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Last weekend we did some work on B's Forester. His carpeting has been getting wet on the driver's side so he pulled off the fender, wipers, carpeting, etc to investigate. Eventually noticed part of the floor had some small cracks in it. After a little tar removal and poking he discovered about a 2-3" square section was basically rusted to nothing. So he cleaned up the sheet metal around that and welded in a fresh piece. Meanwhile I went through his front struts. Main task was replacing the bushings in the strut bodies. This pair of struts may have been on the black Outback, regardless they have seen a lot of abuse and the bushings were badly worn. Replaced the shock oil in one and replaced a few shims that were maybe slightly cracked. Verified our notes on the valving were accurate. Replaced some other boots/seals, repacked steering bearings with grease, etc. He says it's noticeably more solid now. Yesterday we worked on my Impreza. Still seemed like the radiator and condenser were pretty dirty so I got a long nozzle air gun and tried a few different modifications, this seemed to work the best. Plugged the end (M6x1) and drilled a .15" hole in the side. Then you can get that between the radiator and condenser and blast out one or the other. We got quite a bit more debris out. Replaced the steering rack. It was leaking badly from the driver's side. This would then quickly degrade the boot which would split open. I was refilling the reservoir about once a week by the end of the summer. Fortunately M had put a rebuilt rack in his (my old) blue Impreza a couple years before we parted it out so that one is (hopefully) still pretty fresh. We pulled the skidplate and replaced the rack. In the course of swapping that out I discovered that the bottom U joint on the steering shaft is nearly locked up in one direction. After putting everything back together, you can feel the tight spots in the U joint when turning the steering wheel with the front end off the ground. So I'll have to replace that. A bit disappointed, it's only been in there a couple years, new from Subaru (and extended by me). We had a bit more time and the front end was already off the ground and wheels and tires were off so we decided to go through my front struts. Didn't take too long, verified the valving mainly, added a bit of oil, replaced a wiper, regreased the steering bearings. We intend to go through our rear struts sometime this winter too. Still working on getting material for all the 6MT low range parts so we have a couple complete assemblies (including one for B). We should really tear down the one that was in the black Outback sometime and confirm the failure mode there. I think I have all the plumbing bits I need for the extra fuel tank. Need to get some electrical bits for that and the fan rewiring. We did take a peek at the ABS sensor wires and they're not super small, maybe 20 gauge, we think two of those will be adequate to power a fuel pump.

Sweet! Little at a time. My first thought on the brakes was wondering if anyone has done inboard disks somehow. That would probably take too much money but I am thinking if axles are cut down maybe they could be adapted at the inner ends to accept a disk. Or an existing setup like from a Lotus etc. as an example. Pardon my freaky thought in the middle of your hard work. Inboard brakes at the diff, big bash plate to shield it all. Anyways , cool to see as usual and who knows I could maybe copy you or use the knowledge to take a different approach etc. 73 Coupe over the Impreza and just bump out the fenders and quarters with obnoxious looking flares. We’ll see. I’m years away from that project more than likely. But I’d want to keep it thrifty too.

Took an hour today to tack everything up and get started boxing stuff in. Small steps but I'm excited to get this part done.

40+ together. Wow, what an amazing achievement! Here's to another 40+!!

Already surpassed the 40 years milestone of being with my "BumbleBeast" in continous ownership and, despite that this SportsWagon is looking smaller as new cars around tend to get bigger; I preffer this Yellow noisy fellow over any other car, everyday in any weather condition. Lousy cellphone photo Kind Regards.