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Got this car for free it's extremely rusty, but I think it'll be a great trail rig. I'm already a couple months into the build and it should be ready for the trails real soon. My first subaru was a 1991 Loyale 5 Speed 4x4 I picked up for $675. The two following years it received a 2" lift, 29 inch tires, a 5 speed dualrange swap, a welded rear diff and an EJ22 swap. The entire driveline was donated to the brat. I'm hoping to get the loyale running again with the stock EA82 and 5 speed pushbutton 4WD. I also had a red Loyale for about a year. What's been done to the BRAT 4/3 inch homebrew lift EA82 Front End Front to back tube chassis Ej22 Swap 5 Speed Dualrange Welded Rear Diff Rock Sliders Rear shock hoops Fuel Cell EA81/EA82 hybrid rear axles to name a few... This is it's current condition. Updated as of October 26 2018 This whole build was done with just an angle grinder, bandsaw, and a welder in the garage. My Loyale Pictures from the previous owner. Originally a New Mexico car. Rusted to spoob and the pictures don't do justice. I had to drive 2 hours to San Diego to pick it up and used 2 triple A tows to get it home. At least it had a clean title. Engine ran, but only on 3 cylinders. No power. I think that engine was toast. Mileage was unknown. Finally got it home, at least he left the cyclops light grille and a fairly complete interior. Exterior wise everything was missing Flat towed it to the DMV to register it. Over the next few months I started to collect all the missing exterior parts. Here is what it looked like after I got all the parts. MINT jump seats and headrests!!! Stole the EJ22/Harness, 5 Speed dualrange, driveshaft, and welded rear diff courtesy of the Loyale But before I could put any of those parts in, I wanted to change over to EA82 front suspension as it is superior, wider track, and has power steering. The EA82 front crossmember was wider, so I had to offset the holes on the lift blocks. Then the blocks got linked together with DOM tubing. Finally the EA82 front suspension was on minus the front lift blocks. The whole front suspension was scavenged from an 85 GL. All the EA81 front suspension was ripped out. I was doing a 4/3 Inch lift and the subframe for the front was dropped 4 inches. You can see here how the subframe block holes are offset. I think around an inch each hole was offset Here are my designs for the EA81 to EA82 subframe blocks. On the subframe blocks on the engine crossmember closest to the cab, the holes were offset about 1.25 inches. On the subframe blocks on the engine xmember closest to the front clip, the holes were offset 1 inch. See the pictures to get what i'm saying. Blocks on the crossmember and blocks on the radius rod/transmission mount. Then linked all the blocks. Front xmember, trans xmember. Some sick notching. Done by hand I also decided it would be best to extend the radius rods. I extended them 1.5" to help clear my 29's. Note : you need to notch the holes in the control arms. 1.5" imo was a little to much. Now onto making the front strut lift blocks.cut at 6 degrees had an assload of camber... Finished product. Blocks tacked together Now onto the rear end. Very simple I used 4 pieces of 3x2x2" square tubing to lift the rear torsion bars. I also dropped the rear Diff the same amount which required 4 blocks of the same 3x2x2" tubing. Rear lift blocks in. And I know this thing is rusty. Rear lift blocks got linked as well. Threw in the Ej22 along with the 5 speed transmission, rear diff and driveshaft. To make the 5 Speed dualrange fit, I used the 4 speed mounting brackets which were modified. The holes in the bracket were elongated. Than the 4 speed transmission bracket and mounts were able to be used, to bolt to the 4 speed trans crossmember. The trans crossmember holes had to be notched. Wiring I went with a different approach than in the loyale. Everything power related was hooked to a switch panel like the on, start, fuel pump, and acc. I believe I only spliced the harness to two wires, the tachometer and the VSS. Well it finally ran and drove! I also made a quick front bumper for it. First time out of the garage. Drove ok but had no rear shocks, and the steering was sloppy. The steering I had in was a manual EA82 rack, and I had like 3 u-joints which made for ultra sloppy steering. Drove it 10 minutes to Agoura Hills. Had some extreme issues with it dying when coming to a stop. I still haven't fixed it but I do believe its because of my broken Speedo cable tripping up my VSS. Driving it with no shocks was sketch. Back end was wayyy to soft and hopped all over the place driving down the road. Had to hit a trail on the way home. No rear axles. I started working on welding in shock hoops for the rear. Used 3/16 plate to weld to the frame rails along the pinch welds, and generic shock hoops bought offline. Eventually this will also be linked to the tube chassis. Here is the drivers side welded in Both hoops welded in. Yes the passenger side hoop had to be angled. Linked the two hoops together for uber strength. I'd like to see how this holds up as the frame rails are super thin. And this is my fuel cell I mentioned. It's plastic. The whole front end was finished being tubed, so it got hit with a coat of paint. Got around to swapping in a blown power steering rack from my loyale. I had to extend my current (90-94 legacy) steering knuckle a couple inches to make it work. The new steering joint and blown power steering rack cured the sloppy steering. Eventually I'll have power steering in it. I have a whole new power steering rack and tie rods in the garage but I need to find lines to make it work with the EJ. The tube chassis was nearing completion, so I took it 45 minutes away to a trail in Malibu. Despite it being FWD I was able to make it up most obstacles. My friend in his first gen 4runner was spinning tires (open/open diffs). I struggled but bumping it I made it up more obstacles than I expected. Stay tuned. In my next post the rock sliders will be fished and i'll show some pictures of the tube chassis.

have a look - if you can find a known good axle/not broken boot one to start with, then decide. if you can't...well then the decision might be made for you... i've had decent luck repacking noisy axles, but they're axles i know the history of and they were highly quality to start with, not aftermarket. if they're aftermarket i'd just move on. if Subaru maybe repack them and see. you can even stuff grease up in there really good by hand and see if the noises change. if a little grease quiets them up for 10 miles (it slings right back out) then you know it's worth a proper clean/repacking.

Nah - that's the inner joint of the CV axle. Swapping axles will change the symptoms and verify. It could be the bearing, they're supposed to be installed with a hub tamer, not a press. If they damaged it by using a press then the bearings and hub will need replaced. Your symptoms are classic inner CV joint issues though, the bearings can cause varying noises around turns but usually aren't so throttle dependent, that's classic inner CV stuff. Get a new OEM axle or used OEM and reboot it and never think about it again If the seized axle thing happens on the other side - just take the knuckle/axle off the car, reboot, and reinstall as an assembly, no need to remove the axle from the knuckle. I've even done them without removing the axle from the knuckle but that's probably not most people's cup of tea and is a better fit for the newer 2000+ style outer boots that last forever and don't need replaced every time an axle comes out. speaking of which - i think you can use a 2000-2004 legacy axle on your car, i used to use them all the time on 95-99 EJ's when I used to work on those older subaru's. they have better outer boots and they're newer. i don't think a FWD imp is any different so that might be a good option.

It really doesn't matter to me how many "likes" a car has or how many people have photos of it on their phones. Intakes through the middle of the hood are an automatic boner-killer... Kudos to you for starting with a junker, a great looking one at that. Thank you for leaving the nice ones for the enthusiasts.

Hello everyone. Subarus are amazing cars and outbacks are so good family/adventurer rides, just if you do something with front and rear bumpers. Well front is must So my model is kinda rear outback 2001 , 2.5 , 4eat , VDC , rear LSD diff. Yes its one of those early 2.5 engine VDC models. Those kinda rare to see out there. So make it short this how it went from stock when i bought it in 2014 to this day And what you see here and not see are: 2" lift spacers 215/65 r16 BFG TA KO2 Custom UEL headers Removed front and rear stabilizers Front and rear bumper cuts Custom 1x1.8m roof rack Front and rear hi lift jack mounts And it drives on LPG. Lpg tank is in spare tire place. I have build topic in another place but to make it short and compact info thought to put it here as well. So first thing i noticed was very low front bumper even with lift it was just going in the way all times. So front bumper was going in half so time ago and rear i cut not so long time ago. Now its much much more capable drive trough stuff And things that i most proud of are hi lift jack mounts. I made adapter for hi lift myself and then front and rear mounts in car. And its just another world how fast and east you can recover yourself from bad situations without any help Its just makes all difference from staying stuck and going look for help to just lifting car and driving out Took me about 20 min to drive out from this. Most part of that time for digging. I bought hi lift jack after got stuck one time in middle of forest and there was noone to pull me off. Car was there 2 more days before i got it out. Would be simple job with hi lift. So now im just ready. And hi lift can be used as to pull car forward or backwards too as hand winch. Leds in front bumper for more light in bush. It spreads to sides to well Some plasti dip for more interesting look. And those bumper cuts just let me go on obstacles that i couldnt go before Removed stabilizers helps with better articulation gives it about + 5-8cm more suspension travel front and rear And VDC really loves when it gets more grip with that . just makes car even more capable. And no problems without sway bars on low and high speeds. You just need get used to it. Then it feels just natural.

Not sure if it's necessary, but move the cam and crank sensors over too. One less thing to troubleshoot.

if the triggers are in the same place and have same count use what you wish. O.

Looks good mate. I love your shopping trolley roof basket! You’ll love the EJ and dual range. It’ll actually be able to go off-road Cheers Bennie

622018000 NLA new

One thing I'll add..... To my knowledge I have never had an engine blow a head gasket after I've replaced it. I've been doing this Subaru thing for a few years now and I have done a ton of engines both ways - machine shop and home resurfacing. Neither has failed me yet. Part of this I attribute to attention to detail and cleanliness. If a job is worth doing - it's worth doing right and to the best of my ability.... something my grandfather passed on to me and it is THE most important concept that permeates my shop. Anyone that has worked in the shop with me knows that I will hold them to it as well while they work under my supervision. No half-assery on my watch! GD

I'm ok with the rusty ones getting trashed, but when I see a rust free one getting chopped up, I get pretty resentful.

im okay with Loyale's getting modified and such, but when i see one in that Brown 80's Metallic color in good shape, it gets to me....

Poor, poor loyale. That looked like a clean one too...