ettev

Exterior finish for this: A) Solid White with the red/black halo Brat stripes (back to stock) or Snow camo (possibly with a solid base color below lower trim strips) or C) Other (post your suggestion) It will also have a tall cap on the back so it will get painted the same as the body. Interior is blue. Should I keep the body trim strips on the sides or pull them and fill in the mounting holes?

More cosmetic work today. I need to fix a leaking brake line then its off for the lift install. Check back later in the week or next weekend.

Give the starter a couple of whacks with a hammer or whatever else you can get in at it with. If there's a high spot on the armature a good hard whack may free it up enough to crank. There may also be a fusible link in the starter circuit, but I'm not 100% sure about that. Maybe someone else will know and post.

If installing a lift kit on the EA81 chasis is it still ok to extend the posture adjustments on the front struts or should they be left in the normal position. Also, a general question about these adjusters: what is the max length you can get out of the fronts? I think I ran mine until the stop pin bottomed out on the strut coil cup and that gave me about 1 3/8" of lift. Does this sound about right?

This relay/switch/??? is mounted on the rear cab panel of my '85 Brat. It's near the floor at the drive shaft tunnel area and is normally hidden by the interior plastic trim panel. What is it?

Looks like all of the structurally augmentation was wrapped up tonight. Not a lot to show for it though. One really heavy duty patch on the drivers front frame horn, rocker panel patches on both sides, and a lot of reattaching of removed parts. Got the rear end back up into place and we reinstalled the gas tank. Since I pulled it to do the structural work I had a local shop cook it out and check it for leaks. All good! Sprayed the top with rubberized undercoating, reinstalled the sending unit and back up she went. All new hoses and clamps too. We got rid of the short metal fuel return lines that come thru the rubber grommet in the passengers rear wheel area and went back in with new rubber lines. Alas, the magic spray from PennDOT's winter road pre-treatment got to the metal lines. Reinstalled the trailer hitch. Test fit the front brush guard but didn't install it until the rest of the body work is finished. Put the old set of shocks back on temporarily until the new Ranchos go on in conjunction with the lift kit. LOTS of tool clean-up, etc. Well that just about does it for this portion of the work. Stay tuned for future work including lift kit install, finished body work, reinstallation of interior plushies, installation of the camper top and finally the paint job. All should start next week and run for another month or two. As long as you're all reading this let me ask for opinions. Should I keep all the high thin and low thicker side body moldings on this thing or take them off and fill in the holes prior to painting? I'd need to pull them anyway to do some rust repair behind a few of the mounting locations so either way is no extra work. What would look best? As for paint the boy and I were really liking the idea of a dull snow camo job. My brother-in-law says go back all white with the original red/black/white halo stripes. I am putting a high topper on it and was going to paint it to match the truck wheter its snow camo or something else. If it matters the interior on this one is blue, not grey and I'm going with a set of 15" Pugeot alloys with swampers. All opinions are welcome.

I found a guy with NOS wheel wells. Still has 7 of one side and 2 or 3 of the other. Price.......salty. $350 per side.

I would have really liked to have gotten a bit more "creative" with this one but beggars can't be choosers.

It's more like me helping him. He's a fabricator/welder/machinist by trade. Pays to know (or in this case, be related to) the right people!

I've taken all the photos. The person you see in them is my brother-in-law.

Tedious work tonight. It all started with about a one-hour rain delay and was cut short because we ran out of argon gas mix for the welder. Tonight we went at the rear frame areas where the torsion bar mounts. A critical area in any case but even more so considering the soon to be installed SJR lift. Figured it had to be relatively sturdy in these areas or the lift tubes wouldn't be of much use, nor the entire car for that matter. Lots of careful template making, plate cutting and bending, etc. Very tight conditions for grinding, wire brushing and all other prep not to mention welding! Looks pretty good now though. Man, I have to vent here. These things had to have been designed as disposable transportation. Talk about super thin frame sections! I can't figure out how you west coast and northwest corner folks manage to keep yours as rust free as you do. Our state highway group, affectionately known as PennDOT, uses this really neat stuff for road pre-treatment before winter storms that is absolutely killing all types of vehicles underneath. My inspection mechanic tells me that in all his years (and thats a lot of them!) he's never seen undercarrige damage like he has since PennDOT started using this crap. With these vehicles already having been made from not much more than commercial kitchen aluminum foil its no wonder they literally fall apart. Anyway, check back tomorrow for more work

Most of the top side structural work is done. Tomorrow its underneath repairs to the torsoin arm mounting frame areas, some front frame repair and possibly a few rocker panel patch welds. Also want to fit up the front brush guard. After all that I'll hang the new (old but in better shape than mine) left front fender and two better doors plus maybe a hood. Then its off to USMB member subaru360 for the lift kit install. Check back tomorrow for more progress photos.

Took the weekend off. Got back on this tonight (7/7). Chickened out on tackling the tube steel on the rear bed frames today so we went at the floor pan and the other wheel well. Making progress! Tomorrow should be the tube steel work then we go underneath the beast for some torsion bar repair, floor pan work along with other good things. Hope the kid appreciates this! On another note, does anyone know if that heavy, tar mat that Subaru put on the inside of the floor pan is still available? If so what's it called (please don't say heavy, tar mat). Check back daily for more progress photos. I'm trying to wrap things up this week.

No work on 7/3 & 7/4. Frame tube steel to go in this weekend. Check back.

Progress photos of 7/2 added (click the original link in the first post). Not much to show for 3 1/2 hours. Lots of hand fitting and prep.

Yes, but I don't think I want to pay the asking price. I may change my mind in a few days however!

I'm working on an '85 Brat for the kid. He gets his drivers license next summer. Here's a link to the progress photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26905545@N07/sets/72157605926523746/detail/ I just started the chopping out of the bad and rusty areas on 7/1/08 and hope to have everything structurally sound so I can get this down to another local USMB brother for a 4" lift install. I'll keep updating as the work goes on. If you see me doing something wrong please let me know so I can fix it. Any feedback would be appreciated.

WTF?!?

I live in Pennsylvania. I have two 1985 Brats. One title says passenger vehicle, while the other says truck. Go figure. Neither have tags so I guess when I apply for them I'll find out what they really want to classify them as! When my "passenger vehicle" Brat was on the road a few years ago I was able to get passenger vehicle (non-truck) tags.

I just bought another Brat this weekend. The guy I bought it from also has a turbo Brat that is completely un-roadworthy. Everything from the cab back is rusted out, top and bottom side. I'm swapping out my seats with him and other than that the interior is ok. Has 114,000 miles on it and he claims the engine, trans and rear are all good. Any interest in parts? If enough people make it worthwhile I'd buy it, crib the parts and send 'em out. I say worthwhile because even in its near-death condition the guy wants $700. I don't know if I could sell enough off of it to make that back.

I thought mine was stock. If it isn't whoever did the retrofit was pretty good.

PM and email sent. I'd take a 4" Gen 2 Brat kit but I need it yesterday.

I'm in for a 4" Brat lift if it's going to happen soon, real soon.

Mine is a 1985 non-turbo and it's got power steering. As many as I've seen in the junk yards over the past few years none of the non-turbo's have had power steering. I guess I got an odd ball.

Hatchsub, Thank you.