TeamCF

Yeah I knew to air down, just thought I'd try to get away with it. My GL is kinda a rust bucket as it is. (must have already been a coast car or just "not from around here") Last time I went out on rocks the rocker panels "popped" :-\ Gonna have to start putting some sheet on it anyways so I figure, Dune it up!

The water burnout is some crazy stuff.

It 's fun. I neglected to air down in the staging lot. Turns out some of the softest and deepest sand there was the pile you have to drive thru to get out of the lot. Almost got stuck before I even made it on to the dunes! Ended up needing to air down right there. In MI they had a huge dune you had to climb with a pole you drove under right out of the lot. If your dune flag didn't hit the pole, you couldn't go out. And if you couldn't make it up the dune, you had no business out on the rest of it.

Yup two of them one on each seat hinge. Some pics. The part in question on the end of the hinge. What it would look like folded down. Figured I'd get them before the seats were packed away up in the shop. Don't need more than the front seats in a wheeler. Gave me a good spot to mount my spare. And even had to crank the suspension adjuster down, so it lost a noticable amount of weight.

Yeah it eats everything badly. But it's so much fun! Used to take my dad's '73 Jeep out to the dunes in MI when I was a kid. He would tear down just about all of the drivetrain, pull the axles, and the brakes and clean out/re-lube everything once we got home. Used to completely rebuild that thing every few years as well. Every nut and bolt. Stripped and repainted, engine gone over, spring packs apart and repainted. all of it. Kinda had to, to keep up with the salty winters.

That's a nice pic though.

Sorry to bring this one back from the dead. But I remembered it when I was pulling the rear seat out of my '83 and saw those little parts. You were right. They do go on the seat bottom of an EA81. they fit over the end of the hinge that is mounted to the bottom of the seat. There are two plastic "loops" on top of the seatback near the ends that fits over them when the seat is all folded down. My seat is no longer in the car, but I could fit them together and take pics if ya want.

Very nice.

Yeah there were spots where you didn't want to stop. But as long as I gave up before it was too late (on hillclimbs). I was always able to back out of a potenial stuck. Just crusin' around on the flatter stuff was fine. Sink about 6 inches or so crusing on the beach area. It's really soft out there. You can drive on the beach up near Seaside (but if you do cookie they'll be on you instantly, no silly stuff up there), and the sand is alot harder near the water. Out at Sand Lake even where it was wet was like quicksand due to everyone always churning it up. The dry stuff was extra soft compared to any other beach. More air out of the tires would have helped some.

I've seen pics of new street Roo's out on sand. Pretty cool stuff. It was really soft and deep out there yesterday.

I got the itch and hopped in tha car around noon. Also hit up Rogue Brewery in Newport. 400 mile day but well worth it. Sand Lake rocks and I'm all addicted to the sand now. On to the pics! I love how the sand is pouring out of the fender. The last pic is what everything including me looked like cause I neglected to roll up the windows before slidin' around kicking up walls of sand. I was suprised at how well it did in the deep soft stuff. Could do better but alot had to do with horsepower. (or lack of it) Get going up a steep 'n' deep dune and it would just bog. But I did enough good hill climbs to get alot of head turning, and a few head shakes. Mainly a 1st & 2nd lo range day. 3rd gear when a long flat cruise was in order. I only aired down to about 20 psi. Next time I might try 15, but then shy away from the hard cornering. Got that out of my system on this trip. Now I just have to go get a new tire. Sliced open the sidewall out there. Proly during the cookies. Can't wait till Scott and the crew come down for WCSS 10.

Nice. If I can dig up the link (lost it in a favorites dump last year) I found a site that sells LED replacments for all kinds of applications. They make just about every auto bulb out there. Was going to order some of thier UV dome light replacements but, well, lost the link. :-\ Ahh, here it is. They even have the twist in dash bulbs. And ones that go in place of fog/headlight bulbs. (only for DRL use though) http://www.superbrightleds.com/1157.htm

Unless you live up around Portland. Then you get to wait in line at the DEQ every two years.

Like all mine...... That's a cool find. Still sealed.

Yeah what he said. I have a fabricator friend that has an old kit for one (or maybe it was a Tracker kit?...) and he wants to see if we can put it on my Soob. (with a bunch of modification of course, just use it as a starting point) Duhh..I just looked at the other pics. They were mini trucks.. hehe Thought we were talking about a full sized rig.

I know you can get kits for more popular rigs to adjust the "transmission to speedo" ratio after changing tire size. (or some people just change out the diff grear ratios) But as for Subarus.... we are part of only a small percentage that put bigger tires on them. So Proly no off the shelf fix for it. Could be a cable out of another model that might do the trick. But I don't know for sure.

Front is stock, rear has a 1" but it is mostly taken up by all my gear in the back. It has the factory adjusters cranked up. (front not so much to save axles) I want to do a lift in the future. But right now it's very satisfiying following lifted Yota's and Jeeps around with a stock Soob.

Yeah I kept knocking it off. So I finaly gave in and left it home. Pretty much had to drive over that big rock in order to proceed up the trail. The one behind me on my left sticking up had just rearranged some sheetmetal before the pic was taken.

More pics I just got in an e-mail. All on Fire Break Five. Just love that trail.

Exactly.

Yeah I gotta get over the the JY near me and see what they have. I know they purged thier old Suby collection a while back, but should have a bunch more by now. I don't even know if I can put my sway bar back on with how my exhaust has been tucked up for more clearance (had the shop do it after I removed the bar). Could try though and see how I like it. Need new bushings for it out at the ends though. Mine were basicly gone when I took it off. Pretty much metal against metal. Proly find some decent ones at the JY. Nice part about welded though is you don't have to do alot of tire spinning. So not so much fast wheelspin up front when it does lift.

Good points, and tips. The synthetic grease thing interests me... I dove into it somewhat as well. Actually took the axle apart that really went bad, I just had to see. (made sure I already had some good boot clamps on hand) It was over extended. The bearings inside the DOJ had been contacting the retaining ring that sits in the groove on the cup. In comparison the EMPI's seem slightly shorter than my old ones, I could actually slide them off of the trans without having the suspension taken apart at all, my old ones needed the lower ball joint and the strut disconnected in order to get the clearance. Which seems odd as I would think they would have just made them to Subaru size specs.... Or maybe Discount's book is wrong. Which is very unlikely as they do fit everywhere else. Wish I would have thought to get a bunch of pics. But I was more concerned with a quick peek so I could get the hour drive each way to exchange it overwith. The gearing thing is the whole reason I'm not going over 26" tires. At least not until I get to the point of just replacing the drivetrain like you are planning. Cause like you say, wheelspin is the enemy, I hardly ever get much past 2,000 rpm in first LO when I wheel. Even on steep hills I always try to keep it just over lugging/stall. If I wanted to get the speed in the dirt I would have stayed with RallyCross. I never understood the "Taking runs at things" Just not good wheeling to me. Rather try to crawl over big obstacles with small tires, than have to blast over small obstacles with big tires. Oh well. It's rolling again, and I'm gonna invest in some Genuine, or MWE's to have on the shelf for next time.

My camera does not take very good night shots. I tried. Sorry. I'll have to take a good one up sometime (tinight with the moon would have been good,.... doh!) And get some.

So I had the axle problem. Which is fixed I'm over it. Sorta, cause I think it's gonna blow again, soon. Read on. This may be food for thought on how new parts can break old parts. (Or other new parts that were not designed to accept the change) First a bit of history. One of my axles was 9 months old according to the recipt. The other was 2 months old. Both blew up at the same time on the same run right after installing the new strut tops. Odd. I figured out why. When I replaced my old strut tops. I actually gained about a 1/4" of ride height. And I gained about 3/4" of extra droop at full extension. Reason is the fresh rubber in the strut tops. My old ones were basicly solid. When you jacked up the car they didn't flex. The new ones are boosted up slightly and strech down when a tire is off the ground and the strut is fully extended. (I actually cranked down my adjusters to lower it some, but that won't stop the extension when a wheel is off the ground, as the adjusters only preload the springs) I'm over extending the axles which EMPI proly never designed to be fully extended and turning. Like what happens while off roading. So unless I put limiting straps on the front of my Soob. Or drop the trans and engine some with out putting spacers at the struts. I figure two wheeling trips will be enough to blow the new ones up too. (I could be wrong though. Maybe I'll get 6 mos. out of them) And one of those runs is gonna be tonight up to Goat after dark to see the Portland lights. I'd better get ordering better axles. Just thought I'd share what I found out from the whole thing.