Leaderboard

I definitely considered buying a different H6 Outback and swapping the suspension over. Overall this seemed like less work and definitely less cost. Exactly. Yes, my brother bought this one for me in California, and while it's no longer completely rust free it's still pretty solid. Figure at least $3000 including transportation to replace it. Which makes these things a bargain really. And this car is relatively stock aside from the suspension and bumper/skidplate. But it's still cheaper to fix this one. Plus either way we'd wind up refabbing the skidplate and radiator/bumper support or whatever you want to call it. And I've been thinking for years about fabricating a better lower radiator support for these cars from scratch rather than just adding a piece of tubing underneath. On that topic. We started by getting the radiator support back into place so the hood would latch and line up. Then remounted the bumper so it sat level and square with the lights and fenders. 2" square tube going back at least a foot into the stock "frame rail" with a mounting flange for the bumper welded on the end. This is the only part that will be permanently welded on the car. Below you can see the square tube is only tack welded to one side of the frame rail. When we get things more solidly mounted the plan is to hammer at least two more sides of the frame rail flush with that tube and weld them also. Then B cut and fit a piece of 3" square 1/8" wall tube where the stock lower radiator support was. Since this is about 3x as thick as the stock radiator support and significantly larger section, plus an actual piece of tubing rather than a couple of stampings folded/spot welded together, I think it's easily 10x as strong as stock. Not that what it's attached to will be very strong. We will pick up about 1" of ground clearance/approach angle. Also by chance the stock radiator mounts we unbolted should line up great by just welding them to the backside of that tube. Got the main part of the engine skidpan straightened back out, bolted back up, and replaced some tubes. Have tubes almost fit from the big square tube radiator support to the bumper beam. Need to figure out exactly how I'm going to make the tabs and piece of sheet metal there. I know what I want just need to figure out the most efficient order of fitting/assembly. Then we still need to add a few more tubes but it's coming together. Ordered some new hoses and tubes for the oil cooler.