Mike W

For what it's worth, a month or so ago I read on the Offroad Subarus of Queensland website that there was a small number (10? or was it 30?) genuine Detroit Lockers made for Subarus. It sounded like they were all probably in Australia but one never knows what treasures lie rusting in pastures, driveways, and junk yards.

Over the last week or so I was able to see most of the pics most of the time using the methods described above. Lately I haven't been able to view any images in any albums period. Happens with both IE and Netscape. Not much fun.

What about water in the air lines, where does it go? Compressing wet air normally puts water in the system. Would it be wise to drain our pneumatic systems or did Subaru design an automatic water drain? Or should we just not care because the rubber will rot first anyway? Romania, if your car still has the original air struts, the rubber air bags might not last much longer. The air struts in my '93 Legacy died after only 8 years and cost the previous owner a fortune to replace. So it might be smart to find some standard non-pneumatic struts to have incase your old struts do fail. Good luck and welcome to the message board.

If you really want to light things up and have a small substation for power, there's always aircraft landing lights on ebay. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=26439&item=2449333997 These are 100 watts but there's usually some 250 watt/13 volt available.

How far from Portland? Uh well how about an hour or so north and east of Seattle. More specifically, the trail head is a couple miles east of the town of Goldbar, WA. To Mapquest it, put "Reiter Road" in for the address and Goldbar in for city. This topo map here shows Reiter Pit and most of the trails. http://nad27.com/special/4x4/isabel/ (btw, Jared, did you know the maps on your Stompers page are gone?) At this point I'm a maybe and I won't know until around New Years if I can make it for sure. Sorry to get off topic but incase anybody is around and interested, sometime between Christmas and New Years I might want to do a exploration run looking for new trails and adventure. It'd probably be a half-day low elevation kind of thing. I'll put up a post on the Meet and Greet if it looks do-able. Possible destinations include Stossel Creek Road (by Duval), way out the Middle or N Snoq Roads, Black Diamond-Ravensdale trails + Kanasket trails. Side note to locals: "No Trespassing" signs went up today at the Mill Creek Mud Hole and the cops were hiding & busting people as they went in to play :-(

Five or six years ago I saw pictures online of a spare tire storage box someone had made. I think it was an Aussi dude and the box was the bottom of a plastic barrel or something like that with a nylon or rubber top held on by bungy cords and drawstring. He kept misc crap like jumper cables, spare belts, hoses etc in there. The other night I was at Lowes and saw this round plastic box with a hinged lid, very festive looking and made for storing wreaths. Might be worth checking out. Before I re-arranged my engine compartment, I would stash my tools etc in the spare tire location while I went hiking or fishing, figuring that most thieves wouldn't look for treasure under the hood of an old Soob. Somewhere down my list of future mods is a lockable box where my rear seat used to be.

A 4" lift was done on a gen 1 Brat here in the Seattle area a couple years ago. It was sort of an end-of-life experience for the vehicle so I'm pretty sure some of the blocks etc were welded straight to the unibody. The whole project was done in a very short time (monster garage style) but the structural stuff held up to major abuse. Axles on the other hand...ouch how many did he go through that weekend?

Oops, I think the XT6 at WCSS3 might have exceeded the speed rating. After WCSS3 I checked the price on ag tires and they were kinda steep. But sure would be fun to try them.

I haven't done it, but supposedly the electric and water choke carbs can be converted to manual choke with a $10 kit found in most corner part stores. As as side note, I've seen castings stamped made in Italy and made in Spain. I think Spain is more recent.

Hmmfp, ok if that's what the bible said, I guess 2 is stock. Learn sumthin new all the time. Wonder if anybody has replaced their stock pump with a new OEM pump and what pressuer they got?

Um that stock fuel pressure -vs- happy Weber fuel pressure sounds bassackwards. Stock on my '87 Hatch was 5psi so I installed a holly regulator set to 2.5 (per gurus at Redline.)I have a return from the FPR back to the tank. Works fine like that. Quote from http://www.redlineweber.com/html/Aplication_guide/important_things_to_know.htm : "Always check your factory fuel system. The Redline Weber only requires 2.5 to 3 Lbs. of fuel pressure. Many newer systems use higher fuel pressures. You will need to add a fuel pressure regulator to these systems" I've been told that our stock fuel pumps tend to make less pressure as they get older and after 20+ years some make less than 2psi. This might explain why many of our engines run fine with no regulator. Mine with 5psi gave me float spillage. Too much, too little, psi seems to matter.

You're probably right about the symantics. But does it really matter what you call it? I mean if it works it works and the only thing that'll impress the hardcores is seeing it in action. Remember how they laughed at Suzukis? I guess that begs the question of what'll impress those guys? I suspect one thing would be ramp score or real world articulation. The other thing would be gearing crawl ratio. If you can show them you can crawl and then sneak around the obstacles they're breaking stuff trying to go over...well they might think you're cheating. But if you're on top of the hill and they're not, and you've spent $10,000 less getting there, who's laughing at who? Getting more articulation, that's the next frontier of Soob mods. Should be interesting seeing what people come up with.

Or how about changing the thermostat cover to one that has a radiator cap in it? I've got one like that on my hatchback. It came off a fuel injected RX7 and the bolt pattern etc matches the Subaru perfectly. There's probably other cars out there using similar 'stat housings but the mazda is the first one I noticed that served my purposes.

Holy cow, that's cool. Hope their webpage still works when I get home from work. Can't wait to download all those files.

I went to Harbor Freight because they claimed to have that 2000lb unit in stock. Well it turned out that what they had was the bogus portable/boat trailer style. But they did have a 1500lb winch that looked just like the 2000 and 3000lb winches. Looking at the 1500lb unit I was actually impressed, it looked to be decent. It had servicable brushes and seemed resonably well made. My big concern is that it wasn't all that heavy, which has me thinking the motor windings might be cheezy. Anyhow, for $50 you can't go too far wrong (unless the cable snaps and rips yer head off.) I actaully ordered the 3000lb unit. I'll probably regret it but I felt like gambling and haven't cussed at China enough yet. Question for Qman: Did you find a cheap source for power connectors and cable? Most places selling winch stuff charge insane prices for this stuff, that's why I ask.

Check out the weight of some of those you listed. 60+ pounds is a lot of baggage.

Man I can't believe Miles didn't mention a siphon hose. Gotta have one of those. I'm really liking the $15 butane stove I got from the oriental grocery. I keep it in the car and use it at least once a week for tailgate cup-a-whatever. Wrenching gloves, hand cleaner and of course plenty of rags. Hooded sweatshirt is good to have too.

I looked at Harbor Freight's version of the Hi-Lift jack the other day and it seem rather cheezy. I am very happy with the ripoff one I got on sale for $29.99 from Northern Tool. My only complaint is that hi-lift style jacks are bloody heavy and I hate hauling it around. Sure wish I could invent something lighter but just as functional. Northern also has good prices on tree saver straps and snatch blocks (I carry 2 of each.) I have a stock Subaru winch and gotta say it's a bit wimpy, but with two snatch blocks and extra cable it's ok. I'm working on upgrading the winch but I'll still carry two snatch blocks for weird situations. I carry way too much stuff in my car but I'm paranoid about not having what I need especially when I go out solo. Extra cash and emergency beer may help if you need to hire the local billybob dude to pull your broken/stuck arse outa the woods. Seems like in the past, didn't we compile a list of what we carry in our cars? I'm not really into lists, but such a list might prove helpful for some folks. The VW crowd has "The VW True Faith and Mystic Revelation Cult Packing List"

How about a trip north of the boarder? I've heard of guys getting good deal on snow tires that way, but I haven't priced swampers or checked the exchange rate.

Ken I was yellin' for ya' on channel 5 and listening on the others. Guess I'll have to do some radio checks on this hand held Midland with magnetic Wilson and see if it's getting out. That's the second time now I've wished for a bigass amp. Hmmm, maybe they're cheap now that CBs are fading in popularity. My mistake though for not asking where you guys were gonna basecamp. Being late wasn't good either but for once that wasn't exactly my fault.

I second that. Just did a bunch of Google searches and didn't find anything about offroading at a Coyote Ridge in Washington. Also searched TopoZone and found Coyote Ridges in three counties, all of them east of the cascades. Sounds like a good time though so tell us more.

Hey I bet ya'll didn't know I was there. We got a waaay late start and didn't get to Greenwater until noon or so. I cruised all of FS roads 70, 7010, 7013(?) etc. calling on the radio, asking if anybody had seen a bunch of Subarus and nobody had. I guess the closest we came to finding you guys was when we came to a major traffic jam resulting from what was probably the extrication of the RX. Going up the main X-mas tree cutting road, I came to a bunch of SUVs turning around and walked past them to ask a guy in a big Dodge truck what the hold up was. He said there was a recovery operation going on getting (what he thought was a) two wheel drive car back onto the road. By this time I'd had enough putzing around dealing with traffic etc. so I turned it around and went back down. We found a decent tree just laying there already cut on the side of the road abandoned, tossed it on the roof and went down by the river on FS 70 for some lunch. By this time I was more than frustrated so just packed it up and called it a day. On the way home we stopped at the Goodwill store at 4-Corners. Ran into EdRach there and got the recap of days events from him. It's beyond me how we could not find 23 Subarus in such a small area and a dang bummer we never hooked up with everybody. Wonder if my CB isn't transmitting or what?

I plundered parts off a neighbor's 1980 4wd wagon. It looked just like the ski wagon but without the stickers and had a EA-81 with single range 4wd. The engine compartment looked just like a EA71 car but with EA81 engine.

Grandpa's 90 and he want's a Brat! That's great! He must be one of us. So are you bringing him on Saturday? I'd say pick up a Brat yourself and work on it with him. Or like Northguy said, maybe he can afford a really cherry one that doesn't need much major stuff and will it to you. Either way this guy needs a Brat fix and he shouldn't be denied.

So in the front suspension, you've added King Springs and cartriges to Subaru(?) struts, added torsion bars to each side, and added extra Rancho shocks? If that's about right, what kind of T-bars did you add and is that using EA81 control arms and hubs or have those been upgraded to Impreza or Legacy style ? Sorry for all the questions. I guess I can wait until you get it up on your website but you've got me curious. Thanks. -MW