brumbyrunner

Good to see your progress.

Good progress dude.

In my experience the stock subaru water pump doesn't have the capability to do what you need. We found it caused problems with priming, air pockets and cavitation causing wildly fluctuating temperatures. My setup is similar to yours but reversed, with the engine up front and radiator in the rear. I used an electric water pump, which cured the overheating issues but also picked up the added benefits of being able to easily prime the cooling system (which you've already discovered is very difficult) with the engine off and can also continue pumping coolant through a hot engine if forced to shut down. It also enables a faster warm up in cold weather by leaving it off.

build thread is on Ausubaru

Good to see my old Brumby made this thread. Here are some more.

Show me an offroad race in Australia that has terrain that exemplifies either Dakar or Baja. Sorry pickstock but you're not going to achieve anywhere near 200km/h with 30" tyres on a naturally aspirated Subie motor.

Hey McBrat, lookin' good. Been following this thread from the start and really appriciate the amount of work you've put into this thing and how it's turning out. Looking forward to some cool wheeling pics :cool:

Have you found the right driveshaft for the front yet? If not, just ring Jeff @ Crossbred and he'd be able to tell you the exact parts you need to find. Either that or he would send you the correct shaft ready to bolt in.

lookin' good man. I like how it ended up smooth underneath, nothing much hanging down. Are the wheel wells finished or is there more sheetmetal to come off?

Thanks for all that McBrat. Those body-on-frame conversions are pretty cool, and I'd seen them before, but your Brat is in a whole different league. The others I haven't seen. Must have missed the turd wagon build-up and now the pics aren't working. I don't know if any of those other conversions you listed actually got driving/wheeling. One day, if I get done with current projects, I might try my hand at live axles under a sube. I even have an '85 Toyota pickup wreck I can rip the axles out of. In the meantime, yours is coming along great, a real inspiration.

Do you know of any others with live front axles?

The Subaru CV joints won't handle more than about 26 deg. Even so I built a mock up front strut with 11" travel without altering the track.

Great pics. Whats the TT disconect? Is it an aftermarket rear drive disconnect or something? Why? Front digs? Like what you've done with the lower links on the rear axle. Nice and clean instead of hanging down. Not a lot of leverage but should be fine with your HP. Also like what you've done with the engine crossmember. Cleaned up that area nicely. Radius plates gone cleans it up even more. Great work.

Absolutely sensational. Keep the pics coming.

The MY strut has 5.5" of travel so depending on tyre offset and where you measure from, you'll have from 5.5" to 6 or 7". You can increase downtravel about an inch but the real gains are in up travel. The driveshaft sits level at full bump with a std. strut thus showing that you're only ever using half the driveshafts available travel. There is a potential for 11 or 12 inches of strut travel but the engine crossmember will hit the ground before the bumpstop if your tyre is too short. Conversely, an adequately tall tyre is going to need a lot of mudguard removed if it can travel up past the bonnet. (translation: mudguard = fender, tyre = tire )

My L88 is badly rusted now and is just for parts. It's a shame you're on the other side of the Pacific because all the good gear in it is still okay. Steel bullbar, matching rear bumper and rollbar powdercoated black, sump guard that extends from the bullbar to the rear of the gearbox & 4" lift kit with modified trailing arms to run 28" tyres. I don't think anyone in Aust. off-roads these old rigs anymore.

The radius plates are different also but the principal is the same. Very different mounting points on the subframe. I thought about it but decided it was easier to modify the trailing arms instead.

The problem with the camber change rear end is that the inner bush binds up and limits wheels travel to about 6 or 7 inches. The only way to fix this is to replace the inner mounting point with a bush that shares the same axis as the outer bush. Then you will have as much travel as your driveshafts will allow. All the front needs is a longer travel strut but finding one to suit the unique Subaru upright is a challenge. Converting to the 5 stud upright opens up more possibilities. You won't get more than an inch or so of extra down travel out of the driveshaft but depending on your body lift you can gain that much in bump travel. The cheapest method would be to find an IFS Macferson strut 4wd that has more travel than the Suby and adapt it to suit.

What you got under there? Looks kinda like a D44 and airshoocks. Is that thing built for comps or for fun?

Austalia got live front axles in the Hilux (your Toyota truck) until '97. There's a mod I've heard of here that uses IFS hubs on a live axle that gives an extra 2" of track if you're interested. I bet you'll lose plenty of sheetmetal. The more you lose the better it gets. Keep posting plenty of pics.

Why the narrower front axle? Your scrub radius will be all wrong with the wheel spacers.

Just found this thread and have to say that it's great to see someone doing what so many of us talked about but never did. Will be following the build with interest.

You could try some rear coilovers from the L series. The top mount will require a small amount of fabrication to get it to fit but the lower mount is the same. Will boost your spring rate considerably.