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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.

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.

Drove up to Z's Friday night. He noticed one of the brake lights in the Impreza was (artistically) burned out so we went to Oreillys and got a pair of bulbs. B met us at Z's, we headed up and camped in northern WI. Saturday morning we headed north and Z took us on some ORV trails north of there so we headed north on those. Within four miles we saw a black bear and a bald eagle and some other wildlife. The main one Z had intended to take us on is ATV only. So we just drove up to the UP. Started out in an area north of Norway we'd only been through once and found some other trails and potential campsites there. Next two pictures are of one of the fairly long rocky hillclimbs (by UP standards) we did that weekend. Saw a wolf pup(?) walking down a side road, took a few pictures and let it be and got to the (nearby) dead end. Found a hillside with some big sandy hillclimbs so I tried one but stalled out and backed down when it got too off camber. Hit a different one and made it to the top. Found a human shaped sculpture made out of chainsaw parts. This sign was a bit misleading, while the road was rough by many peoples' standards, it was about average for what we drove on that weekend. Got to a man made dam that appeared to have blown out and then repaired by beavers. At the bottom where we had to drive by it there was a big leech sucking on a dead crayfish. Forester had been making a lot of exhaust noise under load so we stopped to fix that. One of the bolts had fallen out of one of the exhaust flanges so we found a nut and bolt and B got it back together while I cooked some burgers. Z spotted a big Eastern Fox snake in the trail. Wandered north and hit a bunch of trails and found a giant pile of potatoes in the woods. About a mile from the nearest farm, not sure if it was just a handy berm construction material or if they just needed to dump a bunch of potatoes. We had decided to go up to Craig Lake as B and Z hadn't been there before. Drove up to a campground and stayed the night. One of the random assortments of decorations we've seen in the UP over the years. This is miles from pavement. This weekend was a good demonstration that you never know what you'll find in the UP. Came across several beaver dams that were flooding old roads we were trying to follow. Got to a wetlands reserve and hiked in there a mile or so. Unfortunately we got up near Craig Lake to find that it's closed for the summer for maintenance. Hit some trails and did a little hiking and then camped in that area. Saw a ruffed grouse alongside the trail. It was jumping around and fanning its tailfeathers etc. It was on the passenger side and I looked out the drivers side while Z was taking pictures and saw what looked like a mouse on the ground. I went to take a picture of it and realized it was a chick so we continued on. Monday morning we went down a snowmobile trail to start wandering back home, it was eventually flooded so we found a different trail and headed south. Hit a stunt area we found last year and did a few hillclimbs. Impreza had a lot of wheelspin and rev limiter in first gear climbing a fairly steep one. Saw a turtle wandering around. Went through an area we'd been years ago that looks significantly different now, some berms gone, other berms added, trees growing up in areas that had been clearcut, etc. Found one stretch that would be good for suspension testing/tuning. A mile or so with decent sized dips and bumps and another section that's quite rough with holes in between small logs. Wound up taking a few narrow trails that went on for miles and surprised me by connecting to main trails. We took a tour of an old iron mine that was interesting. Drove through part of the southern UP we hadn't explored before with some decent camping areas. Saw a lot of turtles and some muskrats. Aired up and drove home on pavement. Lots of rain on the way home. I'm a little surprised the Impreza doesn't seem to have any leaks or electrical problems even driving through heavy rain for hours, I've done it a few times now. Overall a good weekend. No major issues, never even got stuck or got a flat tire. Impreza is great on the trails. Not used to having good rear visibility, way easier to back out of trails and the shorter wheelbase and rear overhang make it easier to turn around in the woods. The 60% rear bias and light rear end and open center diff make it handle almost like a rear wheel drive car. It was never close to actually spinning out but it has power oversteer in second or third or even fifth gear sometimes off pavement. Surprised me once in first gear on wet pavement. Steering seems to be a little quicker than the Outbacks which helps in those situations. There was one time on Saturday when B was driving it and he got stuck in a soft muddy trail. I could see just the rear tires spinning. He locked the center diff, all four tires started spinning, and he was able to drive out. It's easiest to lock and unlock when moving, never makes any grinding noises, helps to pump the clutch. So if we were in a really rough or muddy or sandy section I'd just lock the center diff for a while until we got back to some easier trails and then unlock it. Never used the low range all weekend. There was at least one hill I climbed in first gear high range that B had to use low range in the Forester to climb. Some things I like about it aren't from our doing but just because it isn't as beat and rusty as the black Outback. You can drive around with the windows down without choking on exhaust fumes, drive through all kinds of water and rain without getting any in the car. Found myself keeping it under 2000RPM most of the time and it had plenty of torque for normal trail riding. Fans ran more than I expected, when we'd start going really slow or stopping and starting the temps would creep up and at least one would kick in and then basically stay on until we shut off the car for a while but temps never got much above normal. As soon as we were moving the temps would drop back to the normal spot. Wondering if this is partially caused by our current tune being lean at part throttle at 2-3000RPM in an attempt to save fuel. Seemed like it would run a little cooler at 1500RPM where it's probably running richer. Probably a couple times a day after nearly stalling the engine it would start running rough. I just shut it off and restart it and then it would run smooth. Impreza might get a little better fuel economy than Forester on the road but worse on the trails. Might be something wrong with the fuel filler on the Impreza, on the last couple fillups it didn't seem to actually fill the tank. I've noticed recently you can feel crosswinds push you around. Not dangerously like an air cooled VW but something I never notice driving Legacy Outbacks.

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.

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.

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.

When I went to take out this upper left bolt it was feeling really tight, then "rubbery", then the head broke off ... I tried "liquid Wrench" with a nut on the end taping it a bunch with a hammer to "induce vibration" gripping it real tight with needle nose vice grips, etc. and letting it baste for a couple of days.. SO I thought maybe I could use it as a stud with a sleeve nut and it torqued down good. https://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/gallery/album/897-ea82-water-pump-broken-bolt-fix/

I mean, it's a truck; 8.5" Chevy 10 bolt rear, two FWD ea 5 speeds, one D/R ea 5 speed, 2 axles (think they're ej rears) an ej25 intake manifold, and a 97 Impreza L rear differential = Carolina squat BRAT. What's that, maybe 700lbs? 500? I don't know but it's definitely the most I've put back there yet. I need to look at the rear brakes. Noises. I'm going to have to come up with some type of quick disconnect to mount the seats in the back. They're a little annoying when you're trying to load stuff, would be way more ideal if they were easily removable. I would also like to fit some type of bench seat setup in the cab, maybe from an old Nissan hard body or a Mazda or something. Would be nice to be able to squeeze 3 people in the cab on occasion if the need is there. #dreams Put a good 400 miles on it over the course of 2 days last weekend. Averages 29 mpg on the highway super consistently. It'll do 90 which is about where it is here (via GPS) noticed the speedo gets inaccurate about at about 75 maybe they never thought it would be there 🤣🤣 It's way happier cruising in the 70-75 mph range, that seems to be a good happy spot for it. Anything over 3500 rpm is a bit excessive. There's been a heat wave here in the northeast and I gotta say cruising on the highway with the sliding window open, the t tops out, and the windows down with the music cranked is pretty awesome.

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!

2.2 swap. Runs for ever.

After some Al-Cu brazing practice, the old brass pipes are now attached to the new aluminum heater core. Had to redo the brass pipes to the copper elbows because the melting temperature of the AL-Cu brazing sticks is higher than the plumbing solder used for the brass pipes to the other end of the copper elbows. The brass pipes are made of thin brass, so that necessitated using brazed elbows rather than the shark-bite type. Next step is to slightly modify the plastic bosses that anchor the pipes to the heater box.

My sincere thanks to all of you. I followed all your suggestions and it ended up being the relay. What a nightmare to get access to! Ended up getting it out eventually and replaced it, and success, the blower fan is now working again! Thank you again everyone.

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

Well, I got the crossmember bolted in late yesterday afternoon/early evening. Looks like my measurements for the holes and slots were close enough to make it work - I did have to knock the passenger-side/right-side stud out of the stock rubber transmission mount to get things to bolt on properly. This is temporary, again due to the offset of the stud pattern on the mount. I'll most likely install a replacement stud in parallel with the existing one for this build, and if/when it comes time to put in a new mount i'll adjust the crossmember to suit. (The CAD file has already been updated to match so other future builds should be just bolt-on.) I'd be very interested to get in touch with one or two more individuals doing Gen 1 builds like this so that I can further beta-test this crossmember design. If you're looking to do similar, get at me! Once I've got the *new* new camber plates on hand it's going to be a hard charge forward to put the impreza suspension in and the front wheels back on the ground so I can start cutting out the impreza transmission tunnel, rear suspension, and anything else I might need so I can reclaim its current parking spot. Truckin' right along! Thanks for following!

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

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!

Spent a little more time on some further disassembly last night - got the control arms, sway bar, and transmission crossmember out without having to cut anything major - just one little bracket needed chopping to get the parking brake cable off - the bolt was so caked it was practically cemented on. I've also removed the steering rack so I can drop the engine and transmission on without running into the rag joint while I work out that problem. After reviewing some other builds again (there are only so many I've been able to find) I may end up switching tracks and modifying the impreza engine subframe to fit in the Brat for an easier time getting the steering rack clearances I need in order to avoid chopping up the transmission bell housing. For now, however, I'm going to push ahead using the modified Brat subframe so I can keep the impreza actually rollable for a little longer. I need to put together a couple dollies for the husk so I can keep workflow going in my shop during the day, and once i pull the control arms, knuckles, steering, and front suspension components that becomes much much more of a chore. I've got the camber plates sketched up and getting ready to be CNC'd - very excited for that part. I'd like to design an adapter to allow for the install of these coils into the original knuckles while I'm in here for the folks more committed to keeping the 4x140 bolt pattern than I am. In combination with the coilovers & camber plate adapters this may end up being a serviceable way to get new suspension on these old cars.

Sure thing! Brief run-down: My parents bought this car new in 1981, been in the family ever since. It was handed down to my brother and then me, both our first cars. I drove it for a couple years then took it off the road more than 10 years ago for a full bare shell restoration with upgrades. Been back on the road close to 4 years. It's now got a 2" lift kit + 27" tires, touring wagon dash/center console, power steer/air con/power windows, entirely new wiring loom designed and made by me, L series 5 spd, air adjustable rear shocks, 5ch sound system with sat-nav. The list could go on...I'm constantly working at improving and upgrading things. The front suspension will be next as its way too stiff. New gearbox coming soon etc. Here's from a recent camping/fishing trip with the 4WD club It's my daily driver and gets pushed into service for vaious jobs... Right after I got the new 15" wheels

I did change the auto trans fluid in the white Outback. It seems to be driving as normally as a 4EAT can. Got B's car back in the garage. Timing belt is shredded into a few pieces. All the idlers spin free and the tensioner was extended. Removed the engine, took off the intake and heads. All(?) the valves were bent. You can see where a few of them hit the pistons. Since he's had a few of these engines start to burn a lot of oil and we're assuming those were due to stuck rings, while we had the heads off we removed the pistons and replaced the rings. First pin came out fairly easily but we made a tool for the slide hammer to remove the rest. After we made and used this tool B noticed the Subaru FSM recommends using their tool which looks just like it. The old oil control rings barely floated. None of the rings stuck very far beyond the piston either and had about double the gap specified. Bores were within .001" round and taper which amazed me for an engine with about 150k miles on it. Gapped the new rings (they were all good out of the box) and put the pistons back in. B had lapped all the valves and replaced the valve stem seals in a better used pair of heads he had. New head gaskets, head bolts, seals, timing set, etc. Tried the old packing with grease and hammering in a pin to push the pilot bearing out trick. That didn't work. So we replaced the pilot bearing in the conventional manner. When I was tightening down the longest bolt for the PS pump it stripped out of the block. Not enough room between engine and condenser to fit a drill and drill bit so I could install a thread repair. Fortunately I was able to tap the hole deeper and use a longer bolt. Cranked a few times for about ten seconds each with the coil pack unplugged so we could get some oil circulating. Once we plugged that back in it fired right up. Seems to idle a little low and rough to me but I don't know what's normal. Runs smooth when you rev it up a little to 1000-2000RPM. No noticeable leaks or smoke. Just drove it out of the garage and back in the driveway but seems to be ready for another off road adventure.

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.

I wasn't the only one doing last minute prep on my car, slammo put his old skidplate on his daily driver and met up with us. Friday I picked up the bumpers from the paint shop but didn't have time to install before I left since I was packing the car. B and I drove down through Joplin MO and we found a campground south of there that had tent sites. Slammo and travelvw camped at this site. Saturday morning we headed south and met slammo and travelvw in Talihina OK. We drove east on highway 1 into AR. Did some trail riding there with travelvw mostly leading the way. Slammo and I both got to drive travelvw's bug. It rode quite rough as he has much too large torsion bars in the rear. He said the limited slip makes a big difference and it definitely looked like it on loose climbs, much less wheelspin than I would have expected. Travelvw's windshield washing technology: Near the end of the day we drove to the top of Eagle mountain. There was a rocky obstacle near the top that slammo left his car at the bottom of. B and travelvw were getting video so I took the most difficult line and put a hole in my RF tire sidewall. We swapped on the spare and drove to the top. A little off to the side of the building at the top there's a nice rocky outcrop with a good view. We camped at a site travelvw had been to before where two streams came together with some little rapids. We left slammo's car there for the day. Sunday morning I found this weirdly rotted out trunk near the campsite. We headed east. Hiked to a couple different old lookout towers, one a much longer hike and also more intact than the other. From the intact one you could see the hills/mountains generally run east/west. Views were good but it was overcast most of the weekend, on a sunny day they would have been great. Eventually travelvw had to head back north and we headed back west on some different trails. We went to the two footed oak tree which is bizarre. Went back to the campsite. We all planned to be back home Monday night so we figured we only had a few hours for trail riding Monday morning. We'd crossed a powerline grade near the campsite so we went to check that out first. It turned out to be a dead end but a decent hill climb. Headed north into Mena to get gas. Saw some plane junkyards at the airport. Decided to check out Top Walker Mountain road on the way north. Quite a few side trails on the way there. Drove to the end of the side trail/ridge on the map. There were a couple of narrower trails so we tried one of those, it dead ended at Round Mountain. Again, pretty good views but would be really cool in clearer weather. Before we got back on the tarmac for good we aired up and ate some sandwiches. We hadn't made it very far north when the Forester's engine suddenly stopped running going up a long grade and he pulled over on the (fortunately wide) shoulder. Engine cranked over fine, too well really, sounded like it had no compression so we assumed timing belt failure of some kind. Hooked up the tow bar to my Impreza. Had never towed with it before, has no wiring set up for towing. Towed Forester to the nearest off ramp. Slammo convinced us to do some wiring so we got some scotch locks and a four pin wiring pigtail from a parts store and wired up running lights and brake lights to the magnetic mount lights. Continued north, seemed a little squirrely when braking but not terrible. Slammo split off at Joplin to the north and we headed east. When I pulled into the next gas station in the dark it felt worse and I could see the Forester was clearly off center. Fortunately it has no problem driving over curbs. At this point only one leg of the tow bar was attached to the Forester. We straightened out the tabs and cranked all the bolts down and added a ratchet strap to keep the legs of the tow bar from spreading. After that it was much more stable the entire ride home. B took part of the timing cover off at one stop and confirmed the timing belt was loose. Didn't see this until after we got home. It's been a while since I've worked on EJ engines but I don't think you're supposed to see the timing belt through the cover and that looks like the wrong side of the belt. We both think the Impreza can hold grades better while towing the Forester than the Forester can while powering itself. I don't think we burned significantly more gas on the way home either but my speedo/odo still isn't working so I'm not sure. Overall a decent trip. Weather was pretty good. We never got stuck but I did get a flat tire and B's engine clearly needs some work. It probably needs new heads or at least valves. He does have two pairs of probably good heads in his basement. Impreza ran well all weekend. Did take three tries to start once but generally started pretty quickly so I'd say the rewiring was a success. I'm going to try a different crank position sensor and eventually probably shimming/shaving it up or down to get more cranking voltage.

I keep a bad ebay seller list on my laptop. All kinds of past misery in that list. That thread oughta be put in the off topic section.

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

We wanted to check out some areas we saw on our way home from the last Vegas to Reno so we headed south on 93 (alt) and then bailed off on a dirt road to the west. Went up through some old mining ruins in the hills. I tried this hillclimb but didn't make it to the left turn. Saw some wild horses and went through some pine forests. Continued southwest and wound up along a big flat wash. Drove up another one which was a long narrow trail up a wooded valley with quite a few cattle but most of the trees were burned. There was a big hillclimb we drove to the top of. Well, it looked like the top at first but just turned out to be a flatish spot maybe 1/3 of the way to the top. In the picture below you can see the part of the hillclimb we didn't reach. I drove up somewhat farther but was running out of power and traction and came back down. We camped along the trail that night. The main trail seemed to end at a high point overlooking the burned out valley. We drove up another valley but the trail kept getting steeper and looser so we turned around. Also by this time the Impreza's temp gauge would start rising with any sustained climbing or driving on soft ground, I'd have to run the heater to keep that under control. Drove through the town of Cherry Creek, B wondered whether they'd ever seen a Subaru. Went west through a cool canyon, some mine ruins, and through an area with various side trails and some pine forest. Continued south on some mountain trails, hit a few side trails and hillclimbs with some great views. Yes we did the hillclimb pictured below. View from the top. Near the bottom the canyon narrowed up with some fairly steep cliffs alongside us. Continued south to Ely to buy gas. Next we went to a nearby section of National Forest we'd seen on the way home from the last Vegas to Reno and drove into the mountains off the highway. Trail didn't seem too bad and then came to a big grade which looked fine from the side. When I made the turn to get on the grade I could see there was a big rut full of rocks on the downhill side of the off camber trail. I was able to stay out of the rut for a while but dropped in it a few times. The last time I dropped in it blew out my LR tire. I was able to back down to the corner but unfortunately I was stuck in the rut and it pulled me against the bank on the inside of the turn. After some trial and error and head scratching and with some tension on the winch cable we were able to jack the LR up and sideways out of the rut and away from the bank. While we were in the middle of this 2+ hour recovery operation I noticed oil dripping out one of the exhaust welds near the back of the car and something dripping off the LF control arm into the wheel. We replaced the tire in this position which was scary but seemed like our best option. Don't worry though we had a towel on the winch cable. Before I started the engine I turned it a few revolutions by hand to make sure some cylinders weren't full of oil. With four good tires and three of them on (over) the road I was fairly easily able to back across the road to the semi flat spot outside the switchback. The oil leak was probably past the rings down into the exhaust. The other leak was power steering fluid, maybe from turning the wheel without the engine running? Neither leak continued after this incident but it did take a while to burn all the oil out of the exhaust. \ Body damage wasn't as bad as I expected. After that excitement we decided to find a campsite.

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

Hello from Northern Cal. I was given two Subarus & each came with free car problems, so the inner-web led me here. One is a ‘99 Outback & the other an ‘02 Forester. So far, I’ve been impressed with how easy they are to work on as well as how capable they are off road. Cheers

Hey, it's nice to see some old friends. Life ot in the way and I haven't been around for a long time but I'm glad to see some old names . Life got in the way and we lost track, tge sites so different and my wife's finding our way around ( she;s better at it than I am) and we'll try to get back more often. Thanks for keeping this site up.

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

Same here. Past owner got the length wrong, Rock Auto got the length wrong, vendors don't care to pay attention and then I got smart and realized it was the same pump body and shaft length involved. All I had to do was pull or press the mounting face to the correct distance. I hope the spacer works out.

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.

It has IGNITION CONTROL SYSTEM troubleshooting flow chart. Step one is check for spark with a timing light, if no light then check body side of crank angle sensor ( 4 wires off the distributor) for 12v and 2 4v wires and a ground. If you dont have that voltage its bad ECU or bad wiring, you have to pull up the ECU pin read out at that point. After that you plug the crank angle sensor and you check for a 4-5 volt Square wave coming from the crank angle sensor. What I would recommend at this point is to disconnect all injectors and fuel pump so you can just run the distributor buy hand or with a drill. Next you need to check for voltage at the 2 - pole power transistor. One side needs to have a constant 12v, the other wire is a 12v square wave coming from the ECU. This is where the service manual left me. And it didn't have specific voltages for the square waves. It didn't even tell you that there was square waves. The part they left out is that the power transistor can go bad( believe it or not). it should read out like any NPN transistor, you are going to have to look up how to test that. But you can with a multi meter with diode check. You can replace the hitachi HF83118D1 transistor with any NPN transistor that is rated for the voltage and amperage. It will take some retrofitting and testing but it will work. This has to be one of the most intense trouble shooting I have ever done. Check fuses first 😂

I don't think I have every seen a white one I have had 2 reds,light blue,world rally blue,tan,black,gray,silver and brown with full stripes. I have had 10 at once Unfortunately down to a black,brown,gray and silver . May never sell these or buy another but it's been fun 30 + years. Have piles of parts Pictures sizes exceed limit

Did more truck stuff. Found some first Gen stuff: Carpet (washing it here) Seats (little man helped me clean these up, they didn't need much!) Hacked the seats into the car, first. I say hacked because unbeknownst to me the rails mount over an inch closer together on the 1st Gen seats than the are in the 2nd gens. Also because the person I got the seats from had two sets of these and both of the drivers seats were torn but the passenger seats were equally immaculate. So I bought both passenger seats and dealt with the issue of mounting a passenger seat on the driver's side when the time came. 🤷‍♂️ Don't think they look too shabby The old carpet was pretty much toast so naturally I did everything rump roast backwards and hacked in the 1st Gen carpet AFTER I already hacked in the seats, which meant I had to take the seats out again. 🤫 I say hack in because absolutely nothing about the 1st Gen and 2nd Gen carpet is the same. But I got that sh** in there and, again, if I do say so myself, it ain't looking so bad methinks I gotta point something out here That seat right there 👆🏿? That's the absolute most comfortable (bucket) seat I have ever sat in. It's incredible. Couldn't be happier and a hell of an improvement over the blown out OG seats that came with it or the equally blown out (but less duck-taped) legacy seats the previous owner had put in it. Also got a set of Jackmans but I gotta clean them up. Do they fit on 2nd gens? Hope so! Nothing else has lol In other news the vacuum advance line keeps on falling off and the gas tank has started leaking when I fill it up 💪🏿 Thank you all for checking out my thread. Until next time!

A 93 22 intake manifold won’t plug into the EJ25. It could work if you bolt a 1995-1998 EJ22 intake manifold on it and figure out all the minor pvc and vacuum and other bits. 93 EJ22 block bolts to EJ25 trans and exhaust. Bolt 95-98 intake manifold onto 93 engine and it’ll plug into the EJ25. 1995 EJ22 from an automatic is the direct bolt in option. Manual 95 works too but just won’t have EGR which you can easily work around. 1996-1998 EJ22 are all bolt in and plug and play if you also get a single port EJ22 exhaust manifold. It bolts right in place. The EJ25 exhaust is dual port and won’t bolt to the 96+ EJ22. (95 EJ22 has dual port exhaust heads so it bolts right up to the ej25 exhaust

Looks like the CV boot is cracked and slinging grease. Clear signs of it slinging out. How old is the axle? Theres a very small chance it could be old grease we are seeing. Check the axle boot for cracking. Or give us closer pictures of the ribs/convolutions so we can look for a crack. If it is, Reboot or replace the axle.

While you are in there tighten the oil pump back plate screws and replace the o-ring.

First thing we did yesterday was swap out the long travel struts in the black Outback for some stock Outback/Legacy struts. We plan on revalving these shocks so we have a set ready to swap in the other cars for easier/faster shock tuning. It looks like a lowrider in person now. I'm pretty sure those are stock Legacy/Outback struts and springs but it does weigh significantly more than stock and the stock springs are pretty soft. White Outback has been shaking under moderate braking for months now. Light or heavy braking it's not too bad. Noticed a while back that the control arm bushings were shot so I replaced those. Have had this pair of Whiteline increased caster bushings for a while. Maybe easier to install than their normal bushings since they're not flanged. Only shifts the wheel about 1/4" which works out to about 1/2 a degree of caster. Also replaced the front rotors. Not sure if they were causing the shaking but we're going to need some used ones to turn down for rear use eventually anyhow. Replaced the air filter, it'd been 30k miles and it was super dusty. Still seemed to have good power though. Also replaced fuel filter and front diff fluid. B replaced the taillights on his blue Forester, they've been cracked and leaking for a while. He tried replacing the AC condenser since it had rubbed through on the radiator but apparently the 2001 Forester condenser is different than the good 2000 Forester condenser he had. Also replaced his trans fluid and some other things. Got the STI shift yoke from the dealer. In retrospect I should have just modified the one I'd welded and ground the holes on to clock it but this was easy. Replaced the bushings. Centered up, way less slop, can now fit the shift boot and trim on.

One of these things is not like the others 🤣 Not much time lately but haven't forgotten about the thread. Just been driving her. Nearly 2k miles into my ownership. Put 2 new axles in up front. Riding in the back is terrifying. More updates when I can. Cheers and thank you for looking.