MorganM

Read the classification criteria and you'll understand why vehicles are catagorized differently.

Great! Hopefully cost will be minimal on this trip. Just gas, food and whatever a camping plot costs for one night.

That's why it took me a year to rebuild my engine. Shop I had was 45 min drive one way. Hang in there; youll get'er'done Now that I have a garage attached to my house to work in it really makes a huge difference in teh time it takes to get stuff done on my offroad toy.

I would like to yes. Have to see about getting a baby sitter for that night however.... The state forest might change here. I'm talking with the coordinator of this in the MN 4WD Association as she is directing this effort. She knows where we need people the most. Timing is key here so working with her is important.

You like changing axles right? Good... Now lets talk about suspension lifts. Those little rubber spring spacers are trash. I tried them when my wagon was 2WD and unlifted. My strut cartraiges were worn out and I figured 'hey cheap lift!' right? Welp they fall out if you ever go offroad and your springs fully extend. You could easily loose them even on the road in certain situations. I had a set of spring clamps on my old hot rod. Cheap way to lower the car in the rear. They worked great and held on forever. Never seen them used to extend the spring for a cheap lift. I would say those would stay in better... but if you ever start extending your springs they will prolly still fall out. Point is these are really only options if you never offroad and just wanna look like its lifted on the tar. For a cheap suspension lift I wouldnt bother with either of those. Get some 4WD adjustable struts from another Subaru. Swap those in, crank them up, then put on the biggest tire you can. Tires = real clearance; not lift kits. Lift kits just allow you to put on larger tires. This is prolly the cheapest lift you could do and still be reliable offroad. Struts and tires can both be had at junkyards really cheap.

If you have a rust issue the fronts can be a bear to get off. The ends of the bolts stick out in the fender well where all kinds of fun stuff goes and rusts stuff up. Look down by your valve covers. There on the 'frame rails' are 2 bolts on each side for your front bumpers. Mine were rusted on so bad that even after we had the bolts off 2 of us had to jump up and down on it to break it free. Had to take a torch to one bolt to get it off!

Don't let those chumps get to you! I feel kinda funny sometimes showing up to work with black finger nails and inpenitrable grease still in the folds of my knuckles... then I just laugh thinking how much they paied to have some one like me fix their car!

This thread really hit home after this weekend. You know how bad she wanted me to just leave 'that thing' in S.Dakota? LOL Well I got off with a "you cant buy anything for it for a long time!" I guess that's how she copes with it Registration for Castana Offroad Event: $75 Meat, cheese, bread and mayo for 2 days: $25 Renting an F350 Super Duty and Tow Dolly to pick up your rig 6 hours away: $200 Gas for that oversized hunk of junk: $100 Offroading for two days with good company? Priceless! For everything else there is VISA!

Getting a very proprietary RAM engine made for a plane, installed in a car, up and running wouldn't be easy either. Neither one should be done by someone with limited mechanical skill. Then again if someone had the money to blow on a RAM engine + clutch they could pay someone to get it installed and runnnig. You certainly can purchase an EJ22 and have it installed by someone. It's just going to cost more than doing it yourself. Niether one is really a cheap way of going about it if you can't do it yourself or with the help of someone else.

Here's some real data... http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:4H8ZdYCc1R8J:www.epa.gov/OMSWWW/cert/mpg/fetrends/r03006-a.wpd+subaru+forester+%22DOT%22+classification&hl=en It's a "small utility" vehicle. The Baja is a "small truck"

It's still a light truck/suv tho. Plenty of people call their oversized minivans trucks/suvs I doubt the US would just take their word for it; I'm sure they had to prove it was a light truck/suv to get classified as one. Otherwise what would stop everyone from exploiting that and classifying all their imports as truck/suv ?

2x6 would be very large, heavy and expensive. Check out some 2" OD steel pipe and 1x2 C channel :cool:

Getting it to fit wont be as easy as getting it to RUN! Forget the auto crap box tranny; get a manual in there. I'd ask Qman about the disc swap onto a gen 1 Brat.

Get a torch! You can get setup with an Oxygen / Accediline torch from Home Depot for $50; everything included!

Far as I can tell its classified as a 'light truck'. It's always listed in parts books under 'trucks' or 'light truck/suv' sections.

Naw you wont have to remove the ball first. Once you get the bumper bolts off the bumper can manouver up and down. Should be able to slide it up enough to come up and over that ball hitch.

Ask how much oil it eats. How much coolant it eats. When the radiator was last replaced (look at it yourself also) How many times has it been over heated. When were the timing belts done. Ask for service recrods. Test drive is key. Get it upto FULL temp THEN go. That temp guage shouldnt go past halfway for ANYTHING. Fan(s) should come on and it should stay cool. I'd still offer that $450 and see what they say. They prolly looked it up on blue book too and added 200 dollars for bargin'n room. Talk them down to what it's really worth

Look'n pretty clean; keep up the good work! From the pics it looks like you got some good land around to test her out on!

Remvoing the rear bumper is no big deal at all. 4 bolts and a lot of wiggeling. The 4 bolts are accessed from inside the rear hatch, open the middle smuggeling compartment. On the left and right walls of that compartment are little black rubber plugs. Pull them out and you can see the bolts. Take a 14 or 16 socket to them. Sure you can't take this off w/o the bumer coming off? I'd try to loosen the bolts you can see first. Try to get that thing off with the bumper on. If you have to you can take it off easily.

If that was the case couldn't they just import a set? I'm sure there are other options locally for mud terrains. They should have crazy Baja Bush Basher tires! Lord knows I wouldn't want a flat tire or be stuck out in the bush of Australlia... some crazy lizard would eat me for lunch WHO makes them is what I mean; they look kinda like the Scorpion rims.

Could you come down that FRI night, get your rig, stay the night at your parents. Then meet up in the morning with us and we'll all caravan up? If not your friend doesnt have to 'offroad' her Aztek. There is plenty of pavemnt upto the city of Solana. She could park there and yall could ride along with whatever rigs are there. TTYL

That's the whole deal though... no dough no go Make it as big, heavy, and powerfull as you dream but it all requires the green. Just my poetic 2 cents

Well don't forget the part "with out spending big bucks!" I know what you mean tho... What rims are those? They look like the proper bolt pattern w/o any modification. What's the backspacing on them?

I'm working on getting a fullsize print out of that DNR map. That way we can have a good map on hand of all the trails. Then we just find them and circle them on the map. Later we can then do up written comments about the data we find to submit to the DNR for public comment and hopefully SAVE SOME TRAILS! I can't stress enough how vital this is. Any trails that do not pass the inventory proccess will be CLOSED! We've already lost HUNDREDS of miles this year! ChefTim: It's about a 2 hour drive from Burnsville where I live and that's a southern suburb of Minneapolis. If you like I can use MapPoint to plot it out from your house to Solana to give a milage number. NumbChux: You can ride shotgun in my rig. Do you have a vehicle to meet up with us? Can't use your Subaru for the weekend? I'm sure a stock 4WD would do just fine out there.

I'd drive the Loyale untill it blows up; THEN get the Impreza sport wagon. If you really want 4WD you could convert to 4WD dual range cheaper than buying an AWD Impreza. Just more work than money