws on rebuilding and reconstructing if the insurance sends you a salvage title. If you're lucky the insurance just doesn't mess with it and doesn't send you a salvage title. THen you dont' have to do anything. But they're supposed to and usually do. If they do then you have to get it recertified by the state before you can title and tag it. You have to go through a separate inspection for that in some states. Some are rigorous and some are very easy and pass just about anything. Check that process out.

DRW works for me. I have gen one cars. Not sure how much he has for your generation but he seems to do a great job all around. On the gen one rear differential hanger bushings I did indeed have to cut out the sleeves. And his urethane replacements do not have either inner or outer sleeve. But there seems to be a lot of confidence in them as he makes them. From sight I’m thinking those control arm bushings aren’t much different in that they appear to have an inner and outer sleeve. But my eyes are old. Either way you’ll do well with one of the few small businesses helping us.

Car is done! Kept it two tone for the win. Purchased new sheet metal including radiator support, center hood stay, and right/left hand radiator panels for about $160. These come painted (black) from Subaru. Or just cut them out of a donor. I counted just over 20 spot welds for the total weld job. Didn't have to completely remove the fenders to access the weld points for the radiator support, just moved them aside. Removing the bent metal wasn't hard using a 3/8" spot welder hole saw removal tool and a drill motor to punch through the spot welds. For the rebuild, these welds are beyond the harbor freight 240V "pinch" spot welder in my opinion due to the lower section essentially welding to a tube. My neighbor has a HF MIG welder that did an excellent job welding the new metal in place. Just cover the whole engine first with fiberglass cloth to avoid hot slag melting the harness. Before removing any metal I marked the outline of the pieces to help line things up. Having the headlights in place helped line up the two radiator panels (actually they should be called condenser panels) prior to welding. The hood latch was aligned with the hood and clamped prior to welding. After welding, put the condenser/radiator/headlights/bumper/bumper cover back on.

08 running the 07 pump doing fine after 500 miles. 08 stock pump failure could be coincidence/foil scrap/or running without alt belt, which is probably just general good sense to avoid in the future. 07 running 08 pump also fine after driving around town for a few days.

I used DRW bushings. They work well and I've heard good things about them. Some bushings will need to be burned out with a blow torch and cleaned up with a steel pipe brush. Some bushings have metal sleeves that allowed them to be pressed in upon assembly at Fuji. If you burned out a bushing and the replacement one doesn't fit, check to see if there's a sleeve. The sleeves have to be cut out with a hacksaw (some bushings are designed to fit inside the sleeves so double-triple check before you go cutting away) It may be a good idea to inspect all the other bushings as well as your strut mounts.

Thanks. Yeah I’m not sure but I think ours is not CANBUS Hadn’t thought about a block swap. But given my space to work that’s getting more tricky. That’s why I’d hope to just do the full ECU, harness, and power plant in one shot. Kind of what folks did with second gen Legacys. Yes you’re right, I probably do need to wait to get past the law. But they upped it to 25 years now not 20 anymore. That could mean indeed be an issue since it has another emission test due. My state may have some flex. We are amazing cool with our lack of inspections. But the emissions you can’t too easily get around with these newer pieces of plastic. This 2.5 in our 06 is just annoying me. I probably need some patience and more time with it. Cheers !

Only the block is good for this swap. You’ll need to drop the block between the 2006 heads. This will allow you to run the factory engine management etc with the EJ22. There’s no other east way to do it without a whole lot of bastardisation that would need to be pioneered - even then it might not be too reliable. The other way to do it is with a complete harness layover of the EJ22’s engine management and ECU. This will have complications as your 2006 may be a CANBUS system and will throw a tonne of codes at you since it won’t know it’s running another engine. Emissions stuff may also be an issue doing it this way. In Oz you can’t put an older engine into a newer car like you’re suggesting. Swapping the block in between the factory 2006 heads would be the way to do it if it were me. You’d be copping a power loss with the reduction in displacement and there may be an issue with the “mushroom” shaped combustion chamber created with the EJ25 heads on the EJ22 - might not be an issue, I really don’t know for sure. Food for thought! Cheers Bennie

Superpro bushings

Annnnnd we're back from the holidays! Thanks to my storage solution for the Impreza husk I'm pretty motivated to get that disassembly completed enough to be able to get the shell out of my shop, and in order to do that I've determined I need to be able to mount and store the engine and transmission in their proper places in the brat before I can start installing and adapting the steering and suspension components in around that. First go at the transmission mockup was yesterday, but I didn't bother taking photos - it was a hassle to say the least, but i did learn some things. The transmission doesn't just 'drop in'. Not even close. Kinda expected this, but I'd still hoped for a little miracle. It's a difficult install without coming in from the bottom - next time I'm going to try to block the body up taller and lift it in from below with a HF special transmission jack. As mentioned in the last post, I'll need to modify the steering setup, either by installing the impreza rack, or somehow shifting the existing one without inducing any gnarly bumpsteer. Any suggestions there would be awesome. I've since been in touch with a guy who built a similar '79 wagon and his solution was to chop up the bell housing. I'm not really willing to go and do that (yet.). Lastly I'll need to modify both the trans tunnel and the crossmember. On newer builds there's enough room to stab the EJ transmission in just weld in an extra plate to relocate the mount holes to match. My particular car does not appear to have the clearance to do this, and I'm hoping not to put in a body lift so I will likely be adapting the EJ crossmember to fit in some way. If this proves to be fruitless or too complex I may explore the body lift at a later time. I'm planning on cutting the tunnel out just enough to get the transmission IN the car on its own, then I'll trim away as needed and splice the impreza tunnel in to get the bolt holes and mounting points I need. These new tidbits of knowledge in hand, I got to some more fruitful work today disassembling and disconnecting the front suspension so I can remove the Brat's transmission crossmember. Dirty work, and so many of these bolts were caked in 30 years worth of oil/dust/dirt crud mix it was hard to determine where they all were and bolt sizes. To be expected there were some siezed threads. I almost decided to just whip out the death wheel and start cutting, but I came to my senses when I remembered how hard parts are to find for these things so I'm going to do my best to affect a non-destructive disassembly where possible in the off chance someone needs some of the parts. Lastly the other day I also scored a deal on some inexpensive coilovers - almost no miles on them as the guy bought them to keep his "good ones" dust free while getting bodywork. Lucky me, as I don't need fancy or clean at this stage. The stock impreza suspension was giving me a headache on how to install them and were really going to be tight because of the spring diameter, but these have a much thinner spring and some really simple camber plates - something I'm very very able to make in order to fit the stock brat towers.

Fly by wire obstacle what else ?

I’ll ask around but figured I’d start here. I have a 2.2 and ECU and full harness. Also still have a running 94 Legacy with same EJ22 and all it’s associated bits. I am due to take the 94 off our books. It’s rotting in the corners etc but still functions fine. Looking for that more simple, more reliable power plant for our 2006 OBW.

Hi where can I find this bushings to ny loyale 89 ?

I’d be pulling the power from the accessories wire that comes from the ignition switch, add an appropriate fuse between the factory wire and the gang switch setup. This way a factory fuse doesn’t have to do the load of what ever its task is plus what ever load you add to it. There are also a product where the fuse is replaced by a block that adds two fuses and a power wire - one fuse operates the factory wiring and the second fuse is for the added power wire. Easy to use but not the neatest looking when you pop open the fuse panel’s cover. If there’s one it’ll look better than having two or more in there I reckon. I hope this helps. Cheers Bennie

I have a 2bbl Hitachi carburetor on my 85 gl wagon, I freshly rebuilt the carburetor, new everything, checked the float and valve seats to make sure they were sealing, made sure the solenoid in the top was working and everything. But now I have an issue where its running rich at idle even with the idle adjustment screw tightened all the way

Remove the lower kick panel on the drivers side. Get your head under there and look up at the side of the airbox. You will see the motor and linkage.

That is one way. Thought a guru would know

Copy that, it's the vent control motor that pooped according to the shop. So they are just wanting to manually set the airflow to feet and defrost. Pull apart the drivers side you say?

Time to break out the test light. Turn the key to the position, accessory or on, that you’re wanting power and find the fuse that is powered when it’s in that position. I don’t suggest hooking it to any of the engine related systems.

I have a 1986 DL wagon. I want to instal a 6 gang switch. The panel needs to be wired to the accessories fuse, the one that powers when the key is in. Which one is it?

As I'd indicate earlier,: The temp control is a cable that routes down to the passenger side of he center counsel. you can look up and see it move as you slide the temp lever. The vent control is electrical, push button control. Yes, sometimes it's the board in the controller that fails. You can change out the board. It goes down to an actuator on the drivers side of the center counsel. Pull the lower kick panel and then crawl up under there and you will see the linkage. I've had the linkage fail, the actuator or the control board. You Pull and Pay yards are your friends. Poke around there first is always a good idea. Once up under the dash, you could disconnect the linkage and move it where you want and safety in place somehow. Most of time it's the circuit board on the dash.

Pretty common to have other warning lights come on with the battery light. Our Honda Odyssey lights up like crazy when the alternator quits. That diode in the cluster prevents it from working the other way, though.

I have been tasked with manually moving the linkage for wife's friends son... Is manually moving and keeping it there even a possibility? I haven't had my '96 for over a decade so I can't run out and check. Thanks !

Likely as a failsafe. If the charge bulb burns out, the alternator would stop charging and there wouldn't be any other way to know until the battery's drained.