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Brat is still alive and kicking.....

Drove to a large old gold mine called gold hill, supposedly mined in the 1850s. We saw a few stacked stone walls a few feet tall sloping up to the mine. Took a trail that wound up going along one of them, it was there to hold the road up, still holding 170 years later. At first B was hesitant to drive up but when he saw me going up it without any issues and taking pictures he decided to follow. We made it to a little flat spot at the top and checked out the main mine pit on foot. Found some quarts crystals. Did some five point turn arounds in the little flat spot, hanging the bumpers over the edge of the cliff, but got down without incident and went to the pony express trail. Again, mainly gravel roads, but all kinds of roads/trails off of it and good scenery. We camped just off the route in Overland canyon. One of the most beautiful sights any human has ever witnessed reflecting a nice sunrise. By this point it was clear the electric fridge slammo gave me wasn't working. You could hear it running but the sound was different and it wasn't getting cold. Also had noticed a weird smell when I opened that door of the car so I'm guessing the refrigerant leaked out. Important ingredient for staying out of civilization for extended periods of time so I'm probably going to buy a better one. Saturday morning we finished the pony express trail. Over the last couple days B had mentioned some vibration in his car, at first he thought it was washboard on the road but mine was riding smooth. We swapped a few of his tires around, never made it better, the last one we switched seemed to make it worse. Then he said it got a lot worse. Driveshaft was missing three bolts on the diff flange and the remaining one was loose. We put in some spare bolts and continued on smoothly. Pony express route generally follows the southern edge of the salt lake basin. As we went farther east there was actually traffic on the road, which was unusual for the week. Not sure if it was because we were getting closer to the Salt Lake City metro area and pavement or because it was Saturday or both. Also I think this is where we saw the first UTVs on the trail all week. We'd become accustomed to seeing a few pickup trucks a day or maybe a Jeep if we stayed off pavement. When we got to the first vault toilets (at a campground entrance) there was almost steady traffic on and off the road for people using them. Continued east, not long after we got on pavement we saw a stunt area not too far off the highway so we started driving towards it. As we got closer there was a truck and trailer parked in the main trail, something we saw in Gold Hill the day before. In this case though the guy on the flatbed trailer was setting up to do some target practice. His buddy waved us by and we found the little hills and trails we'd seen from the pavement. Made some PB&Js and found a different way back to the highway. Along the way we saw a few other fairly large stunt areas with all kinds of trailers and dirt bikes, might have to check those out sometime, maybe during the week. Stopped at the closest gas station, filled up with gas, swapped out air filters, and aired up tires. B mentioned as we drove into SLC metro that we could probably see more cars at one time than we'd seen in the entire previous week. Drove back home without any other issues. Cruise is working pretty well in Impreza. AC works great but if I used it on long mountain grades the coolant temp gauge would start to climb. B said he did about 3900 miles, I'd guess around 1000 of that was off pavement. Need to figure out the cooling issues with the Impreza, after discussing it with slammo I'm thinking maybe thermostat. It's most often a problem at low speeds while climbing or driving on sand but will start to go up sometimes going up long grades at high speeds with the AC on. Impreza takes some cranking before it starts sometimes, usually after sitting overnight. Wondering if it takes a bit to build fuel pressure. A few times, sometimes after some hillclimb, we'd hear the fuel system make a gurgling noise after the car had been shutoff for a minute. We used our jerry cans twice and I rolled into gas stations on empty four times. And that was after cutting our trail riding short so we didn't run out. It would be great to have more fuel capacity so we can wander better. I discussed the propane spare tire well tanks with slammo and he found one for about $300US shipped with 10 gallon capacity that should easily fit. https://shop.vanmeenen.com/en/lpg_cng-tanks-&-valves-1/lpg-toroidal-tanks-42 I'm thinking a vent/overflow hose to the main tank and another line with reversible pump. Then it can just be filled by the stock fuel filler and when the stock tank runs low it can refill that. Definitely need to finish the rear bumper for the Impreza, would have made the recoveries easier. Super happy with the performance and reliability of the Impreza overall. Forester holds up well too but definitely needed the low range to do some hill climbs the Impreza could do in high range. Still a great way to explore the back country and hit some fun trails. It also seems like on our last few trips a lot more people than usual have been complimenting us or commenting on the cars. These turn of the century Subarus are getting more rare in general, and who doesn't love a first gen Impreza, but it's still a fun surprise. Over the winter I want to make the straight cut planetary low ranges and get caught up on editing youtube videos, we got some good footage this past week.

Repairing a stripped spark plug hole is a much smaller project than the other options... I haven't tried, but I've seen people do it in the vehicle and just blow the chips out afterwards.

Rear bumper fabrication conclusion. Added some slider tubes to protect charcoal canister, hang muffler, and provide some kind of ramp when backing over obstacles. Added tabs for license plate and license plate lights. Added lateral receivers for jacking and winching. Ready for paint. Might get the old rusty front bumper on the white Outback painted at the same time. Should protect the body from trees and make recoveries easier. Slammo had suggested the thermostat in the EZ36 in the Impreza might be bad. I drained the coolant, cleaned the radiator (seemed pretty clean inside and out, don't think that was contributing to the problem), and removed the old thermostat. It looked fairly clean but is most likely 11+ years old and sat for a year or two dry. Tested it side by side with a new one from the dealer by bringing a pot of water up to boiling. New one (bottom) definitely opened sooner than the old one. But after a few minutes they both opened the same amount. While slowly cooling down they looked the same. Did that twice, same results. So hopefully the new one will help stabilize engine coolant temps. Still might add inlet and outlet temp sensors that have a calibration for the Haltech.

First post! Here are some pics of my 88' GL. I call her Constance. I have just about a million photos of her, but these are some of my favorites. Everything is stock except the exhaust which custom made by the last owner, nothing loud just not stock. Not exactly sure why it was done but it's not an issue, so I don't mind. Also, the rims were painted black which I'm a huge fan of. -Philly

A friend of ours from Houston drove up to my house a couple weeks ago and we headed up to the UP. Once we got there we stopped for pasties and ate them at a park along Lake Michigan on the edge of town. A younger guy stopped on his motorcycle and asked about the Impreza, we talked Subarus for a bit. He had just imported a 99 STI from Japan. It's funny to me, ever since I got this Impreza I've gotten a lot more questions and had a lot more people taking pictures of the car than with the other Subarus. Not sure how much of that is people's love of first gen Imprezas and how much is the fact that you don't see many turn of the century Subarus driving around anymore. We drove up to the campground along the reservoir in the southern UP. M and B showed up later. Friday we went to the rapids and then hit the mini banked oval. There was a snapping turtle at the edge of the oval. Then we wandered up to the Baraga pipeline grade. We were all entertained as usual. Hit some of the sandy stunt areas nearby and a few of the side trails. Before we got to Houghton we were on a trail in the woods where we decided to turn around. I could not get the Forester out of the ruts so we eventually put a bunch of branches and sticks in the ruts and I was eventually able to get out. Then going back down the trail I was crabbing the Forester sideways for hundreds of feet before I finally got straightened out. Headed north to Houghton and then to Gay beach. M declared it the mother of all stunt areas. Drove much farther south than we had before after crossing a narrow spit of tailings along the lake. Did some side by side uphill jumps and then decided maybe we should leave while we still could. Checked out the mine building ruins, some good post apocalyptic flavor there. Temps were solid while driving on Gay beach which is a good test of high duty cycle and low speeds. Then they crept up in the woods and we discovered one of the fan fuses was blown. The passenger side fan would turn most of the way pretty easily but there was one spot in the rotation it would get stuck. We eventually figured out there was a tiny pebble(?) stuck to the outer ring of the fan blades. We were eventually able to get it off and replaced the fuse. Later we noticed it had a slight coolant leak. We tracked this down to the small welds on the underhood heater core that attach the mounting flange to the end tanks. Rerouted the heater hoses to the stock configuration. Got up to the top of the cliff along Cliff drive. I had parked a few hundred feet back from the first overlook and when I was walking back to my car a UTV was coming up. I heard the driver blurt out “what the f--k?” when he saw the Impreza. He told me he knows people who won't take their Jeeps up the rocky climb we took to get to the top. I then walked back to the overlook and he said the same thing to the other guys. We drove to the next overlook and hard parked on the edge for some pictures. The yoopers showed up again and we talked to them for a while. “This isn't what most people from Illinois do when they come up here” one of them says while holding out his pinky finger. They had both seen different UFOs and had some story about a cave nearby that no one could find with a wall of silver and a bag of gold coins. I believed the UFO stories more. We camped at the overlook. Saturday morning we headed up to Brockway Mountain. As we pulled on to the long road going there we were proceeded by three extremely slow drivers. We pulled off on a side trail rather than test our patience following them the whole way there. This trail eventually led to a very sketchy bridge but we managed to cross it. I think it was in this area I checked one muddy stretch on foot and it didn't seem too bad so I drove through it, but I was barely able to do so and then the ruts were deeper and softer. So I told B he shouldn't come through and I didn't want to go back through so worst case we come back to that spot in a half hour. Fortunately we were able to maintain radio contact and I was able to drive around the block so to speak and meet back up with them. We eventually found a different way out of the area. At one point the temps had started to creep up in the Impreza again and a fan fuse was blown. This one was probably from the fans running while driving in deep water, we replaced it and never had the problem again. We eventually got up to Brockway Mountain from the other side. After we'd been on trails for quite a while and got back to pavement B said the Forester was shaking quite a bit. Turned out all the LR lugnuts on his Forester were loose and one was missing. We tightened down the ones we could and continued. From there we did a little more trail riding and buzzed up to the beach to camp for the night. At camp B swapped out his wheel studs on the LR hub as most of them were somewhat damaged or packed full of aluminum. Sunday we started heading back on various trails. One of them eventually became deeply rutted and I didn't think I could get through without taking off a mirror so we turned around. We came to a fairly long and deep water crossing where beavers had flooded a road. There was a muskrat swimming in it when we pulled up. I walked it and it was just below knee deep for a couple hundred feet. I drove through it in the Impreza after we removed the fan fuses. There was water over the front of the hood for a good portion of the crossing and we realized we should have stuck the gopro on. B crossed it in the Forester and then we put the gopro on the Impreza and I crossed it back the way we came and then back again to proceed. At the top of the hill right next to the stream was a cool old furnace of some kind. Later we found the beaver dam that was flooding that road. The highlight of the day was probably discovering and climbing Mt Houghton. Probably the most intimidating rocky climb we accomplished that weekend (ever in the UP?) and one of the best views in the UP once we made it to the top. Got gas and water at the Lac La Belle resort. Cashier was using binoculars to read the mechanical gas pumps. Found a silly hillclimb along the border of a wildlife sanctuary that M almost convinced me to try but ultimately we decided it should wait for a different weekend. Buzzed down to Lake Linden to camp that night so J could take a shower and we'd be closer to the portage. Monday morning we took the Bill Nichols trail basically all the way from South Range to Adventure Mountain with a few detours and stops for some stunt areas and mines along the way. M and J enjoyed the Firesteel trestles and the lookout near the top of Adventure mountain and we headed back from there. The trail west out from the Adventure mountain climb was rough and narrow but we made it through with some extra dents in the rockers and floorboards. Stopped near the end of that trail to air up and eat PB&Js. We drove down to Watersmeet together and the Impreza seemed to have some high frequency vibration that didn't go away when I put the clutch in. Cleaned some dirt out of the wheels when we stopped for gas but that didn't help. Stopped again and discovered two of the driveshaft bolts were missing from the pinion flange. I had looked before but those two must have been up. Installed some bolts and tightened them all down and had a smooth ride home. Could only run the AC intermittently on the way home or the coolant temp would creep up. Overall a good weekend, cooling issues with the Impreza are still frustrating but we all had a good time. J and M were impressed with the Impreza, especially the EZ36. J definitely enjoyed the UP and quickly got in the groove of following overgrown trails (with a surprisingly high success rate of connecting to other trails this weekend). M said it was probably his favorite off road trip we've taken, no major malfunctions, lots of stunt areas, lots of overgrown trails (which he likes). Removed the radiator after we got home and it seemed clean. I had sprayed it off at the car wash but that's usually not too effective. So I'm still a bit surprised the car was running hot on the highway. We did check the overflow at least once when it was hot and still have never seen air bubbles. After spraying the condenser out from the back with a hose wand it did become clear that a lot of the fins on it are bent over. We did go through a lot of brush so it's probably from the fan blades spinning leaves and twigs against the condenser. Should be getting a replacement today, hopefully that brings the temps back under control. Also got a pair of 80s Ford Econoline heater cores I plan on putting where the extra heater core is now for more cooling capacity.

Update found 2 burn resistors and soldered them in and it fires right up

I finally got an easy one! The 2002 was missing intermittently, bad enough to affect driveability. We got under the hood and tried spraying propane from an unlit torch along the vacuum hoses, for just in case it had a vacuum leak. No luck with that, but I did hear a tick each time it missed. I started paying attention, and was able to see a spark jumping from one of the coil end plug wire boots to a rubber hose! The boots had gotten dirty, and the medium voltage had made a track to ground. I pulled each boot and wiped the outside of the boot with a rag moistened in WD40, and wiped the dirt and carbon off the coil where the boot plugs on. FIXED! New plug wires are on the way. On a side note, we tried sticking the unlit torch into the air intake and opening it as wide as it would go. Couldn't hear any change in the motor noise. That trick might have worked with carbureted engines, but it doesn't seem to work with this engine.

Super easy. Unplug the white connector from the module mounted vertically to the left of the steering column. Here's the old write-up on it, but looks like the pictures are dead. https://www.subaruoutback.org/threads/diy-disabling-drl-2000-2004.6668/

Two weeks ago we drove the Subarus out west. Somewhat last minute shift of plans to western AZ for our trip as that was the only part of the western US that had a decent weather forecast for the week. In retrospect we probably should have done the last week of April instead so we had more options but it worked out. Saturday morning Z and A and B met at my house at 8AM and we packed up and headed west. Got to a campground east of Denver and stayed the night. Not too much below freezing but we got a dusting of snow overnight. Sunday we kept driving and made it into Nevada and camped east of Vegas along Lake Mead, saw some donkeys on the way in, the first group of many we'd see that week. It was very windy that night. The ground was too hard to effectively stake in the tents so I put the loops around some large rocks but we didn't sleep well as the tent sounded like it was going to start ripping apart at times despite parking the car just upwind of it. Monday we took the scenic route to Hoover Dam including some unpaved trails. Continued into Arizona and started down some Massey trails. Saw a lot of Joshua trees in NW Arizona, some of them quite green. Started on Massey NW29. Massey NW28 was fairly high up in the mountains and we got snowed on again, this time in Arizona. Might have been graupel (small white pellets) but probably not hail. Excellent views. Saw an old Ford truck down the slope from the trail (middle of picture below) and hiked down to it. On the way we also saw a Saturn. Neither had batteries. The Ford's transmission tunnel had been cut out (appeared to be cut out where we found it, we saw at least one chunk of it laying on the ground). The transmission had been removed and presumably carried hundreds of feet either up or down a steep loose rocky grade. Some cool mine ruins at the end of the side trail. Definitely want to take this one clockwise (as viewed from above) which we fortunately did, there was a lot of rocky downhill in one section but the uphill in the direction we took wasn't bad. The next point of interest we saw were some murals that had been painted on rocks along the trail that were originally painted in the 1960s and then repainted early this century. That night we were trying to find a more sheltered spot from the wind but even a small pond at the bottom of a 100' deep mining pit was windy so we just camped out in a wash along Massey NW26. That night was windy too but not quite as bad as the previous. There were also donkeys nearby at night and in the morning. Tuesday the first trails, Massey NW26 and NW27, took us the rest of the way to Lake Mohave. Then back up into the mountains and more graupel. Saw another truck rolled down the slope off Massey NW19 trail. Drove to the remains of an old mine, probably the biggest ruins/tailings we saw that week. Got some more graupel and we were getting a bit hungry so I cooked some dino nuggets in an abandoned mining shack. A climbed the sandy tailings pile in the Forester. Numerous old cars half buried in gravel. Next we drove to Massey NW15 towards Alamo lake. It was getting late so we found a neat well used campsite under a couple big trees along Massey NW17 and finally slept well, basically no wind, A hammocked between the trees. In the morning we found an old overgrown truck bed, a homemade vault toilet, and an old well. Wednesday morning we drove to some other mine ruins and then down to Big Sandy River. Z briefly got the Impreza stuck but we were able to just jack the rear end back up out of the sand, put down sand ladders, and he drove out. We drove the rest of the way to Alamo Lake and then took Massey NW14 to a river crossing as there is a bridge for the gas pipeline but not for vehicles. I waded a few options and picked the one with multiple firmer crossings rather than one with a single long crossing and soft spot in the middle. Both cars drove through the various crossings/mudholes without incident and we celebrated with some PB&Js. It was very green along the river, not super surprising but not really what we'd expected driving in western Arizona. We took Massey NW12 to Swansea, perhaps the largest mine/ghost town ruins of the week, and spent a while exploring on foot. Drove down Massey NW13, a pretty fun wash, as close as possible to the Bill Williams river we'd crossed earlier and found the remains of the old pump house, more donkeys along the way. Took Massey NW6, crossed a canal and continued. Started getting dark so we found a spot off the main road to camp for the night. Thursday morning we visited more old mines along Massey NW1. Saw the Bouse fisherman, a bit disappointing honestly. Back to more old mines along Massey NW3 and a cave/arch at the top of a hill. Headed down to Quartzite for fuel on the way to Kofa NWR. When we got to the highway there was a sign to “wait for the pilot car” and the old man driving the minivan ahead of us got out and sat on his hood to smoke a cigarette. After a few minutes of impatiently waiting I noticed the powerline grade along the highway so we followed that for about five miles, crossing various washes along the way, until we'd passed the construction zone and got back on the highway. The Mobil gas station sold water for $0.25/gallon or $1 / 5 gallons (quarters only) so we got some water for drinking and rinsed off our heads. Best quarter I ever spent. The first trail we took in Kofa was Massey C2 up an extremely scenic wash/canyon. Small arch at the top of the canyon, skull rock, and a large balanced rock. You can no longer drive all the way through, you'd have to do a through hike, but we hiked from the end of the driving path up to the saddle to check out the view. Then we drove down Massey C1 (Palm Canyon trail) to hike back to get a view of the only native palm trees still growing in Arizona. It's a fairly arduous trek to actually hike up to them (start at the red post to the right) and it was getting dark so we hiked back to the cars to find a campsite. Found a decent one close to the intersection of Massey C3 and C4 where we wanted to start the next morning. Friday morning we drove south on Massey C4 to an old mining town/museum. A bit of a tourist trap but there were a lot of cool old things to see, plus they had flush toilets. We looped back to the highway and went back by the campsite to head east through the NWR on Massey C6 and C9. Where C3 meets C6 is the site of a large mine, fair amount of equipment/ruins and some tunnels to explore. We headed north out of the NWR on Massey C10, drove along the top of a dam, and drove down a bit of a fun pipeline grade. Crossed the interstate, continued north on Massey C11, and found a spot to camp next to a small old mine of course. Saturday morning we drove up to the highway and started heading home. Stayed in the same campground we had on the way out east of Denver. It was cold again, the small pond by our site was frozen in the morning, but no snow. Sunday we drove the rest of the way home. B's Forester drove about 4400 miles so the Impreza probably did about 4300. Forester needs a RF CV axle and one of his valve stems was leaking so we swapped on one of the spares in Iowa. Impreza needs a RF tie rod. Most disappointingly the coolant temperature crept up a few times on long slow uphill trails with the AC on and once in deep sand with the AC off. AC needs some work/tuning too, I might try running it at a lower voltage. It seemed to work fine last summer but it was mostly discharged before the trip and since I recharged it, the high and low pressure slowly diverge until it eventually shuts off and then it will cycle back on again. It does this every minute or so and you can feel it surging while driving. Not sure if it's fully charged. I'd forgotten how rocky a lot of the Arizona trails are. I'm not talking about challenging rock crawling, although there was some of that, rather many of the trails had a lot of 4-6” rocks that were just annoying and rattled the cars. For instance my glovebox latch came unscrewed near the end of the week. Haven't run into trails quite like that for such long distances in other states. A used the low range on the Impreza once at the top of a hill when he didn't have quite enough momentum to get to the top. Forester low range got used 5-10 times. Overall a good trip. No major problems, only got stuck twice briefly, saw some good scenery, hit some fun trails and had good weather. Sorry travelvw, not a lot of critters or carnage on this trip.

I haven't worked on one of those, but the most common cause of such problems is bad wiring between the body and the door where it flexes, followed by burnt out speakers. Does opening and closing the door, or wiggling the bundle of wires to the door, make it go on and off? Does thwapping the door over the speaker make it go on and off? Does poking something through the grille and pushing on the speaker cone make it go on and off? If it's not the door flex wiring or the speaker, then look into the radio itself and the rest of the harness wiring.

Update - I let the car cool down for a couple of hours and burped it again. Just when I was about to lose hope... the fans kicked in. Just to be safe, I hung around until they kicked in a second time. All seems good now. Thank you everyone for your advice. I really appreciate it.

I finally got a chance to really look at it, and it turned out to be the driveshaft (prop shaft). It was odd though, because, when the car was sitting, it would somehow cause the center bearing to lock so it didn't feel loose at all. I only figured it out by getting under it, with the left rear on jack stands, and having someone spin the left rear wheel while I watched the driveshaft rotate. It got to a specific spot, then it came loose. Got another shaft at a u-pull yard for $23 on sale, and the vibration is gone.

My ‘81 dropping by to get parts for my ‘23

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.

Got em all out without breaking any - I don't think Ive stripped the holes either but haven't cleaned it up yet. For this really tough bolt I decided to use a "paint stripper" heat gun on high for about 15 minutes and it still wouldn't budge so drilled a 2nd hole down closer to the threads, earlier had drilled a hole about in the middle of the column to get the penetrating oil down into the crud in the bottom inch of the column also. After drilling this second hole and then using a lot of penetrating oil, then heat, I had progress had to heat up down by the head for at least 10 minutes with paint stripper heat gun, that's why my aluminum shield has turned golden brown .. I tried a M.A.P. torch but it was to scary and causing way to much smoke for my comfort.. and wiggled back and forth tell I could get about 1/4 turn, came back next day tried it cold no t so much movement so heated it up again and kept working it back and forth - but not going as far in as out.. then add more sauce.. do it again and eventually.. Here's the bolt right after I got it out - I used a lot of B'laster penetration oil, and couldn't get it moving with the 3/8" impact gun - had to really push and pull on this ratchet - really hoping the bolt wouldn't break,, kind of amazed it didn't

Been a really long time since this thread was updated. Had my share of local trouble with attempted theft and damages. https://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/186359-beware-of-mevotech-parts/ Decided to go with KYB 2wd struts(new old stock) and Lesjofors '94 Kia Sephia front springs(4044208 on RA), new KYB strut mounts(SM5364, IF you can find 'em). New KYB 4wd rear shocks with better looking, less rusty springs. Rear cross member with gaps in mounts filled with urethane. Superpro front strut rod bushings(SPF2534K). Superpro new moustache bar bushings(same as rear diff mount bushing). Rides much better without all the bounciness on highways. Combination of Sachs 4wd struts with those Lesjofors springs, they're about .040" thicker than stock, will get you another inch of lift in front. Combination of those and 2wd rear KYB shocks + stock rear springs OR 4wd rear shocks with Honda Accord front springs, Lesjofors 4135713, may ride even front to rear. Just a suggestion. KYB 2wd strut, Lesjofors spring, KYB mount, SJR 4" lift. For $86 shipped this McPherson spring compressor was worth it. MUCH safer to work around than those hook compressors that tend to slip and always at the wrong time. spring compressor Be sure to lube the threads and round part with gear oil.

Car has been fully stripped and is now at the sandblaster, can't wait to get it back and get a plan in place for all the repairs

Rain has finally stopped in Minnesota, time to get the Brat out.

Friday morning we went to Ely, got gas, and started calling and visiting tire shops. We couldn't find a 215/75/15 of any kind but they did replace one of B's valve stems that was leaking. We'd found Devil's Gate slot canyon online that was roughly on our way so we started heading that direction. Going up the mountain pass we came upon a full size pickup truck with ~20ft enclosed trailer. Truck had a Green Bay Packers sticker in the back window. Fortunately he was pulled over just enough for us to squeeze past him. We stopped at the pass/saddle to enjoy the view and then B saw the truck and trailer coming. We ran back to our cars and made sure we stayed ahead of him. Going down was a narrow, rocky, dirt switchback mountain road. I have no idea how he was navigating it but we looked back when we were near the bottom and could see him slowly working his way down. Continued east through the desert down some washes/canyons. The last one was quite fun, we could go there quickly since it didn't have 2' deep ruts like the Vegas to Reno course. Took it to Devil's Gate. We hiked through it and up to the top and drove out of the wash and while there was a large flat gravel area that could be called a parking lot, there were no signs of any kind this awesome slot canyon is here. It's limestone which is unusual, most slot canyons are sandstone. So the rocks here are polished. From here we headed back into Utah towards Massey northern #13, a portion of the old pony express route. On the way we took a side trail up a wooded valley along a stream with an amazing alcove in one cliff. Cut across Massey 13 and headed north through some hills on some fun trails.

I think it's clear what you're working on. But for future reference. DOHC subarus (I think all of them, certainly EJs) require removing the cams to access the head bolts. SOHC engines do not.

Hi yall, been a minute. Glad to see the forum is still up. I'm about to check out an XT6 that was just listed for sale. 1988. Was driven to where it sits, but been sitting for several years. I've got a 94 ej22t wagon that'd I consider swapping the engine from. My question is, can I use the ej22t ecu with the XT6 autobox? I'd like to 5spd swap it. I've got an 89 GL wagon d/r and another d/r 5spd laying around. I'd rather source an ej series 5 speed for parts availability, durability. EJ 5spd should work with the XT6 splines correct? Anyway, I'm either buying the XT6 (dunno how the rust situation underneath is) or there's a non-running ea82 turbo wagon (originally a California car w no rust) a couple hours drive south that I have lined up, with a spare motor. XT6 is pretty darn rare here in western Canada. My buddy had a turbo XT in highschool and it was a blast. Not the best weight distribution. I figure it'd make a pretty fun cruiser or potential drift car with the weight so far upfront. I know in the past some have set the engine further back, cutting the firewall. Anyway, just spitballin another irresponsible car purchase. I'd like to get it running this summer.

So awesome. I love exploring that area! The time required to get my Outback or 4Runner into a condition to confidently do that is just not on my priority list right now. So I'm living vicariously through you!

That video is OK, but kind of short on detail. Do a YouTube search for "Miles Fox EA82" and watch his timing belt video. He posted on this board for a long time, and his videos are good ones that have a lot of why you're doing what you're doing instead of just how to do it.

I changed out the sender, cleaned the oil off the top of the engine as best I could, and took the dog for a ride. So far so good, that may have been the only leak. I got this one from the local Napa, I'll get a couple more coming via mail order. Thanks, all!

Well, everything was sort of in place for me to get a first order test fit even with my bum leg. Doc says I'm good to do pretty much anything that doesn't stress the break through my new aircast boot, but no running, jumping, sprinting, wrestling, or heavy lifting. Basically I have to be deliberate with my movements and creative with the use of wheels and levers when it comes to heavy stuff. I'm not pushing it, even though this update so soon may appear otherwise. I had all the heavy stuff in place already, so today was just minor manipulation to see how things sit. The new diff does in fact mate directly up with the original front diff mount, exactly where it needs to be. The bolt patterns are exactly the same and the lengths are almost identical as well, so I will be reusing the OEM Brat front mount for the differential. I may need to figure out a replacement option for the rubber bushings that secure the front mount to the frame, but for now the originals are intact enough. There's a little interference on the tires at the front of the wheel wells which I should be able to counteract by placing the trailing arm mounts correctly in combination with narrowing the wheelbase. As far as the width goes, one could ostensibly leave that alone and just flare the wheel wells out to accomodate things, but that's not the direction I'm going to take with this build, as I'm going for a more subtle outward appearance. Lastly for the big rear diff subframe, it is a few inches too wide and will need some trimming and a creative solution to mount to the frame. likely more bracketry. In the spirit of the build I'm hoping to reuse what I can from the Impreza - I bet I can come up with something to allow me to repurpose the bushings that mounted it to the undercarriage of the newer car when I narrow the pivot points governing the rear wheelbase - the plan for which I've sketched in on the photo. Red dashes indicate cuts and shifts I plan to make to the pivots, green indicates the trimming of the outside edge so I can move the frame mount bushings to a place where they will be able to be attached to the frame. It looks like the original fuel tank will either need some serious modification to fit in the space with the new subframe, or I'll need to fabricate an entirely new cell. I suspect I should be able to find something serviceable that will fit behind the entire assembly and still meet up with the original fill spout. Just need to take some measurements once I've got the new differential subframe into place. It seems easy enough to put a new cell behind the differential, under the bed, but I'm a little concerned that may turn my Brat into a Pinto in the event of a rear end collision. There's also an empty space up behind the cab, but I'm not exactly excited about that placement, either. Suggestions for solutions are welcomed but as usual not expected

I vaguely remember a youtube video about having to hook a computer up to the car and set something before installing the brakes. I'll see if I can find it again...

Sounds like one of the forks is out of place and gear synchro cogs are hitting as you turn it. Time to open it up, unless you can return it still.

I guess I hadn't clarified why I'm willing to go the less thrifty route with this rebuild (jump off the boat and swim with the sharks, eh?). I'm in my early 20's, still with my folks and this GL is my car... My only car. My window of time living with my folks is quickly closing and I knew I needed a car that was reliable, and easy to work on. However the issues I had with the car were just one after another. It makes sense, the car is old and tired. So my plan is to get the car to somewhat of it's former glory, deal with the big issues (mainly engine and drivetrain) while I don't have a bunch of bills and have the extra parts stashed away for when some smaller issues come up as I start getting my feet under me and navigating life as an adult on my own. Basically I'm taking the "buy once, cry once" approach in the hopes that in the end I'll have a car that will get me through my 20's without a bunch of debt. And no offence taken, in hindsight I shouldn't have bad-mouthed anyone's business. I'm young and learning, I have plenty of mistakes yet to make. I appreciate all y'all's input, I just don't have much experience so learning from other's experiences is very much appreciated. :]

I’ve been meaning to get back with an update on this: I finally got the car running again, and of course the problem was simpler than I thought. Turns out the wire from the distributor/ignition control module to the + terminal of the coil had come loose from the ring terminal connector. I don’t know how I missed it because I must have looked that wire over multiple times before, but I reconnected it, and it fired right up!

Parts are out there, but they're not common at all. If it were me, I'd pull the turbo engine and keep it around. Then pull your NA EA81 and convert it to TBI using an EA82 SPFI intake and throttle body. There is documentation out there of how to do this but you'd be looking at a bit of work. Either way I'd say it's worth it, save these cars and SAVE YOUR PARTS! Good luck mate :]

2.2 swap. Runs for ever.

I agree 100%. Still haven’t started it. My daughter’s car, so I’m not in a big hurry.

OK, Mr. McBRAT, you owe us an update on the life this beast has been living

I had a similar issue on my 35th anniversary car (2004). Critters had gotten into the left rear quarter panel and chewed the wiring harness. Shorting the turn signal circuit to the LR light, and damaging the wiring to the antenna (I think your 2000 will have a conventional antenna on the roof over the driver's door). Every time I used the Left turn signal, the gauge cluster would go dead. As long as I remembered not to use that signal, things were cool. If you can't think of a more specific correlation between using a function like that and the failure, I'd buy a breaker for that fuse so it could be reset and continue on. Hope that helps!

The series 2 starter motors used to become unresponsive due to a lack of power to energise the starter solenoid. The work around here was to setup a horn relay that’s triggered by the factory starter wire to give a better 12v hit to the starter solenoid via better and shorter wires from the battery (and appropriately fused). Hopefully it’s something as simple as this. Those cam and crank angle sensors will need to be sorted out but they won’t stop the engine from being turned over by the starter motor. The engine just won’t start as the ECU won’t see the crank or cam signals - which means a code or a check engine light won’t be thrown. Cheers Bennie

Code compliance issue is no longer - gave the compliance officer a call and he was extremely easy to work with. Donor husk is in the garage for the time being, but apparently a car cover will suffice if I need to move it back out into the drive. That out of the way, we got the first test fitting of the EJ out of the way yesterday. It would appear that with only a slight extension of the mounting slots on the original crossmember, the new engine should drop right into it, but as expected the fit is very, very tight. It could (by my measurements anyway) be done without notching the frame, however that would leave mere millimeters of clearance at the back of the valve covers. It will still be a much tighter fit than its original chassis even with notching, so like past builders I will also be notching the frame. (Noted where I'm notching things out in blue sharpie in the photo.) I should have about a half inch of clearance on either side when that's complete unless I find a way to relocate that forward mounting bolt for the subframe - in which case I can probably get a little more. I also have 99% of the original wiring harness out of the donor now, and I'm pretty decided on attempting a full retrofit of most of the newer components into the old car, including the HVAC system. By my eye everything *should* fit, but it will be extremely tight. Since I'm also going as far as installing pretty much everything else of note from the impreza, I'm also considering either adapting the power steering rack to fit the old Brat crossmember, or adapting the Impreza crossmember to fit the Brat, although I suspect the simplest route would be to ditch the power steering in its entirety and just use the original Brat steering gear. My only concern there would be replacement of components on the steering gear down the line - I hate having to track down parts for weeks or months at a time. These next few days I'll be pulling the old 4 speed from the Brat and starting on the frame notching job. Somewhere in there I'm also going to do a refresh on the EJ while it's accessible. Oil pump, rear main seal, timing kit, that kind of thing, but that will likely be after the new year holiday, especially since I forsee a lot of removal and reinstall of the new engine and transmission while i do the fabrication on the crossmember, firewall, and transmission tunnel to get those to fit where they need to be. PS - as i build on this I'll be putting the parts and pieces I no longer need up for sale, including the complete but now partially disassembled EA71 engine. Maybe someone with more patience or skill can get that head free and give this thing a new life. Same goes with the transmission and other miscellaneous components as I go.

Easy fix. I've done several of them. While you can pull out the support, if you have a self serve yard and you can cut out the parts you need from a undamaged car that's the way to go. You can cut out the damage and weld in the new parts. Cutout more than you need and then trim back.

B and I moved most of the rest of my business inventory to my machine shop across town. We took one trip with his Forester and my white Outback loaded with parts. Then while he was working on his car I loaded the white Outback up with another literal ton of parts. Almost as soon as we started driving the transmission acted like it was slipping. Got to the shop and unloaded everything, still slipping on the way back and has been ever since. I tried adding some brake fluid since my brother knows some people who've had temporary success with it but it didn't really seem to help. Plan to get a lower mileage replacement trans from a junkyard and hopefully a tan leather driver's seat while I'm at it. The Impreza has been taking a while to start fairly often since the swap after it sits overnight or longer. Sometimes it takes two or three tries before it starts. A while back I discovered this was because the crank position sensor wasn't generating enough voltage while cranking. Voltage signal on the Haltech oscilloscope looked decent but it wasn't enough. I lowered the threshold voltage and also added a column for 0RPM which seemed to help but still wasn't a complete fix. Then it just wouldn't start, was giving crank position and throttle body codes. I took apart the engine harness connector as that's been the source of most of my problems and the wire pulled out of the pin for the crank position sensor. I repinned that and checked the throttle body connections and it started and no longer had those errors but it was running rough, probably on five cylinders. I decided I'd had enough and ordered some closed barrel pin connectors and a tool from JR Ready. I'm not a huge fan as they're made in China and I don't like how closed barrel pins don't crimp on the insulation but M says they're the best thing they've found for wiring airplanes so I figure it might be good enough for trail riding in a Subaru. The week before we left I rewired the engine harness plug on the Impreza with some help from B. Shortened up the wires with a couple feet of excess length in the process. Directly wired the throttle body and MAP sensors to the ECU as they're pretty easy to unplug and then I'd have one less connection in line and fewer things to run through the connectors I added. Added four Deutsch connectors with closed barrel pins. I did zip tie them away from that bracket after I took that picture. Labeled and checked wires, pinned out the connectors, double checked wire color matches and tried to start the car Thursday. Only cranked but didn't fire. I checked various things, sensors seemed to be reading except the cam and crank position sensors. Then I realized I hadn't plugged that connector in. Then it fired up. Overall pretty happy with how that turned out, should be much easier to repin those connectors and the reduced wiring under the dash makes it cleaner and allows the glovebox to fit better. Bit of a last minute fix finishing that the day before we left but I'm glad I did it.

Yep, lots of good information That page is included in this whole "Subaru of the 80s" page. https://www.indysworld.com/subaru/index.html Check the "Original Ultimate Subaru Repair Manual" on there. Lots of good writeups there. I think this stuff is basically all 15-20 years old, but great place to start

They charge $250 to store a car there from mid-October to early April. They also store boats and travel trailers but that's more. It's a great deal shortly after I took that picture of the Brat it was surrounded by other cars. That's why they issue you a date and time to retrieve in the spring so they can unpack in order. It's just like an informal car show, I even see a couple of my former cars there.

Brat winter

From there we took pavement to the golden spike. Asked a few questions at the visitor center and filled up our water jugs. Followed the original transcontinental railroad route/Massey trail as best we could but there are quite a few bypasses now. For instance the road in the picture below is closed to motorized traffic. It follows the northern edge of the salt lake basin and crosses roughly the western third of Utah. There are a lot of mountains/rock formations along the way. We drove up to the top of Crocodile Mountain and Loco(?) mountain and camped near that peak. Wednesday morning we finished the railroad route. For the most part it's an easy gravel road. All of the former trestles are blocked though, they were all fairly small so the trail just makes little jogs down and across and back up out of little washes. Most of these are smooth, many of them are fun, but a few are washed out badly enough to cause a challenge for something with lower clearance. We then headed south on Massey northern #10. The start of this has some fun sections and a lot of cross ditches and some good scenery. We drove around and through Silver and Crater islands. Both fun and scenic. The northern end of Silver island was part of the ill fated Donner party's route. The southern end of Silver island has a lot of campsites and side trails and some traffic. This was a consistent sign we were getting close to pavement. We got food and gas in Wendover. Introduced myself to a French man at the grocery store who'd shipped their RV to the eastern US/Canada and had driven across to UT, heading to the west coast, then back across the southern US and Mexico on a yearlong trip with his wife and daughter.

Passenger side cooling fan on the Impreza wasn't working because a stick was jammed in the wiring and had pulled the connector. Temps still creep up when idling (or driving slow in the sand) with the AC on. Seemed like a lot of air was blowing around the fans and not just getting sucked into them. I got some adhesive foam strips and took the fans off and stuck those to the perimeter of the fans so they'd seal better against the condenser. The flow feels a little more organized but it made no noticeable improvement in cooling. I did get the cruise control working consistently, see the EZ36 engine swap thread for details on that. I use cruise control a lot so that's been nice. Went back up to the UP with some in laws last weekend. We did some trail riding one day. Pipeline grade was everyone's favorite. The girls in the back were screaming with excitement when I hit the jumps. I had tweaked the front shock valving since the last trip and I never noticed it bottoming out but it didn't feel harsher so that seems like an improvement. Rear tires were rubbing when hitting some of the dips hard so I'm hammering the wheel wells out more. One of my relatives peed their pants riding in the white Outback on the pipeline grade (out of fear I think), fortunately it has leather seats. Didn't have as much time that day for trail riding as the last trip but we all had some fun and didn't get stuck or break anything.

Just like @idosubaru says; Turn the bolt a little bit, spray the bolt head with PB Blaster or other penetrant fluid. Then torch the area of the head where the bolt is stuck with a map gas torch (handheld) Turn the bolt back and forth just a couple degrees again. Torch the area, spray with PB Blaster or dab on some candle wax while it's still hot. It will make the lubricant soak down to where it's needed. Keep repeating the process until the bolt frees up

Engine is the same. I'm planning and testing to attempt to build a Baja with an EZ30 (looking into if a 2nd gen 30 can be run on the 1st gen ECU), with functioning stability and traction control from the VDC, but a manual transmission.... I believe it will be possible, even with my limited knowledge on the CAN data stuff, which is how the VDCCU and TCU communicate. I think I wouldn't bother with that chassis at all. Look for an LL Bean one while you drive and enjoy the VDC. The Bean donor could be wrecked, rusted, whatever. Then get a low mileage JDM engine (they're running about $1500 right now). You will need the gauge cluster, HVAC boxes and much more. It's going to be much easier to get it all from the same car. But it would be possible to get a bulkhead harness and ECU from a Bean, and piece it together.

Ok, finally! Here are the rest of the build pics - in collage! ^ L series interior light “mod” - it’s a HUGE upgrade over the stock unit (mine didn’t want to work but when it did, it wasn’t worth the effort!); now I can see stuff in the cab - and I haven’t installed an LED unit in there yet either! The L series interior light is also responsible for holding up the new roof mounted UHF radio. I’m very stoked how this turned out! No new holes or screws added to the brumby for this one. Inspired by my roof mounted UHF radio setup in Ruby Scoo. Everything is reversible back to stock quite easily. The other two pics are a before and after of some wiring tidy up under the dashboard. I forgot to photograph the front brake transformation so I did it with the rear instead - where I also forgot to take a pic of the drum fitted, anyway, you get the idea! Much better setup over the drums. Also new braided lines fitted everywhere. Brakes are AMAZING now! Scorpions fitted with their sticker, completing the look they’re known for (and this owner was seriously missing the little black sticker!). Top pics - the faded decals. Bottom pics - painted up decals using a set of paint pens from office works. I’m not set on the red colour that the pen came out with but it looks far better than what it was before anything was done to the mud flaps. The front ones were painted in white over the Subaru logo. They look mint too! No pics of those though… With the bullbar paint up, fitted and the front mounted chopped sticker refitted; side badges and mud flaps painted up, Redback Brumby is looking awesome. It’s amazing what a couple of small details can do to distract from other bodywork “features”! And we were finally off, second stop (after a servo) was the Deniliquin Ute on a Pole. We made it to Barmedman to camp the night near their mineral springs pool. Neat little spot. Got rained on during the night, we were mostly dry, but got 95% of our stuff fully dried out before we left. Then it was continuing on our way. Parked up brumby in Cowra, a couple of laps of Bathurst/Mt Panorama - worth the effort, I’ve got a new found respect for the race and the drivers (Australian Touring Car Championship)! And a Bunnings (hardware store chain over here - also the inspiration for Hammerbarn in Bluey) that’s retrofitted into an old building in Lithgow - something I didn’t know they did, I found it interesting! We had to swing by Shield’s Orchard this time since we had time to find it! At this time of year they’re closed because it’s not Apple season, but we snapped a pic out the front of their place with their main sign. Then on to camp at Mt Wilson, pretty good camp ground, but felt like we could’ve been anywhere really - we were hoping for a real vibe of being in the Blue Mountains - really we could’ve been camping on Mt Macedon (Central Vic, same elevation). Next day we were off to Boxer Beauty to pick up some stickers - particularly the scorpion rim stickers to finish them off. Then off to cut a lap over the Sydney Harbour Bridge - aka our nation’s big coat hanger. Following this we buzzed around the Sydney CBD followed by parking at the harbour to snap a few pics like this one from earlier in the thread: Ripper! Then the big day. I won’t flood this thread with pics from the day, I’ll drop the link to that later. I will share these poser pics though! On the Sunday we legged it home from the hotel same as last year. We headed up over the mountains and took a longer than anticipated detour to Evan’s Lookout. Well worth the effort! We changed a bit of our route and went through Young and Urana rather than Grenfell and Narrandera. Good drive and possibly less hills but unsure about this. Bottom corner pic below is one of the pubs in Young. I can’t get over how big the pubs are in NSW! We spied a brumby in Deni so grabbed some pics with that on our way past, then continued home. We arrived a bit after 9pm. My navigator held on but lost out 40mins before we made it home. I’ve roughly worked out we did 2300km in the five days we took to do the trip! Awesome trip! Brumby ran mint the whole time. Issues we had: - driving light wiring at the cab switch came off the back of the switch, sorted that by pulling the wiring and joining them together. - pencil beam driving light, blown globe. Was working prior to paint work done on the rear covers. - rear wheel nuts on the right decided they’d try to take a holiday on our way down the Sydney side of the Blue Mountains. I thought it was a rear wheel bearing issue. Easy fix, not an issue since (and I checked all nuts). - no other issues I can remember, the brumby just ran like clockwork! The plan now is to get the EJ turbo conversion sorted for next year’s Subinats25 That’s it for now! Cheers Bennie

Finally, after LOADS of work then tidy up and packing we’re off to Subinats in Sydney on Saturday. Left earlier to do some other stuff while up here but left almost two days later than planned. If you ever come to Australia and want to experience a wild time, come in October and do the Deni Ute Muster! It’s a loose weekend that’s for sure. This is one of the landmarks of the host town of Deniliquin - the ute on a pole (because why not?): Redback Brumby is loving the cruise so far. I’m sure she’ll keep the same attitude all the way home too. Cheers Bennie

From your title, I thought "Tow" was referencing towing the car not "Toe" 😀

Thanks for the tips gents. Good idea to direct message 'pooparu' and I'll check out the Oz folks as well. I'm hitting my 20yr anniversary with my brat this fall and treating her to overdue body work and paint.