bushbasher

a coilover is a shock with a spring outside of it. A strut is similiar but acts as an upper link in the suspension. in the rear ea82s have coilovers. I would think that you would order the coilover minus the spring, and then swap the old spring over. Most ea82 wagons I've seen have had good shocks, so I would just go snag some new coilovers off of the newest and nicest wagon at the local junkyard. Just remember that 2wd and 4wd coilovers are different lengths.

put a rollbar in and wear a helmet when you're wheeling, and just go for it I almost rolled the wagon a week ago when I had it up on 3 wheels testing the center of gravity. Then my tire popped off the bead and the whole car jerked downward. I punched it and turned into the roll and saved it:banana:

the guy making the solo II GLF has done it I'm pretty sure. edit - he did a 4x120mm conversion, but the concept may be the same. Im thinking also that it might be that the subaru hub flange tapers inward too soon for 4x100 to work.

I found some aggressive 205/75/15 snow tires once, they were more aggressive than a bfg at, probably on par with a bfg mt. They were pretty much no-name brand tires. You wouldnt find these kind of tires on the net, you'd probably have to go searching tire stores. But I think thats as good as you can get in 205/75/15. A 215/75/15 is going to be smaller than its rating, most tires are this way. I have a few different 225/75/15s that all measure out to only 27", maybe a hair more. I would go with a 215/75/15 because even though you might lose a bit of gearing, you have more tire options. Plus there will be more sidewall, which will allow you to air down more. Just to clarify, thats a lincoln locker, or welded diff, that GD is talkin about.

i want to strip a pair of doors to the shell and cut them down so you can lean out (like a scout II half door). Probably less work. If your doors don't get pinched when you are off-roading they are not going to do anything to strengthen the car, unless you mean crash protection

my splines were really rusted to sh** and my method worked first try. The trick is to not bothering with wax or anything, just get on it with a hammer right away. before it has time to cool or for the heat to equalize between the two parts.

i wouldnt count on the tercel axle being much stronger than the subaru.

use the torch to get it real hot then pound on it as soon as you get the torch off. The heat will cause the outer part to expand more than the inner breaking the rust bond. I had to do this on my outers, and my surrounding seals survived the heat. You just gotta be careful about where you put the heat. I pointed the heat directly where the stub goes in.

Wow, that is nice paint! And some intense rust repair action! I need to do some of that on my wagon, I need to weld in new rear wheelarch bits, and also fix some frame rail and sill cap holes. Only I have to do it with oxy-acetylene, which takes friggin forever and warps the metal easy. I need to get a mig! oh, and sweet rollbar!

adam, if you are on a side hill with no sway bar, the struts on the bottom side are going to compress more and the ones on top would unload, trying to make your car more vertical. In that situation a sway bar would help keep you at the level of the road instead of an even greater angle. But you are right, if your top wheel hits a bump while you are off-camber, the car will make a sudden (scary) weight transfer or just bounce off and down instead of flexing over. The one thing that scares me on the rocks in subarus is that you have to be careful because the lack of flex means that when you are liftin wheels, weight shifts can cause the car to rock suddenly until the wheel hits the ground again, instead of letting the springs slowly take up the slack. So, the more easy flex the better, rip that sucker off!!

my dad made a pressurized tank blaster, but my compressor isnt powerful enough to keep 100+ psi for very long. It used to work fine when he had a 5hp gas compressor. its made out of a propane tank. The other problem with it is that occasionally you have to shake it cause it sucks a big hole in the sand pile and the sand doesnt keep coming.

to lift the back the cheap way unbolt the top of the rear coilovers, drill two new holes a few inches below, and get some bolts with nyloc nuts, and bolt em back in lower. This method lasted on my first wagon for some hardcore wheeling. Most you can go is a few inches though because the axles can only have so much angle on them. Couple that with some taller springs in the front like snowman says. You can also weld another strut top to the top of your strut tops to give 2 inches. Of course you need access to a welder though. Besides pugs you can get 6 lug toyota pickup rims in 14" or 15" and stick some aggressive "real" snow tires or ats/mts, and drill the rims out for the 4bolt pattern. 2 of the bolts from the hub already fit, you just have to drill 2 more in each rim. in the front of my wagon I was able to put a 27" tire that would turn lock to lock with no lift, after beating on the back of the inner fenderwell, and cutting a ton out of the fenders.

you use a timing gun which is a strobe light that flashes from the trigger of your spark plug wire. Then you do the timing in the dark and it will flash and illuminate the timing marks on the flywheel showing you were you are at. In order to do this you have to put the ecu in test or limp mode or something for the rx so that it doesnt try to automatically adjust timing as you are changing it someones gonna have to chime in here cause I dont really know what I'm talking about at this point. :-\

huh, I thought the dr 5spd has a 1st gear closer to 3.7? maybe pushbutton vs dr is different? But thanks!

I know there have been numerous posts about this, but the only answers to be found when searching were about diff ratios, and links that no longer work. So my searching got me nowhere. I would like to get the transmission gear ratios for a 5spd dual range tranny. Thanks.

I'm thinking about hard mounting my front diff from both points (no rubber bushing), would this create any problems? I've also got a pile of subaru driveshafts with no slip-yokes, and not enough Lada shaft parts to make drivelines. If I hard mount my diffs are slip-yokes necessary? The t-case mounts have rubber, and the tranny-to-t-case shaft still has the spline output on the tranny for some movement as well. On a side note, I was pulling the rear suspension out from under the car, and noticed that the tube part of the crossmember looked suspicious. So I tapped it with hammer and sure enough the undercoating flaked away to reveal swiss cheese Good thing I found that, I'm not sure how long that would have lasted under a lift and 30s. Its wierd how some parts are completely disintegrated on my car, and others are fine. I suppose it must be from salt damage.

We've got a bow-wow up here, sounds like thats where I should be getting parts. Springs and good shocks, good quality axles, urethane bushings, good quality gaskets and seals oh and steering wheel adapters. If I am not mistaken they are just a parts place right? So about as much as they can do is research stuff thats already being manufactured, and put it up for order?

I could come out some time this summer when I get my wagon project finished, but I don't make trips to the mainland often.

I'm worried about stubs, I would probably be able to pay for some chromo stubs or something in the future, like this summer, but right now this is a tight budget build. I'd probably dump the project before putting solid axles in though. It just seems like I might as well be driving a samurai or a toy pickup instead of going through the hassle to try and mate a solid axle to a unibody car, and a rusty one at that :-\

after fooling with the thing trying to figure out how to mount it with a 4" lift, I came up with this solution. The pillow block mounts are too high on the case to bolt to a subframe running front to rear, so I am going to cut up the transmission tunnel just behind the front seat's rear bolts. Then, instead of running a beam from the front lift blocks to the rear (which would be a pain due to lack of space with 4" blocks) I am going to run bars from the from the box section that goes across under the front seats on the topside of the floorpans to the the ledge at the base of the rear seats. The pillow blocks will bolt to these from the bottom, and the t-case should pack in high enough to leave about 3" of the case sticking down from the floorbards. The front diff and driveshaft is gonna be real tight, but I think it will work. I am going to do the rear lift, then the t-case, then the front lift, so I will decide whether to do a straight 6" body lift or a 4/2 lift in the front when I get there. I've got all 4 toyota rims but no tires, Im planning on 235/75 15 or 30"

I dont think a 95-97 legacy could possibly weigh only 2650 lbs when my wagon weighs 2700.

this is the race wagon right? so its only 2wd? I was going to say driveshaft but then realized I take 4wd for granted

-without cutting the trans tunnel- it is best to do an 8" I think, a 6" will cause the case to be fairly far down. If you cut up the tunnel I think you could fit it under a 4" but you're pushin it. At 4" the front diff is gonna be a real tight fit and might not fit unless you move it down so it is sticking half below the the crossmember. That is why I am doing suspension lift so that I can keep good diff clearance in case I have to mount the diff lower.

yeah get 4x2 square tubing for a 4" lift and cut pieces to drop all the subframe components. You will have to link the pieces with square tubing for rigidity, and you will have to deal with extending the steering shaft and modifying the shifters. Check out subarubrats, adamndj, in the photogallery there should be some pics so you can see what I mean.

UPDATE I went up island and got the niva case 50 bucks cdn with some assorted shaft pieces. Subaru shafts bolt straight up, and the groove to line them up is even a snug fit. it is a shallow t-case with the outputs coming about 5" aside from the input, which isnt perfect but will still work fine. 2 levers stick straight up, one for hi-neutral-lo and one for diff lock (its ft4wd with difflock just like an rx), making for a total of 4 shifters when I get it mounted (plus dual e-brake) High range reduction of 1.2 to account for increase in tire size, plus 2:1 low reduction. It mounts on pillow blocks which will also make for easy mounting. In other words, DREAM CASE!!! Im jumping up and down happy with it. Im going to continue with my 4" lift, but add an extra 2" suspension, and cut up the tranny tunnel to pack it up in there a few inches. My crawl ratio will be a healthy 46:1. I wish you guys had them in the states because they look to be a great fit, but on the other hand, I'll be the only niva cased ea82 wagon