Caboobaroo

My last day at the dealership is the 14th of May and I'm leaving the morning of the 16th. I have to work on the 12th though to make me some extra money....

Good luck on getting beliner off Mary. They way we do it at work, we use a torch and burn it off but yes, its very stinky and very messy. Plus, it leaves behind a nasty residue that has to be cleaned off before painted.

There's a guy in Oregon that can have them custom made IIRC. Its been awhile but he posted it up around here somewhere...

Time for pics of the recent work done to the car. This started Friday at 5:30pm (when I clocked out) till 9:30pm Firday night, then Saturday morning from 9am to 4pm, then Monday night from 5:30pm to almost 10pm... Old front end and tranny removed from car Old front end on ground The back of blown engine Pic of car on the rack with no tranny/front end Turbo engine crossmember and complete front 5-lug assembly RX gearbox before installation Custom Stage 2 clutch Front end installed in car with tranny and coilovers Mmmm tranny goodness! So I still have to make a mount for the carrier bearing to install the driveshaft, clock my coilovers down a lot to give it a better look, swap some decent tires onto my steelies (after I "fix" them with my sledge hammer), alignment, install pedal cluster, install new engine (when it gets here), install some interior pieces like seats, center console and dash trim, wire in my diff lock, and do a few other small items to it before it should be road worthy to drive everyday. Then I'll be spending a week in the evenings to get the bodywork done and painted. I'm also going to go with all black bumpers from my RX and paint those and the trim in the same OBP as the bodykit. I think it'll look sexy:clap:

Best bet is to get a new gasket. If you try and seal it up with really anything, the moisture thats already trapped in bewteen the seal and the pinch weld around the windshield will rust faster.

this is why I went with Impreza stuff in the front end when I did the conversion in my RX;) That and I found a low mile '96 Impreza wagon that had been smacked in the front right inbewteen the headlights:-p

that and the stabilizer rod that goes from the control arm to the tranny mount is larger in diameter...

no its fairly easy to replace an axle but it can be time consuming if A. you haven't done one before and B. the parts store gets you the wrong one. Since its a 2wd, you'll need a 23 spline DOJ (the joint that slides onto the tranny). They're not too terribly expensive but there's probably a few people around in your area with a used one they would go for pretty cheap.

to answer your WRX interchangability question. Yes, you can interchage some of the parts that you can get from the Imprezas with WRXs BUT I'm not 100% sure which parts they are. I do know that there have been a few people who used WRX front brakes on their 5-lug conversion, have seen the 200SX rear ebrake mod done a few times and other stuff like that. When it comes to trying to interchange parts that not a lof of people have done in the first place, its going into new territory basically. If you feel up to the challenge, I can give you a helping hand. My '89 RX which I did a 5-lug conversion on which is now under my '87 GL coupe has the following parts in it... rear XT6 hubs and calipers rear XT6 swaybar front XT6 swaybar front XT6 control arms XT6 tie rod ends '96 Impreza struts Impreza knuckles Impreza axles Impreza hubs and calipers I have also upgraded my springs to a nice set of coilovers and ocne I get my new rims, I'll be setting them down to the desired ride height and doing a full alignment. The reason for the XT6 swaybars is the fact that their the largest stock swaybars you can get that work in any EA82 car. Also, the stabilizer rods on the XT6 control arms are also bigger in diameter to give it less flex and better handling. One thing I should mention that I also mentioned in the USRM article I wrote. I have had issues with the bolt that connects the engine crossmember to the XT6 control arms. The XT6 control arms that I have ever used have had a larger bolt then the EA82s. I drilled the hole out in the crossmember to a 1/2", then used the original EA82 bolt. I have also come up with a design for this bolt to help adjust the camber at the bottom but thats something I'm still working on;)

Thats actually not totally correct. If you compare the EA82 tie rod ends to the XT6 tie rod ends, you'll notice that even though they are shaped the same, the XT6 ends are longer, more stretched out compared to the EA82s. Its not a lot of difference but I just compared them again when I put the 5-lug into my coupe yesterday and that was the main thing I noticed.

I've driven an EA82 d/r where I could shift the 4wd from 2-4 wheel on the fly.

+1 but my black car is getting picked up this week by the scrapyard My silver coupe will have black on it though:-p but not just any black. Obsidian Black Pearl is my favorite black that Subaru has offered

I have done quite a few 5-lug swaps. Here's the info you need to get started on what parts you need in order for you to bolt everything into the car... http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=50400

Progress continues and will have pics once I get my camera from work. Front 5-lug is in and bolted up. Monday night, I will be installing the RX gearbox and driveshaft into it, then prep it for the engine swap. I still have to install the coilovers in the front and adjust them down but that'll be later on this week I think. Then I gotta install the RX instrument cluster, pedal cluster, attach the clutch cable and speedo cable to their proper ends, and then wire in the RX cluster and diff lock switch. Then finish installing the black center console, RX checkered seats, install my 16" Legacy mesh rims if I end up getting them and doing an alignment. Its getting closer and next weekend will hopefully be the engine swap and have it running:banana:

so tonight I did some more drivetrain work to it. I got the whole front end ready to come out (need a second set of hands for some moving issues) and the tranny is sitting on the floor, along with the TQ. Tomorrow, I'm going to finish taking out the crossmember (4 nuts woo:rolleyes: ) and support the weight of the engine , drop it out, and stuff the turbo one into there. I'm going to break down the front end I have and put it in there a few pieces at a time but I think I can get it done in roughly 5 hours, tranny and all. So by 5:00 tomorrow afternoon, I'll have a turbo crossmember, front 5-lug conversion, and my RX gearbox in there with shift linkages. Then a couple late nights and I should have a new carrier bearing mount thats to some T-iron and a welder. Hopefully Kingbobdole comes up on the 13th and brings me an engine. This car WILL be running in a couple weeks:banana:

no which sucks. The engine I need is still at Keith's house and I got no way to get there.....

well I like the little switch. Besides, my shifters are custom made up. Short throws FTW! That and I have this nice STi shift knob that I really don't wanna put away:-p I have a lot of connectors since I've been stripping my RX. Found a good use for some of them and found some that I needed to repin for the cluster and such.

I'm gonna be there this year, YAY! I'll be rollin my freshly repainted EA82 coupe with some LGT meshies on it:-p First WCSS that I'm attending that I'll have my own Subaru there:headbang:

Unfortunatly, none of that is going to be very easy. I'm swapping all of it into an '87 FWD auto coupe:rolleyes: I have found some solenoids from a manual RX and those will be going into the stock location but IIRC, there's no plug for them either. So I'm going to make a few connectors so the system can be easily removed from the car.

so then I take it that you don't need those parts anymore Mr. Funny Guy?:-p

I'm gonna kill you!

Check with Super Rupair in Boulder, CO. I almost moved down there to work for them last year but decided I wanted to have my own shop instead:-p

If you have powersteering, you'll need a powersteering bracket from an EA81T because the EA82s reach out farther to go past the timing belts. Also, you need to find an EA81 that has the bosses for the powersteering bracket as well. I was going to do this swap into an '87 GL coupe but then I found a good engine for it so I'm sticking with the EA82. You'll also have to mod the disty from an EA82 to work with the EA81. Basically after the powersteering pump issue, look at the EA82 SPFI onto an EA81 threads because that will give you an idea of what kind of mods have to be done. It's pretty simple actually...

Thats basically in the same spot as our diff lock switches. I wasn't about to chop up a nice black console to put it in there since I will be putting an EJ box in when I do the EJ20G swap into the car. This will work for now and make it easily removable from the car. I'm going to make the harness its own for the most part so it'll work in any Subaru with a locking center diff.

How many people here have installed a Full Time 4wd 5-speed tranny into a car not originally equiped with such, then had to wire in the diff lock to get it to work? I'm currently slaving away at my schematics I have getting it all to work, however, I remembered that I have a now black center console and no room for the switch. So I decided to relocate the switch to another spot, plus it makes wiring the diff lock a lot of feet in wires less... Here's where its going to be making its new home into the dash of my coupe. Next, I'm putting in the matching RX instrument cluster into my coupe as well but apon further inspection, the two main plugs on top of the cluster are wired different for auto and manual. So I just "made" a couple plugs by swapping the pins around in them, then I'm going to hack off the old plugs one wire at a time and solder them onto where they should be going. These two plugs are for the indicator lights in the center of a GL analoge cluster (ie: doors, hatch, diff lock, "LOW", rear defrost, seatbelt, etc.). Its not as bad as one might think it is, just very time consuming.