singletrack

Oh good, that means he must be done with mine too! Time to start stalking the FedEx guy....

Based on posts I've read here, I think your Roo is a bit rustier than mine.

Yeah, I saw the thread on yer bumpers; the back is simple enough. I need to take the front bumper off to figure out how to make that end.

It's all done now now, no big deal. The other side of the big bolt was a carriage-bolt head, just to annoy me. Those bumper mounts are great, many possiblities for adapting customness. Maybe I should just bolt a 2x6 back there.... Anybody need a hitch?

The ball just came off... That PB blaster is the ****! Better get another can for doing my lift.

I checked under the carpet - nothing there. There all no bolts on the bumper with this hitch. Its actually pretty burly, and totally mated to the frame/body. I really just need to go do it instead of sitting here talking about it. /grabs a beer and socket set, goes outside.

That's what i figured. The bumper hasta come off anyway, no big deal except that the hitch ball is siezed on the hitch (and directly behind the bumper), so I can't slide the bumper off till I get the ball off. All 6 little bolts sheared off yesterday (On the bright side, the holes are now plugged) I got the big bolts loose, but since I can't get to the head they just spin now. So now the whole hitch is dangling off the car. Bleh. Then I hadta go to work and couldn't mess with it anymore. Speaking of bumpers, think I could get a sketch or better pics of yers? It'd be a good solution till I can pony up for TWB bumpers.

Ya, I could, but then I'd have big-azz bolt head rattling around in my body. This thing had to installed somehow, so it can be unintalled. The bumper is coming off in a few days for a premptive strike on some rust anyway - pretty sure it'll be obvious then. But not totally sure.

Hey all- My ea82 wagon came (from the og owner) with a hitch on it, which does little more than drag on the ground when I'm running stuff over. It's pretty specific to the car, I'd guess it a factory option. Anyway, the heads of the big bolts (three little screws, 1 big bolt per side of the hitch) are inside the body. Herein lies the problem. Looks like the bolts are inline with the bumper mounts / "Frame" rails so I'm thinking the bumper hasta come off to remove this useless hunk of metal, but I could be missing something obvious. Any thoughts?

I seem to remember reading 60 pounds somewhere.... but I could've just dreamed that up.

Erm, it's funny to me that I'm telling you this online since you live upstairs, but Rock Auto sent the wrong lugs. So, we're still SOL.

Born and raised in Harribsurg, went to skool the first time in Pittsburgh before coming out west. Drink a Yuengling, snack on some Middlesworth, eat a cheesesteak and put fries on your sandwich for me, `cause nobody knows how to cook out here.

Cheryl Crow and Lance Armstrong are an item, Lance is sponsored by Subaru. Subaru is also the major sponsor of the International Mountain Bike Association (IMBA). One more reason to love `um. Why yes, my other car does have two wheels and no engine....

Check the instuctions that are posted on the site, they've got a diagram of what you're dealing with, and some installation pics too.

I thought you could get lugs from that site, uh, rockauto.com. They're 504 wheels, right?.... I just orderd some, we'll see if they work. The rain. Yeah. The clay soil down here in the valley destroys anything with moving parts when its wet. Best to keep the toys at home. I did some [bike] trail work at the lunch loop on Sunday, and it rained on us all day. Consequently, my bike got hammered. But the new trail looks good.

Hehe. Hey, you still have an extra wheel for me, right?

Yeah, VW's were the inspiration. I remeber at a very young age my mom told me about her VW from her college years, and how it had a sliding ragtop.... I dunno if you'd wanna do that, it be a bit too small and would probably "flap" in the wind and be real loud and obnoxious. I use the piece of roof to keep the puppy out of my closet. Good idea.

Dammmit Doc, you're the one who told me it was an ea81! Ok, I acutally went outside and pulled the jump-ramp off the hood and took a look. I'm just being a dork, its an EA82. The last time I looked under the hood of the parts car was like a year ago. That car has A/C, which I never noticed before just now. I guess the compressor threw me at the time, as the pulleys are a little different. Combine that with the haynes book, and you get all kinda wierd notions. Anyway, insert brain here.

Naw, see I've really got an 86 L-series parts car in the yard with an ea81. I didn't think this combination was made, ergo the confusion. These days, I usually just run it over with my mountain bike.

At highway speed the fairing definetly doesn't let the rain in. Any slower and I'm diving over the seat to close the thing when a storm comes outa nowhere. SBC makes the 35" width up to 60" length I think, which is enough to do the whole roof. The measurements are the frame size, the actuall canvas overhangs the fame by like 1.5", so a 35" x 40" needs 38" x 43" of roof. L-series have a nice flat (front-to-back) roof, which makes the whole thing easier. Make sure you allow 8" or so behind the frame of the rag for the canvas to "stack", and don't get to close to the front of the roof, or the curve will change and you'll hafta notch the frame to make it fit. Taking your headliner out to cut the roof is a good idea, although I left mine in. If you leave it in, you'll hafta trim it with something. The Aluminium bar-stock trim I used looks, dare I say it, bling-bling. If you take it [headliner] out, you can cut it to fit the inside (smaller end) of the frame, and finish the job with the supplied pinch moulding. Also, in alot if not all wagons the headliner thins out in front of the dome light for extra headroom; if you pass this transition it'll be harder to make it look clean. It defiently worth to find a trashed car with no headliner so you can see what you've gotta cut. Use a fresh blade, and mask the outside of the cut so you don't jack up your paint. WORK REAL SLOWLY. SBC has the manual online, it's pretty informative. I accidentally cut the wiring for my dome light with the `zall, and it was a bitch to get my map lights working again. Measure over and over and over till you absolutely friggin sure you got it right. Then, before you cut, measure it a few more times. Have a friend measure it, too. Also, the roof beams in you car are probably crooked, they where in mine, and in my parts car. It really freaked me out when I finished my long cuts and had hit the back rafter on one side but not the other. I thought I'd ruined my car.

! It's dark now, so I'll hafta take some more pics tommorrow, but here's one more I snapped today. It doesn't show much, but you can see where it's placed on the roof. Kinda. Also, with the roof rack on, the hole is basically invisible. Good for security. The hatch belongs to my roomie, Dustyrider. As a Washingtonian you might recognize it. I've got 225/14's sitting in the shed (aka the busted van in the pic) and my lift should be here this week. Maybe. THEN it'll be the Safari Wagon.

Mine is canvas. Stronger and cheaper than the vinyl (eech), plus it gives it a bit of the mad max/military surplus look. I don't know about air tight, but there isn't a noticible draft when driving in cold weather. When it's closed there's no more wind noise than with a normal roof, so it must be pretty well sealed. I'm sure the [roof rack] fairing helps alot with that; also SBC gives you a pretty lousy piece of weather stripping for the front/latch side. I replaced it with a nice thick piece of resdential strip, problem sloved. In terms of actual insulation, your gonna still lose a lot of heat out the roof. Not enough to ever bother me, even when winter-camping in the mountains. If you get the optional headliner you could prolly stuff that with some thin insulation. I just turn the heat way up. There's another option, though. The way these kits are made, it's pretty easy to remove the canvas and the rail/latch parts, leaving just the frame. It would be easy to find the right sized piece of plastic/fiberglass/wood to cover the hole, and some nuts and bolts to hold it down. Then you could have a hard top for the winter.

Yeah, www.streetbeatcustoms.com. CAUTION: You'll hafta sift through the wings and bodykits to find the ragtops. There are a couple others out there, but everything else was like a $100 more.

That's coming from the guy with the prettiest L-series I've ever seen. Thanks.

Thanks Down here we get like 9" of precipitation a year. Basically, I open the roof in April, and close it in October. I had the car back east a month ago and got caught in some wicked storms off the Great Lakes - real hard rain. It didn't leak then. Still, I don't think I'd wanna have one in a wet climate cause I'd hafta open and close it all the time.