Dodge Aries K

Wow! That's a nice kit! Unfortunately it costs quite a bit more than I paid for the car... I'll have to start saving my pennies and get some funds together for that kit. Just curious though, is there a way to raise it even higher than 3 inches?

Well, I'm hoping to make that daydreaming a reality with this thing. I've read that forester struts would be a decent lift for the thing... any idea if that's true or if they actually make a lift kit for this car? As for the skidplates and diff cover, my buddy is going to help me make some to protect the bottom of the car from damage. Hopefully we'll be able to make them for darn near free thanks to the fact he's still in school and can nab some scrap metal pieces. Foglights galore eventually... that's just fundage holding me back there. As for changing the bumpers... ehh... don't really want to do that. I like the way these cars look. I'd like a front end guard for it though with a winch on it as well as a trailer hitch for the back (which my buddy's car has that we're gunna take for this one). First step of the matter is going to be getting another knuckle for it so that way it'll have a good wheel bearing again. The pass front bearing is dead... very dead.

Time for one of my favorite things in the world... a super low budget project! Low quality pictures but it's dark out and I'm moving this weekend so I'll get better ones after that process is done. Bought this Sunday for $500 bucks and already have a buyer for the struts and tires for $250 once I get some Forester struts and other tires for it. It first needed a timing belt idler as it broke but it made an hour drive at 80 MPH with this awesome part from it's parking spot to my friend's apartment. Click this to see the nice failed gear! EJ22 Phase I non interference engines... while not that powerful... are bulletproof. Replaced that idler gear, new timing belt (old one was newer but had two of the ball bearings from the idler blowing apart embedded into the rubber), and it was once again smooth and quiet. 257K on the clock and it's pretty damn quiet when it's running. It needs a front passenger wheel bearing really really bad but it made the 6 hour drive from Minneapolis, MN to here without dying. You can actually move the wheel over a half an inch in and out... hopefully I can just get a used knuckle as I'm cheap and I don't have a way to press in a new bearing. It has the typical spots of rust on the rear wheel wells where the bumper meets the body, the abs is dead, and it needs the air bags and sensors replaced as at one point in time this car murdered the hell out of a deer. Didn't do too much to the car besides busting up the front bumper a bit. Besides that everything works and works well on it. it has newer tires, struts, clutch, water pump, and other crap on it too... I think it was a damn good buy for the price and I think it'll be a fun car. Besides, I always wanted to see what one of these cars could be capable of in an off road situation but my other Subarus were too expensive (at least to my poor self) to really take a chance on breaking them or causing other damage... so when I found this I thought it would be perfect to have some fun with. Anyway... that's it for now. Feel free to comment with ideas to make this thing kick some rump roast in the dirt.

The horn issue has been solved! Thanks to some good ol' corrosion, the relay was ultra nastified as well as it's plug. I cut the plug off and wired in a regular relay and all is well with that. Trying to find out how it got corroded led me to the rust surrounding the windshield, the damp headliner board around it, and the fact that the windshield wasn't setting right. So last night I attempted to remove it in one piece and that didn't happen... oops... At any rate, now I have to clean up all this nasty rust and get a new windshield installed... subpar windshield installs suck and will cause your car a lot of damage, trust me on that.

I own a 1996 Legacy Outback wagon that was originally from California and I can assure you it's an ODBII system.

Okay, I recently picked up a new work beater Impreza wagon and it has a few stupid issues. Before I continue, I did check ALL fuses to make sure they were okay. Item 1: The hazard lights don't work. Turn signals are fine, but no four way flashers. I tried swapping the hazard switch with one I know works as well as the flasher unit behind the radio to no avail. Item 2: The horn doesn't work. Didn't hear the relay clicking either when pressing on the horn buttons. Item 3: Cruise control doesn't work as well. I tried setting it at 30-80 MPH with no results. Pushing the CRUISE button on the dash in between tries didn't help. Also, the cruise button doesn't light up when pressed. That's about it for now, it runs and drives all right and besides being rusty and having the exhaust fall off it's a pretty decent car for $440.

Just for fun I tried jumping that brake switch... and was rewarded with failure. I wonder if the cruise switch on the dash is bad. Is it supposed to click on and off or is it just a momentary switch? If an older Legacy has the same plug type I'll try grabbing one of those (and the proper brake switch as well) and see if that fixes it.

Thanks for the diagram! I'll try jumping the connector to test it until I can get to the junkyard again. If it works I'll swap the brake switch, if it doesn't... well... who knows what's up then.

I wish I had an FSM for the car but I unfortunately do not have one. It was wierd as everything was plug and play, there's a fuse in the spot it needs to be, and I didn't find anything else out of line sans the brake switch. All the information I can find pertains to newer Impreza's unfortunately. I have the oddball 1993...

Right, I can imagine that being the reason it wouldn't set a speed, but the light on the dash switch or the power relay for the cruise didn't turn on or off either.

After spending some time searching I thought adding cruise control to my 1993 Impreza ATX FWD would be easy. Pulled the dash switch, cruise control computer, steering wheel mounted control, the vacuum port, and the underhood cruise control module from a 1993 Impreza ATX AWD at the junkyard and installed them into my car which was prewired. After doing that work it doesn't even try to work at all. The cruise button doesn't light up and I tried messing with the controls while driving and they did nothing. I know on my Forester and Legacy there was a relay that would click when you'd press the cruise button but I don't hear it on this car. Did I miss a relay somewhere that I need to add? I just realized I didn't add the brake switch but I don't think that would cause the system to not even power on at all...

It's a car I paid $400 for... I'm not going to blow $400 on engine mounts... However, the big issue was the pitch stop bar. My buddy and I made a solid pitch stop for it and that solved a lot of it's issues.

Umm... yeah... that is what I'm looking for... RockAuto, eh? Damn, I forgot to check there... Thanks dude.

Point me in the direction of those... I need them!

They are all worn out. Original parts with 219K on them.

My 86 Leone needs new mounts... I want to replace all of them. However, after doing some searching at the auto parts store they are an abysmal ~$400 for all of them! There's no way I'm spending that kind of money on engine mounts. Does anyone make custom ones on here that are solid steel or anything? I don't care if the car vibrates, I'm just sick of the engine and transmission thunking around.

Okay, I'll pull the intake manifold and replace the gaskets for it. Today I was looking at it under the hood and it seemed the intake gasket was flaky on the driver's side. Poked at it and I could pull little strands of goo stuff off of it... so I definitely think it's shot.

I dig it! Nice car!

After doing some searching I haven't really found out too much... any advice on how to check what the issue is?

I drove my car around in FWD mode without the rear driveshaft bolted in for a bit before getting all the u-joints replaced and it was fine. Just make sure to keep the front shaft in so you don't leak transmission fluid.

I've not seen any cross contamination... just the spark plugs on the one side were contaminated. Something I might have to look into.

Yeah, I've had a lot (around 60 of the 90 cars I've had) of K based cars and the head gaskets were pretty easy to do on them. As for pulling the engine out of this... I sure as heck hope not. My car is very basic with no a/c or p/s crap to get in the way.

Noticed there was a coolant leak... but no puddles or drips on the ground... so that means... HEAD GASKET TIME! The driver's side head gasket is seeping a bit of coolant into the combustion chamber. Oh well, something new to learn. It looks very easy to change them out on this thing. Going to wait a bit and also get new motor/transmission mounts for the job as well as a few other things here and there. She'll be brought to tip top shape physically and mechanically over the summer.

Should be the 8th digit of the VIN for the engine code.

This project is awesome. I like it. The sticker saying the car is equipped for optional a/c makes me laugh