ZRX Doug

Good posting. I will agree with ya to a point.."real" roll bars are a necessity in anything that's vaguely close to a competition vehicle..square tubing will get the job done in a slow moving off roader, assuming the welding is acceptable and gussets are properly used (go take a look at what Caterpillar uses on their gazillion ton dozers & other equipment if ya doubt me)..angle iron pretty much sucks as rollover protection, but it does make acceptable body/frame bracing material (again, assuming the welds are worth a damn) if used with a little thought. You're right though..doesn't matter WHAT material ya use if it's mounted to a tinfoil floor w/o proper plating.

Thanks to this forum and its linked resources, I was inspired to do more than just the usual "baling wire & duct tape" repairs to Sue, my '89 GL wagon beateru..I've owned her since 1997, and for the first time in all that time, her EFI is now flawless (NO CEL! WOOHOO!), her brake pedal is oscillation-free, her wheel bearings are ALL new, and she feels like she's ready for another three hundred thousand miles.. This place ROCKS!

You're lucky..in Michigan anyway, a VIN check is pretty much SOP with any traffic stop. And you can forget the "pretty much" with ORV's, it IS standard operating procedure for those here. Too many people think "gee I can't get a title, so I'll just take it off-road!" I reckon.. I got caught offroading one of my cousin's Baja Bugs of questionable heritage, got to spend a fun fifteen minutes in the back of the nice ranger's Bronco in handcuffs before everything was cleared up..luckily it was a small town and my cuz was tight with the local LEO's, or I'd have spent the night in a stone hotel and his Bug woulda been impounded.

There is no such thing as "can't get a title," unless someone else has legal claim to the car..just go to your secretary of state, DMV, or whatever they call it in Florida, and find out what hoops you need to jump through to get a replacement title. Probably gonna need a cop to verify VIN and sign some paperwork at the very worse. If the car DOES turn out to be stolen, you won't need to worry about whether to part it out or off-road it, 'cuz it won't be your property..that'd suck, but not as bad as being caught driving or parting out a stolen vehicle. Let this be a learning experience..NEVER fork over cash without documentation. If all you can get is a receipt, make sure that the seller signs it, make sure the VIN appears on it, and make sure to add the seller's DL number and address as they appear on his license..if they balk, walk.

I'd suggest building your bar first..lots easier to weld the main hoop in behind your seats without a roof in the way. I wasn't actually all that worried about rollover protection, though..you've still got the "A" pillar, "B" pillar, and you're adding the hatch for a sort of truncated "C" pillar..I suspect your roof will be more crush-proof than stock in the passenger area, assuming your welding is any good at all. What I was concerned with was the body/chassis behind your new "C" pillar..there's not a lot to keep it from sagging & twisting now that it's no longer a box.

Are you gonna add a roll cage at some point? I'd think you just lost an awful lot of integrity in the rear half of the chassis when the roof went away. (In other words, if you put a floor jack under the middle of the car with the doors open on both sides, what's there to keep the rear from sagging?) Cool idea though! Whatcha gonna do for the triangular openings ahead of the "hatch" where 1/4 windows would go?

Whatever else you do, DON'T invest any more time/money in this project until you do have a title in hand..it truly sucks to find out that your investment is all down the tubes if a search ends up showing the dang thing was stolen.

Hmm..guess we don't have the same noise after all..mine occurs intermittantly under all driving conditions, actually seems to be most prevalent under decelleration.. I've got some time to screw around with it today, gonna experiment with a load of low-mileage used EFI parts, a multimeter and the FSM..

So you're saying that the axle stub is sliding thru the first bearing okay, but hanging up on the second one? Sounds like it's really hanging up on the first bearing, actually..think about it..the first couple inches of axle slid thru the first bearing, why would it hang up on the second when they're the same ID? First I'd check the stub for galling, rust (or that crap they coat 'em with to prevent rust on the parts store shelf) on the portion that ends up mating with the inner bearing. If you find any rust or crud, clean it off with some emery cloth or fine sandpaper..if there are galls or gouges, smooth 'em out with a file, then do the emery cloth thing. If all else fails, try chilling the stub down in a freezer overnight to temporarily shrink it a tad. You'd be amazed what a little bit of chill will do for tight fits..kinda like a cold shower, perhaps..

Just run " rocket-craft.com " thru Google, and choose the "translate this page" option. Not a perfect solution, but it'll point you in the right direction and take the guesswork out of what the heck you're looking at..

For the record, timing belts that croak at 10,000 miles aren't exactly uncommon, assuming there are contributing factors (leaky cam seals, for instance). I'm sorta curious what ya find. I've had the same noise for most of the summer, sounds almost like a stone in the L/F tire tread, or an exhaust manifold gasket tick, but it's intermittant..since it doesn't seem to affect performance, I tend to ignore stuff like this..once the car blows up and I'm FORCED to fix it, I will..what can I say, my Soob's a beater and lives a sad and abused life.

Yikes! Glad to hear you're okay. From the pic it appears that your tire tread parted company with the carcass completely. Could be lawsuit material there if the rest of the evidence supports it and ya happen to swing that way.

I gotta plan..stand back, this one's monumental, I tells ya! Okay: First, you build a small air-tight building, just big enough to pull the car into..once you've pulled the car in and donned your scuba gear, you open the A/C system up, allowing all the nasty freon to escape into your car-sized shoebox..now, you fire up your trusty Harbor Freight compressor,(I forgot to mention you need to put a trusty Harbor Freight compressor in the shoebox with you and the car, didn't I? Damn! Hopefully, you chose to read ahead and are not trapped for eternity in a box fulla R-12..) sucking the room's air into the compressor tank..it'll prolly be necessary to empty the tank into some spare airtanks so you can repeat this operation until the room has achieved some semblance of a vaccum..at this point, you can safely remove the desired component from the system, after removing the car, yourself, and your sixty-odd airtanks from the shoebox. Next slap some "hazardous waste" stickers on your collection o' freon tanks, and bury 'em in lead-encased concrete. Pretty simple, huh?

I thought Subaru's were supposed to leak oil? Man, my car marks it's territory so often and well, you'd think it was a Harley Davidson if it weren't so dang purty!

If your crankcase is full of sludge, pretty much any type of "engine cleaner" is apt to lead to leaks..disolve the sludge dams and there's nothin' left to hold the oil in, sometimes. As for the other worries, they're fictional.. Assuming you've got enough sense to not hydro-lock your engine by dumping too much liquid in too quickly, there's no way you'll blow a head gasket with this stuff. Likewise, if you dilute properly with a full tank of fuel, there's no way the stuff has the corrosive strength to eat thru fuel lines. SeaFoam & Marvel Mystery Oil are about the only "snake oil" potions that have my trust..there's no magic to 'em, they are simply solvents..but ya can prolly get the same results with a like-sized can of kerosene.

Bummer..I was actually looking for the front half..and the scrap yard folks bent the rear one with their forklift. Oh well..scored a couple of like-new headlights and a pair of rear drums & backing plates that looked much better than my rusty ones..

Any of you guys know if the driveshafts interchange between the auto & manual tranny 4x4 Loyale's & GL's? I found a really clean lo-milage '91 Loyale automatic at a local scrapyard, was wondering if I can add the driveshaft to my ever-growing list of parts to scavenge off it for my '89 GL 5spd DR wagon.

Yeesh! It's "Polish," not "Polash," hokey-dokey? The bug in your pic is a Katydid, which is basically a grasshopper with a custom paint job.. :-p The Cicada (seventeen year critter y'all are talking about) is a fugly beast that looks more like a giant housefly than anything else..but they do make that nifty "air raid siren" noise when they come out to play..usually means summer's just about done for here in Michigan.

Yeah, I realize that the outer race (or races, if it's two piece) needs to come out, and I figured that either setup worked since the axle stub & carrier are the same parts with both versions. I'm just wondering if anyone has a part number or bearing number(s) available so I can order the correct stuff BEFORE tearing the car apart to minimize my downtime.

Wow! That came out very nice (at least from a digital pic point of view), and the color combo looks great! I was thinking two-tone white over green was gonna end up looking like a forestry service truck, but that's really pretty danged attractive. One question though..what's the story behind the solar panel?

HELP! My left rear wheel bearings on my '89 GL 4x4 are pretty much history, and the rights can't be far behind..my local auto parts guys are clueless ("duh, gee, should I order the $59 dollar bearing or the $79 dollar one? I don't have any idea which one fits your car, Mr. Customer"), and frankly I don't wanna spend EITHER amount at this point in time.. *Anyone got any idea what the bearing numbers were for the original inner & outer rear bearings/races? I'd much rather just slope over to my local bearing supplier and get 'em for about one fourth the cash..but I don't wanna have to tear the car apart first to match up parts, yanno? *I figgered I'd highlite the actual question before y'all got lost in my incoherent ramblings.. Sorry for the repeat question, but I've searched the site 'til my fingers went numb as my skull and didn't find the answer in the umpteen gazillion rear wheel bearing threads.

Hey, I've got another tip for ya. If you're gonna shoot with spray cans, let the can soak in a bucket of hot tap water (not BOILING, just straight from the "hot" faucet) for a few minutes before each use. I picked this trick up from a Honda motorcycle FSM, of all places..dunno why it works, but it does. Paint just lays down nicer when the can is warmed up. Less orange peel and "dry" areas.

I'd say it'd be a waste of time..two-three good frontal hits and either your radiator is in the crank pulley or something'll foul a timing belt..pick on some transverse engined POS with lots of room to crush in the front, Soob clearance is measured in inches, not feet..

Anyone else hear that thud? I believe "the car guy's'' credibility just fell thru the floor..

I think you guys are looking at a mess of handling issues..you've got way too much trailer ahead of the axle centerline, and you're (presumably) going to be using the stock independant rear suspension instead of a solid axle. Either of these two things alone would make for a squirrely tow, but when ya put 'em both together and use a poor little Soob for the tow vehicle, you're looking at a recipe for disaster, IMHO. The high tongue weight caused by the poor axle placement is gonna make your tow-car squat in the rear, which causes front-end wander..when your tow car starts hunting around the lane, the trailer is naturally gonna have to follow it, and the IRS will cause trailer wallow, with the trailer wheels pointing in two different directions as they jounce & rebound independantly of one another..this will lead to the tow car wandering more, which will lead to the trailer wallowing more..ya see where I'm going with this? It's a vicious circle, and in a car like a Subaru (read: LIGHT & easy to shove around and not particularly thick skinned for passenger protection) the idea of letting the trailer do the driving is a tad scarier than usual.