the_bard

Since I'm looking around to replace my rusted Loyale, I've been drawing up plans, researching options, and dreaming of my "perfect" Subie. What I want is: 1. Reliability. First and foremost. I want the option of working on my car when I want, not when I have to. Besides, this'll impress the wife, and the more she's impressed, the less I have to fight to get my way . 2. A daily driver. Whatever I do to it, I don't want to make it a pain to be able to drive back and forth from work. A four hour drive... well, that'll make anybody uncomfortable. 3. Mild to moderate "off-road-ability". If there's six inches of snow on the ground in Troy, and I need to get out, I want to be able to, albeit slowly (if the City figures the snow may melt even partially within the next couple days, they'll wait. They'll even wait a couple days to decide :-p ). Besides, I want to be able to take it camping, hunting, etc... or just have an excuse to go offroading . To meet this criteria, I figured I'd do the following: 1. Find an EA82 wagon without much rust on it. I think I've got one lined up... I'll know Saturday. One with a 5spd 4wd d/r tranny in it would be great, so I don't have to put one in, and it ought to be easy enough to find. 2. Get whatever rust is on the vehicle cut & welded. Got this nailed down, too... a buddy down at work does body work on the side, and can cut me a deal. 3. Retreat the underbody. Maybe this means getting it cleaned up and respraying that underbody rubber stuff. Or maybe it means taking off all the underbody stuff, applying POR-15, and then reapplying new rubber stuff. I hate rust... and if I'm gonna be putting this much time & effort into a car, I don't want to toss it away in a couple years because of rust. 4. Pull out the EA82, and drop in a pre '97 EJ22. Not a turbo, since I don't want to deal with the extra complexity. Wouldn't be good for the off-roading, either. This amounts to finding a good engine (with wiring), getting an adapter kit, figuring out the wiring (God, I hope it comes with the kit), and all the other miscellaneous things that would come into play ("reengineering" mounts, upgrading fuel pump, gauges, etc.) When I'm done, I get a more "reliable" (in the eyes of the wife) and powerful engine. 5. New custom exhaust, treated with the high temp POR-15. I figure this'll fit in with #4, as I imagine the exhaust will have to be modified to fit that EJ22 in there. If the OEM exhaust is awful restrictive with respect to the EA82, I imagine it'll be worse with the EJ22. 6. Ozified's 4"/3" lift. 15" Pug's. 27" or 28" tires. The EJ22 should guarantee that I won't be as gutless running this setup as I would with the EA82. Depending on what issues I run into, I might be willing to increase the size of the tires, but I doubt I'll need it. 7. Incidental, "cosmetic" things, like brushguard, custom bumpers, a roof rack (TWE?). Cost: Well, rust-proofing it will probably take more time than money. The adapter kit runs around $500. I have no idea how much a good EJ22 + wiring will run me at the junkyard. The lift kit is about $450. A new exhaust... figure $300-$400 (including cats, and if I replace all of it), maybe more if I can't weld it myself. Maybe $2,000-$2,500 total? Sound abotut right? That's not bad, if I can get the car to last a bit, spread it out over a year or two, and the wife doesn't flip a lid . Anybody see any holes in my theory?

I might be running out to Turning Stone here in NY on Sunday, 10/3, for a Intel training meeting, along with some of my coworkers, if we can get the schedule worked out. If we can't, they've got another training out outside of Boston on the 10th... I might be able to get the whole weekend off, help you out with the tranny swap on that Saturday (if we can work it out then), then hit the meeting Sunday night. I'll find out in the next day or so...

I'd suggest talking to Moosens, too. As for planning on breaking the bolts... I like to take a hacksaw and run a notch into the bolt, if I can. Makes it easier to snap, and a lot easier than trying to get the whole rusted bolt & nut rump roast'y apart. A sawzall (sp?) would probably be quicker.

Blech. At that rate, I'd have replaced my entire Loyale several times over, body and all . Guess I ought to be grateful it's only major problem is rust, eh? No rush on my end... I've got nothing planned, besides picking up that wagon. I talked to the wife, and she'd like to get out to Boston... seems as good a reason as any to get out there. I've got some prominent ancestors out there (Rev. Richard Mather was one of the judges "presiding" over those infamous witch trials, supposedly), and my parents would love to have pictures if we could track down grave sites. If that doesn't interest the wife (I know the tranny swap won't), she'll be able to find something else around Boston that will. If you can give a week's warning, I should be able to get the time off from work... if not, I'll see what I can rearrange, assuming the wife agrees.

Got a date yet?

Third weekend in October... means the 16th and 17th, right? If so, and the "recon mission" to check out the '89 wagon goes well (wife and her stipulations ), I'll be down to pick it up at the same time. Sure would be nice to meet some of the other NE guys at the same time.

When & where (in Massachussettes)? I wouldn't mind helping out... sure would be nice to see it done once before I start thinking about my tranny swap (assumin' I pick up Moosen's '89 wagon... it's those stipulations in the profile that I'm worried about). Food is good, but I'd consider the experience a fair exchange for turning a wrench :cool: I can see the wife gettin' pretty excited about a trip out there, and I've got a friend's place I can crash at (I ought to visit her, too... she might be interested in helping out). Might be a good excuse to get out there...

I'm looking at picking up a '89 GL... the one thing I'm looking forward to (besides the d/r vs. the pushbutton s/r on the '92 Loyale) is a set of map lights. I really miss having a light in that front cockpit, since the overhead light is usually too far back to do any good for me.

Forgot to say welcome back *sheepish*. And let you know that Simpreza's still got that EA82T if you're interested in it...

I concur... enough with the suspense. I wanna know what died. Figured if I knew what went wrong, it'd provide a big enough excuse to get the wife to head down your way for a weekend, get a look at the wagon, and get that 'puter fixed. Been rather borin' around the northeast without hearing from Paul. Then again, more and more of us are starting to appear. Wonder if I ought to start passing out those USMB business cards :-p

Rust? I suppose, if you consider a light coating of surface rot rust . There's actually a Datsun a few blocks south of me that has less rust on it than that. Just as beat up, though.

Awww.... don't y'all start going over to IRC now. I'm rather enjoying the thread, sitting back with my popcorn & beer and watching the fireworks fly

At least he was a good guy and admitted it. I got bumped in standing traffic, waiting for a light to change. Got out, looked at her bumper to make sure she wasn't damaged (I was in the wife's Saturn. It's plastic. It just pops out), and all she could say was "I don't know how it happened," as she was fighting to keep her little dog in the passenger seat. Um... duh? Playing with dog, let up on brake... *sigh*

*Blech*. I don't mind getting out to pump my own gas... and if they ever decide to make it illegal, it'll be one more thing I'll have to complain about. Seems the state gov't interferes enough as it is (got a little too much country boy in me... just wish everybody would quit worryin' about what I'm doing, and spend more time on stopping the bad stuff). 'Course, if they had somebody that would clean my windows while I pumped the gas... or if NY did legislate that annoyance, I suppose I could clean my own windows while the attendant pumped gas. *shrug* Congrats on the body, by the way. Sounds like it'll be a hot little ride

Are they talking about kilometers vs. miles, or are we just being lazy with our units? (Had a physics prof. that'd skin me alive for that...) Somebody nearby in VT had a Justy for sale, that had a good tranny in it, if'n I remember right. I'll poke around the Marketplace and see what I come up with, if you need a spare tranny. Just realized you're in Alberta... on the wrong side of the continent, if I remember Canadian geography at all. Ah, well... here's where I saw the post.

Yeah... drove me crazy for a while, back when I was still using Internet Explorer & Windows. I had this habit of (religiously) clearing my cookies back then.

As far as I know, you've got to log in for the marketplace to display itself in that "Ultimate Subaru Club Website > Ultimate Subaru Message Board > Subarus" page.

I'll give him a call tonight when I get out of work, and find out what all's going on. I need to take a look at this wagon of his anyhow, and if he's needing help getting the system back up and running, it'll give my wife another reason not to complain if I head down there. I'll throw my box o' parts in the back of the Loyale, in case it's a hardware problem... if it is, and I don't have a replacement, I'm fairly sure we can scrounge one up between all of us. Software's easy enough... 'Course, if he's running on that VIC20, I might want to bring down that dual Pentium system I've got sitting around as a replacement .

I really wish they'd quit capitalizing every word. But then again, I suppose it makes it easier to spot 'em. *shrug*

We ought to get a whole separate section of the USMB for computer problems . And if anybody gets in touch with him before I can call him tomorrow night, I do have Friday off. Depending on what's wrong, I could drive on down there, take a look at his system, have it fixed, and back here before the wife gets home from work. It'd give me a reason to take a trip, and give the wife an excuse for me to get down there to take a look at Moosns' wagon, too . I'd just want to know what the problem is before I get down there, so I can bring along a set of spare parts, if need be.

I was actually looking at heading out his way in a couple weeks... looking at that '89 wagon of his. I'm less than three hours away. Makes shipping easier & cheaper, too. I work as a comp. tech. and a few spare systems laying around... between all of us, we should be able to get him back up and running. I'm at work right now, but I'll give him a call tomorrow night, and see what we can do.

I have absolutely no clue, but if you see one for sale, lemme know

My dad's old Ford pickup did this once... we never did figure it out. Going down the driveway, sounded like it was missing a cylinder. Popped the hood, and the plug was sitting there on the block. Kinda funny, in retrospect, but at the time, we were pretty confused.

I've had dreams about doing this .

Try this one http://www.rustrepair.com/rustpdf.html The original link looks like the above link was embedded in some MSN or Hotmail email... it'll probably only work within their mail service. *blech*