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There's been several threads lately about options for front struts, now that they're entirely unavailable in the US. With one of mine getting really wobbly, and my springs so flat that I've been sitting solid on the front bump stops (and ruining tires with the resultant camber) for the last year, I decided it was time to really look into my options for new parts. It turns out that ordering from Australia is a lot easier than I expected! This post will mostly focus on Gen II parts, since that's what I drive, but the info in it applies to all vehicles and anything else you want to order. I've looked in the past, and even emailed several places, both ebay sellers and local businesses, and very close to absolutely no one in Australia will ship to the US. There's one person on ebay with a small selection, charging a very hefty markup, and they have poor feedback. Australia has many parts options available - all of KYB, Monroe, Gabriel, and Sachs struts, both 4wd and 2wd and for every generation, two manufacturers of new springs, King and Lovells, in standard height, heavy duty, 1"/25mm lift, and lowered (are there people this silly?) versions, at least four options for control arm bushings, new copper-brass radiators, caster/camber adjustment kits, complete front caliper rebuild kits, fuel filters with the third nipple on top, brand new tie rod ends,... and no one will ship to the US. So what to do? Freight forwarding! I used AUSFF, https://www.ausff.com.au/ but there's other options. For a small fee, you have sellers ship them packages, then they ship them to you. All the steps I provide will be for AUSFF, but I assume the other options have a similar process. My experience with them was about average, so other options could be better or worse. Here's a little writeup on the whole process. First, you sign up, and pay a fee for the "plan" you want, which starts at AU$5 for one package. I got the AU$20 plan, which will ship up to 10 packages a month, with various extra services. The signup process is fairly typical. They talk about verification documents, but their faq mentions these are for high-risk transactions, and they didn't ask me to provide any of them. I guess no one scams people for old subaru parts. Next, if you're shopping on ebay, go to https://www.ebay.com.au/ , and log in using the same login you use for the US .com site - no need to create a new account or do anything special. Go to your profile, and add a new (additional, not primary) shipping address. Enter the address AUSFF, or your chosen freight forwarder, gives you. This will be an address in Australia that you can ship all your stuff to. AUSFF gives you a unique number you should ship things care of, like "C/O R123456", that you enter as the second line of your shipping address. If you don't do this, they won't know who the package is for, so make sure you enter it. Enter AUSFF's provided phone number and everything else they give you, none of your own address info. You can also order from local businesses. For example, Sparesbox, https://www.sparesbox.com.au/ , also has a good selection and significantly lower prices than ebay sellers (and they sponsor 4WD 24/7, so I'll give them a shout-out), and I would have ordered from them except they were out of stock on the springs I wanted. You should probably stick with sites that use shipping services rather than local store delivery, but you can also get local deliveries if you talk to AUSFF beforehand. Ship everything to your AUSFF address, of course. If you can't enter a second address line, put the c/o number on the end of your name, i.e. "John Doe C/O R123456". Note that AUSFF will not ship food, so no snacks, alas. Now, go shopping! I'll put links to some of the deals I found in a reply to this post, since they're probably transient, but here's an ebay search for most of the strut options I found. When shopping, you need to keep in mind the naming/model differences, and the currency differences. The latter is easier - at the time I'm writing this, an AUD is about 0.70USD. So, as a rough mental estimate, figure your USD cost is about 2/3rds of the AUD price. An AU$300 part is US$200. etc. The exchange rate will likely be different by the time you read this, so look it up before shopping. And then shipping and tariffs bring it up to about the same number again. Then, there's model names. "Brat", "GL", etc are US names (and one is a trim package that for some reason is used as a name, for reasons I still utterly fail to understand), and won't find any parts anywhere else in the world. The Brat is the Brumby in Australia, while other models were Leone, with Leone II being Gen II vehicles. There's also model codes, for example AU5 is a Gen II Brumby, while AM5 is a Leone II Estate (Gen II Wagon). You'll need to search with these names/models to find parts. Take note that ebay and other sites' fitment information is often **very** random. As an example, the fitment table might only specify a part fits the Sedan version (looking at you, Lovells Springs!), while it's identical on Wagons and Brumbys. Also common, parts will only say they fit Brumby (Aussies love their Utes!), while they'd also fit every other model of the same generation. Or the year range will be wrong (King Springs this time). Or they might be listed as fitting both your Gen II vehicle and a Gen III vehicle, but you know the parts are different. So do very wide searches and mentally filter based on your subaru knowledge rather than trying to search for exact model parts. Also remember some parts are still available in the US - you can get the KYB boot kit locally without paying international shipping and tariffs, for example. Add all the items you want to your cart, and go to check out. First, make sure to switch to your AUSFF (or other forwarder) address. It will then show correct shipping (usually free) and let you pay. When you pay, ebay will ask if you want to pay in AUD or USD. If you pay in USD, they will do the currency conversion for you, at a rate that's slightly worse than the current rate found elsewhere, and bill your payment method (credit card, paypal, etc) in USD. If you pay in AUD, they'll bill your card in AUD, and your bank may charge a foreign transaction fee in addition to using an unknown exchange rate. I used USD and let them handle it. If you pay with paypal in AUD, paypal will ask you the exact same question again, with a similar but slightly different exchange rate - again it's probably easier to let them do it, especially if you're using the pay later options. With non-ebay sites you'll probably pay in AUD and the rate will be up to your card issuer/bank. And now the waiting begins. But not much waiting. Most places ship AusPost or Aramex. Aramex has a rather spoob reputation, but I don't think the actual experience is worse than the budget couriers in the US. Both will get parts to AUSFF pretty quickly. Every time AUSFF gets a package, they email you with the tracking number of it. When AUSFF has all your packages, the next step is consolidation. Log in, select all your packages, and click the button to consolidate them. They'll open up the larger boxes and try to stuff the smaller boxes in too - for example, they stuck my tie rod ends inside my springs. This saves you a lot of postage getting them to the US, by shipping one package instead of several. They'll then wrap everything with plastic and tape it up. You can also ask for pictures of the items you got, scans of printed information, etc. When you get the notice that they've consolidated your parts, log in again, and select to ship your new consolidated package. You'll be given several options for how to ship it. FedEx Express was only a few dollars more than AusPost, and was 3-5 days instead of 3-5 weeks, so that's the one I went with. You'll need to provide the tariff information for your items, which is a short description of each item, a tariff code which you can look up at https://hts.usitc.gov/ (for example, 8708.80.1300 is McPherson Struts for non-agricultural vehicles), the value (price you paid), and country of origin (enter Australia if unknown). You can estimate the tariffs at https://www.simplyduty.com/import-calculator/ and other sites. At the time I write this, the Australia special rate for automotive parts seems to be 10%, but that might change in five minutes. With FedEx, they deliver your parts then bill you for the tariffs - I'm still waiting for my bill, so I don't know how paying them works yet. AUSFF has a box to check if you want insurance; I selected it. And now for more waiting, which is maybe little or lots depending on the service you selected. And then installing! Overall, the process was fairly painless. I spent a lot more time selecting parts than with the actual shipping. And with how much nicer my AM5 is driving now, I regret not doing this long ago!

Not super important. If you were dead bent on a dealer new part I’d say try a west coast dealer. And if you’re in the rust zone ask your dealer to use the west coast distributors. 26 years old it’s not likely any dealer will have one. So junkyard or one of us. I probably have those in a box. I parted out a couple of those wagons. I’ll check as I can but it’s killer cold here now. Name of the part? Buffer - according to the hatch on a 95-99 so I assume it’s the same name through the generations.

Like the title says.. the part is located next to the tail light on both sides where the liftgate comes down. They look like they are supposed to adjust or something but tried to move one the plastic just broke.

Winter freeze bump. Temps at the bottom so it’ll gradually be warmer each coming weekend. I think it’s a good deal as shown. Show up and I’ll likely donate more.

This brings me much joy, I was beginning to worry I would need ro rip apart another darling ER to do what I wanted.

Glad we could help! 🤣 I once purchased some super tuff suspension bushes for our Pajero from your side of the world cheaper delivered to me than I could buy them anywhere locally (including the extra for the exchange rate!). Thing that got me was they were made in Oz, sent to the US then sent back to Oz! How does a car part travel halfway around the world and back end up being cheaper than buying it where it started from??

They're from your part of the globe!

Whole gearbox swap = easier than repair. I find it easier to pull the gearbox out from under rather than pull the engine from above. The drive shafts can be left to slide off as you take the box out, no need to pull them off first. Once the gearbox is clear of the bellhousing of the engine, push it left, remove shaft then push it right and remove the other shaft. Lining it back up if stub axle is a little tricker but possible. I’ve done it several time now and it works a treat!

^ very nice!

yup, swap out the trans. you mentioned noise was only in 2nd gear. bad diff would make noise according to speed of the car regardless of gear

So shiny... I'll do a writeup later, maybe this weekend if I have time.

Changed the gear oil and sparklies were in the oil but no chunks...tried to feel in the drain hole and nothing there...The differential is 'part of' the transmission, correct - I may as well replace the whole trans vs. just the differential?

On the 3rd gens the outer seal is smaller, it fits around the inner boss of the hub. The inner seal is larger. It snugs up against the outer CV joint. The outer cup of the CV is the sealing surface so the seal is quite large.

I forgot it had electric power steering. So that's one less thing to worry about. lol 99% of the time the AC won't turn it, it's because you're low on refrigerant and the low pressure cutout switch is tripped. There's no point in doing any other diagnostics until you get a set of gauges on it and check the charge. An ER27 is a big EA82 engine, with the same bellhousing. A newer engine will need a bellhousing adapter and redrilled flywheel, unless you run a newer transmission too, which is its own whole set of adaptations. Pitch stop is the link on top of the engine to the firewall. You have to fab brackets for it for an engine swap.

Yeah I understand the back and forth version would be a project in of itself, i just like the idea of being able to enjoy my new Gen flat 6 without sacrificing my darling ER Anyways could you help me understand my powersteering situation a little better? Since its got the electric power steering, I dont see why i cant forgo the power steering pump on the EZ entirely, are the custom hoses for clearances purposes or? Also what's a pitch stop? Do EA transmissions fit up to the ER? I've seen conflicting things here Also you remind me, i don't know how or how to make my AC pump turn on, it hasn't bugged an inch nor have I been able to root around and find whether or not the thing is hooked up,

This is my end goal, when I have more money then time and no limit to what im capable of

On Gen II, inner and outer are the same seal.

That inner seal is the one that gave me the most issues. Seemed like the smaller the diameter of the seal, the easier to install. Probably less resistance because of the smaller surface area contacting the bore.

😬

I could be done if several components were adapted to work between the two engines. Wiring looms can be laid over each other and whichever one is needed is the one used. Realistically though, once you go for the larger power and more reliable engine you won’t look back. Tuck the original parts under the workbench all sealed up and labelled for a future resto - if it ever happens. That’s the plan for my brumby too - upgrade the drivetrain, everything factory that’s removed is kept for future resto options (that will no doubt never happen).

Someone in another thread recently said they couldn't find the right driver for installing front wheel seals, so here's the random find I've been using for Gen II seals, a HyperTough 64P-14 oil filter socket, with the outside very slightly filed for a looser fit in the knuckle.

There is no back-and-forth. The mods needed to fit a newer engine are extensive - you'd need to do a lot of work to make anything repeatedly swappable, and it'd still be a big project every time. For just a small part of the list, you can start with engine mounts, bellhousing adapter, modded flywheel, starter, fuel pump and plumbing, custom radiator hoses, custom power steering hoses, custom a/c hoses, engine computer and complete wiring harness, pitch stop, radiator fans, air intake, alternator wiring, vacuum hoses to body-mounted vacuum stuff, ignition coil stuff, etc etc etc... all of which you'd have to have two sets of and swap each time with the engine...

Ideally, id only be doing this for the ease of parts, if its possible I want to restore the engine and have the freedom to swap back and forth between my EZ and ER, thats a pet project for another post but for now, yes ill do all I can to keep the ER running.

Well, I don't think I'll be bothering with that step. I sat down the other day to install the timing kit, and immediately discovered what broke that chain - a seized intake cam. So in all likelyhood I'll just be pulling the motor and figuring it out from there.

If it were me, I'd be collecting parts to keep the ER running before thinking about an engine swap. I know the oil pumps and water pumps are higher flow than the EA pumps. Parts is going to be the everlasting gobstopper, you've just got to be stubborn and eat the elephant one bite at a time. My EA82 is the exact same way, but mine is more of a loping "rap rap rap rap" that's a lower tone, not a "clack" nor a "tick". But my oil pump also leaks from the "freeze plugs". Once my engine is warm it's quiet as a field mouse. I run 5w30 in the winter and 10w30 in the summer. If you have the vision, keeping the ER27 would be the way to go. They're very uncommon and you'd be keeping a piece of Subaru history alive. I've never had the privilege of hearing, seeing, or putting a wrench to one but if they're anything like their 4-cylinder brother, then it'd be extremely adverse to dying so long as the fluids are maintained. Good luck the XT6 is up there as one of the weirdest Subarus. :]