pontoontodd

B and I did some work on our cars. Replaced a front CV axle in the Forester that's been making noise occasionally but for quite a while. B changed his engine and trans oils. Trying to figure out Impreza's potential cooling problems. Seems better with the new thermostat but still crept up a couple times on our last trip out west in mild ambient temps. Really need to get some temp senders calibrated to the Haltech and get them installed on top and bottom of radiator. IIRC the middle of the coolant temp gauge is about 210F on the Haltech but I can't guarantee either is accurate. Infrared temp gun near the coolant temp sensor indicates it's at least close. Then 3/4 of the way up the gauge is 217F at the Haltech, probably still nothing to worry about but should confirm actual temps. Also thermostat is at the bottom/inlet of engine while the temp sensor is at the top so I'm getting coolant temp readings from the opposite end of the system than where the temps are controlled. One thing we did was a smoke test on three different Subarus. The Impreza's fans seemed to suck in the smoke as well as my white Outback with the stock fans. Could see at least some of it blowing out the back of the radiator, didn't seem to be blowing around the sides or out from between the condenser and radiator. So I think the fans are at least decent but since the overheating is a low vehicle speed issue perhaps we could get better fans although these had the highest CFM rating of any fans I could find. One idea I have is to add a large heater core above the ABS unit under the hood vent on the passenger side with an electric fan on it. The one we added to the back of the black Outback dropped coolant temps by 20F so that should do the trick and would be fairly easy to add. AC was discharged before our last trip so I added some refrigerant but now it will cycle on and off about once a minute. The high side spikes up to about 250psi while the low side drops to 20psi, then they briefly start to converge before the compressor kicks off. Wondering if I have a clogged orifice as this seems like a much larger pressure difference than the charts show. One time out west the coolant temps went up the power steering pump stopped working at low RPMs. After we got home I first tried installing a pump from an EZ30. Bracket is slightly different, no big deal, I'll swap the bracket. Nope, pulley is a different size too, not going to mess with trying to swap that over. So much for Legos. Got an EZ36 PS pump from a local junkyard and swapped it in this morning which solved that issue. We decided to tack up a couple trailing arms for B's eventual billet rear knuckle swap. Also trying to figure out my gas tank filling issue on the Impreza. I replaced the carbon canister which is usually the culprit. Not much better, also the one I pulled out seems good (not dumping carbon pellets out like the bad ones usually do). Pulled the hose off the canister that goes to the gas tank vent. When we blow compressed air in the gas filler air comes out that tube (seemed maybe a little blocked at first) similar to the Forester's. Last time I went to fill up with gas it shut off before the tank was full, I pulled that hose off the canister and then the tank filled as it should. Next time I'll try to remember to pull the other large hose off the canister instead.

I made a walkaround video of the black Outback and recently revised it with some suggestions from slammo. It's currently unlisted, I'd appreciate some feedback on it before I make it public. Too long, too short, additions, subtractions, thumbnail choice, etc?

Two weeks ago we drove the Subarus out west. Somewhat last minute shift of plans to western AZ for our trip as that was the only part of the western US that had a decent weather forecast for the week. In retrospect we probably should have done the last week of April instead so we had more options but it worked out. Saturday morning Z and A and B met at my house at 8AM and we packed up and headed west. Got to a campground east of Denver and stayed the night. Not too much below freezing but we got a dusting of snow overnight. Sunday we kept driving and made it into Nevada and camped east of Vegas along Lake Mead, saw some donkeys on the way in, the first group of many we'd see that week. It was very windy that night. The ground was too hard to effectively stake in the tents so I put the loops around some large rocks but we didn't sleep well as the tent sounded like it was going to start ripping apart at times despite parking the car just upwind of it. Monday we took the scenic route to Hoover Dam including some unpaved trails. Continued into Arizona and started down some Massey trails. Saw a lot of Joshua trees in NW Arizona, some of them quite green. Started on Massey NW29. Massey NW28 was fairly high up in the mountains and we got snowed on again, this time in Arizona. Might have been graupel (small white pellets) but probably not hail. Excellent views. Saw an old Ford truck down the slope from the trail (middle of picture below) and hiked down to it. On the way we also saw a Saturn. Neither had batteries. The Ford's transmission tunnel had been cut out (appeared to be cut out where we found it, we saw at least one chunk of it laying on the ground). The transmission had been removed and presumably carried hundreds of feet either up or down a steep loose rocky grade. Some cool mine ruins at the end of the side trail. Definitely want to take this one clockwise (as viewed from above) which we fortunately did, there was a lot of rocky downhill in one section but the uphill in the direction we took wasn't bad. The next point of interest we saw were some murals that had been painted on rocks along the trail that were originally painted in the 1960s and then repainted early this century. That night we were trying to find a more sheltered spot from the wind but even a small pond at the bottom of a 100' deep mining pit was windy so we just camped out in a wash along Massey NW26. That night was windy too but not quite as bad as the previous. There were also donkeys nearby at night and in the morning. Tuesday the first trails, Massey NW26 and NW27, took us the rest of the way to Lake Mohave. Then back up into the mountains and more graupel. Saw another truck rolled down the slope off Massey NW19 trail. Drove to the remains of an old mine, probably the biggest ruins/tailings we saw that week. Got some more graupel and we were getting a bit hungry so I cooked some dino nuggets in an abandoned mining shack. A climbed the sandy tailings pile in the Forester. Numerous old cars half buried in gravel. Next we drove to Massey NW15 towards Alamo lake. It was getting late so we found a neat well used campsite under a couple big trees along Massey NW17 and finally slept well, basically no wind, A hammocked between the trees. In the morning we found an old overgrown truck bed, a homemade vault toilet, and an old well. Wednesday morning we drove to some other mine ruins and then down to Big Sandy River. Z briefly got the Impreza stuck but we were able to just jack the rear end back up out of the sand, put down sand ladders, and he drove out. We drove the rest of the way to Alamo Lake and then took Massey NW14 to a river crossing as there is a bridge for the gas pipeline but not for vehicles. I waded a few options and picked the one with multiple firmer crossings rather than one with a single long crossing and soft spot in the middle. Both cars drove through the various crossings/mudholes without incident and we celebrated with some PB&Js. It was very green along the river, not super surprising but not really what we'd expected driving in western Arizona. We took Massey NW12 to Swansea, perhaps the largest mine/ghost town ruins of the week, and spent a while exploring on foot. Drove down Massey NW13, a pretty fun wash, as close as possible to the Bill Williams river we'd crossed earlier and found the remains of the old pump house, more donkeys along the way. Took Massey NW6, crossed a canal and continued. Started getting dark so we found a spot off the main road to camp for the night. Thursday morning we visited more old mines along Massey NW1. Saw the Bouse fisherman, a bit disappointing honestly. Back to more old mines along Massey NW3 and a cave/arch at the top of a hill. Headed down to Quartzite for fuel on the way to Kofa NWR. When we got to the highway there was a sign to “wait for the pilot car” and the old man driving the minivan ahead of us got out and sat on his hood to smoke a cigarette. After a few minutes of impatiently waiting I noticed the powerline grade along the highway so we followed that for about five miles, crossing various washes along the way, until we'd passed the construction zone and got back on the highway. The Mobil gas station sold water for $0.25/gallon or $1 / 5 gallons (quarters only) so we got some water for drinking and rinsed off our heads. Best quarter I ever spent. The first trail we took in Kofa was Massey C2 up an extremely scenic wash/canyon. Small arch at the top of the canyon, skull rock, and a large balanced rock. You can no longer drive all the way through, you'd have to do a through hike, but we hiked from the end of the driving path up to the saddle to check out the view. Then we drove down Massey C1 (Palm Canyon trail) to hike back to get a view of the only native palm trees still growing in Arizona. It's a fairly arduous trek to actually hike up to them (start at the red post to the right) and it was getting dark so we hiked back to the cars to find a campsite. Found a decent one close to the intersection of Massey C3 and C4 where we wanted to start the next morning. Friday morning we drove south on Massey C4 to an old mining town/museum. A bit of a tourist trap but there were a lot of cool old things to see, plus they had flush toilets. We looped back to the highway and went back by the campsite to head east through the NWR on Massey C6 and C9. Where C3 meets C6 is the site of a large mine, fair amount of equipment/ruins and some tunnels to explore. We headed north out of the NWR on Massey C10, drove along the top of a dam, and drove down a bit of a fun pipeline grade. Crossed the interstate, continued north on Massey C11, and found a spot to camp next to a small old mine of course. Saturday morning we drove up to the highway and started heading home. Stayed in the same campground we had on the way out east of Denver. It was cold again, the small pond by our site was frozen in the morning, but no snow. Sunday we drove the rest of the way home. B's Forester drove about 4400 miles so the Impreza probably did about 4300. Forester needs a RF CV axle and one of his valve stems was leaking so we swapped on one of the spares in Iowa. Impreza needs a RF tie rod. Most disappointingly the coolant temperature crept up a few times on long slow uphill trails with the AC on and once in deep sand with the AC off. AC needs some work/tuning too, I might try running it at a lower voltage. It seemed to work fine last summer but it was mostly discharged before the trip and since I recharged it, the high and low pressure slowly diverge until it eventually shuts off and then it will cycle back on again. It does this every minute or so and you can feel it surging while driving. Not sure if it's fully charged. I'd forgotten how rocky a lot of the Arizona trails are. I'm not talking about challenging rock crawling, although there was some of that, rather many of the trails had a lot of 4-6” rocks that were just annoying and rattled the cars. For instance my glovebox latch came unscrewed near the end of the week. Haven't run into trails quite like that for such long distances in other states. A used the low range on the Impreza once at the top of a hill when he didn't have quite enough momentum to get to the top. Forester low range got used 5-10 times. Overall a good trip. No major problems, only got stuck twice briefly, saw some good scenery, hit some fun trails and had good weather. Sorry travelvw, not a lot of critters or carnage on this trip.

Visited a friend in Arizona and we swapped the 5MT in his 2002 WRX. Quarter million mile unit we pulled vs less than 100k mile unit from a 2004. Installed the proper stubs and seals so he could reuse his axles. The clutch he got did not fit the flywheel he got from the same company even after calling to make sure they would fit together. 2004 trans came with a clutch so we had three total. All of the pressure plates had the same bolt pattern, all too small for the new flywheel they sent him. No big deal, we can just use the new disc and pressure plate on his old flywheel. Fortunately my brother checked or we would have found out the hard way but this new disc (and the one from the 2004 junkyard trans) stuck out farther into the flywheel than his old disc and would have rubbed on the flywheel bolts. If not immediately, eventually as the disc wore. Luckily there was a speed shop close by open on a Saturday and they an ACT stage 1 disc hanging on a peg that worked perfectly. He is surprised that the pedal is significantly lower effort than before. One of the reasons we swapped the trans is that it had started to make (gear?) noise while engine braking especially once it had warmed up. This new one does too which makes me wonder if it's some kind of engine/pulley noise. On the plus side he can now downshift into first while moving for the first time ever. Fixed some minor oil leaks while we were at it. Discovered that really old RTV will not cure even if left for hours, again glad we figured that out the easy way. Also a good reminder that turbo Subarus are significantly more difficult to work on. Front subframe from the black Outback. One side had been extensively welded from the underside but not the other. Did some little things on the cars preparing for a trip out west. Replaced a tie rod, changed oil, greased struts, etc in green Impreza. Noticed one of the engine mount to crossmember nuts was gone and the other one was a turn or two loose. So that explains the occasional drivetrain clunk I've been getting. B got the LO indicator on the Forester's instrument cluster to light up when he shifts into low range. We modified the tow bar to make it a bit lighter, more compact, and more rigid. Tack welded washers in place for the width to fit our cars so it can't pivot around. Hopefully we'll never use it again.

Video from our trip to Arkansas last fall with slammo and travelvw.

I dropped the idle at 210F+ to 800 and it still hasn't stalled and I don't think I've stalled it starting out. Also had someone help me tune the PID on the cruise control, we got that very smooth now. Wound up zeroing out the derivative gain and the integral gain. Actually flipped what the integral gain was doing from the base settings and that may have helped even more. Had a bunch of friends help part out the black Outback. Base of passenger side A pillar was more cracked than I expected especially since the windshield wasn't cracked. This is a good example of why I considered the car totaled. This evaporator has actually been flushed out a few times. That white thing used to be a round washer sealing the bulkhead fitting in the fuel cell for the main pickup hose. We got most of the wiring harness out intact. We cut a few things for the rear taillights and the doors before we realized we could/would remove the entire thing. Mainly I wanted to keep the portion from the ECU to the engine so we could potentially swap that EZ30 into something else. Wiring harness pictured weighed 51#. This is after we put away/threw away a lot of parts. Not much left on the shell aside from the bumpers, some glass, and the headliner. Hopefully will be picked up momentarily.

Yes, both the cars in the video have the long travel struts we built. A couple other friends have them too. Possible. I'm pretty sure we checked that. This is the same side that came out before, different axle and differential, so I don't think it's this specific axle being incorrect. I do want to get another pair and double check. It'd be good to have spare rear CV axles for that car regardless. Also we might be able to fit a thicker spacer between the axle and wheel bearing. Other followup, I noticed the Impreza would still stall occasionally when coming to a stop with clutch disengaged when not fully warmed up but didn't do that for the first few minutes of driving. So I changed the idle speed map to 1250RPM up to about 150F (had dropped down to 1000 by then), 1000RPM above that. No stalling anymore. In the past I had the idle speed at 7-800 and it will idle just fine there but when a stoplight unexpectedly turns green or something it takes a second to rev it up before engaging the clutch. At 1000 you can just start engaging the clutch and give it some gas, much easier to get going without killing the engine.

Edited a couple videos from our last trip out west. Long version is in strictly chronological order - action video clips, scenery video clips, pictures. Feedback appreciated.

B and I got the dash back in the Impreza and everything seems to work - speedo, clutch/brake/neutral switches to cancel cruise, clock, delayed power shutoff for family band radio and a couple cig lighter outlets, etc. One of the speakers was making a ton of noise so B pulled it out and glued/clamped the paper back down to the metal ring and it's much better. HVAC fan intermittently stops, usually playing with the switch will get it going again. Got the material and drawing to local fab guy to make fuel tank. It was stalling occasionally when coming to a stop and disengaging the clutch. The idle control derivative gain had been zero percent, bumping that up to 2% seemed to fix the problem. 5-10% makes the idle hunt. Did some work on B's blue Forester. The RF knuckle wasn't really clamping the ball joint perfectly anymore so I replaced that with a new one he got from Dorman / Rockauto. Also replaced the front control arm bushing while things were apart. The Whiteline bushings apparently don't fit our fabricated arms perfectly but I made them work. B welded up a bunch of cracks/rust holes in his exhaust. A penny on the inside of the flange while welding on the outside made this job much easier. While he was at it he did some rust/rock repair with angle iron on his gas tank guard. Far from perfect but much better than before. We also cleared some room for the black Outback part out. In related news, the RR axle has popped out of the rear diff on the white Outback twice in the last month or so. Clips back in fairly easily but disconcerting. Anyone know of a good fix for this? I haven't even been able to successfully install snaprings in those spider gears without making them too small for the axle to snap into. Need to see if I can get slightly longer axles or maybe space it farther inboard.

B and I pulled the dash out of the Impreza and worked on some wiring. The neutral and clutch switches (for canceling the cruise control) haven't been registering on the Haltech in a while. I had them wired 12VDC to one side, signal wire to Haltech on the other side. B suggested trying to ground them and that made them turn on and off at the Haltech. Still don't understand that, had them wired to power and they worked for a while. I think they stopped working when I replaced the expansion module or updated the firmware. Regardless, they work now. B installed the cabin air filter kit. Slammo turned me on to this. Very simple install/upgrade. B also cleaned out the HVAC box and blower motor. B wired in a retained accessory power module from timers.shop. Set that up to keep the power to the family band radio and two cigarette lighter outlets after the ignition is turned off. Will set that to 99 minutes I think. Been meaning to do that for years. He also made a little panel and added a switch so we can turn on one fuel pump or the other once the extra fuel tank is done. He replaced the backlight bulb in the gauge cluster so the clock shows up now. I wired all four EGR solenoid grounds to one of the outputs of the Haltech so we can see if that does anything. Wanted to get it working before we tune the car on a dyno. I got the horn working. Since the cruise inputs for the Haltech need a 5VDC power supply I had to separate that out (they're normally powered by the 12VDC horn circuit) and run the horn power through one of the airbag wires. The main reason for pulling the dash was to try to get the speedo working. After some trial and error and back and forth with Dakota Digital, I seem to have it working now. Will update the EZ36 swap thread with details. On that topic, I plan on just putting a swap guide and base map on my website soon too. Not sure how to share files on here.

The plan is to have a vent/overflow line connecting the tops of both gas tanks. So the second tank will be vented through the stock fuel venting system. Then I'm planning on having a port at the bottom of the second tank with a fuel pump connecting it to the stock tank. This will go in one of the inspection plates and near the bottom of the stock tank. This way the pump can either fill the stock tank from the second tank or fill the second tank from the stock tank. Current plan is just to use two fuel pumps since they have check valves. I already have them, the wiring will be easier really, and I haven't found any reasonably priced reversible fuel pumps. Not extremely fast, the pumps I have are rated at about 75 gallons per hour at 0psi. But it won't be used at every fill up and could potentially start the process before getting to the gas station if the stock tank has a significant amount of gas still in it. Seems better overall than having another filling and venting system for the second tank. There are other ways to do it. For instance I could have some kind of valve that would dump the overflow/relief flow from the engine to the second tank and just run the stock fuel pump to fill the second tank. Just a straight hose from near the top of both tanks connecting each other should allow passive filling of the second tank through the stock filler but - it'd probably be slow, I'd have to add another vent fitting to the second tank, and I'd have to add a fitting to the stock tank which would be difficult and a possible leak source. Definitely open to suggestions.

B and I cut his interior panels to fit around his frame brace and he got them installed. Should be relatively easy to take the panels back out to check on the body occasionally. As with my car, took a good portion of the day to get them to fit back in. I've got some material on order to build the spare tire well gas tank for the Impreza. We tested a stock Subaru fuel pump and it didn't pump backwards. B removed this check valve from one but it still didn't pump backwards when we reversed the polarity. I have at least four Walbro 255lph pumps but they also don't pump backwards. They appear to have a check valve too but not as easily removeable. So I'm on a quest for a reversible fuel pump. Worst case I guess I use two pumps.

We finished the rear strut tower brace for my Impreza. Made a spare tire mount to hold the tire upright. Had to make sure it was over far enough to clear the hatch strut with the hatch closed. Just built a simple mount, thought about making something with a few more tubes but this seems plenty solid. Also relocated the seat belt retractors since they were in the way of the front diagonals. Seat back latch and coupler for cross bar. Had to shift latches forward a bit to make room for the spare tire. Seat back is not as reclined as stock but not too much different. Removed everything for welding and painting. Installed showing plates that bolt through rear trailing arm mounts. Those tubes are barely visible with the seat in place. Didn't have to notch or dent the seat at all. Did have to slot and reform parts of the interior. That took a look more hours than you might think but turned out pretty well. You can see the biggest spot we had to heat and deform for the right rear diagonal but we had to do similar for the front diagonals. Slotted the carpeted floor panel to sit flat too but haven't cut the rubber mat yet. Spare tire and one of the totes in place. Have another one that stacks on top of this. Room in front of it for spare CV axle, etc. Camlock fasteners for spare tire out of the black Outback. Front bolt hole in the "frame rail" for the LR trailing arm mount was starting to pull out and appeared to have a little crack running forward. This was the best picture I could get. Good thing that's bolted all the way up through that brace now. Happy with how this turned out but we also keep wondering if we should have just built two seat buggies by this point.

Best video clips from four trips to the UP last year. Haven't been taking as much video as previous years. We have video of our five hour recovery but I didn't think it was worth sharing even at a much higher speed or cut up. Still have video from our trip out west and our trip to Arkansas. Also want to do a walkaround video of the black Outback before we part it out. Probably same for green Impreza now that it's mostly done. If I have time long travel highlight videos and a recovery compilation video too.

B's Forester continues to run well, isn't consuming much oil. We started work on some rear strut tower braces for my Impreza. Didn't have couplers or enough tubing for a crossbar but we probably have over half the work done. Still have to space the seat latches and relocate the seat belts and add a spare tire mount too. I've been fixated on carrying more fuel since our last trip out west. Would have allowed us to get even farther off the beaten path before having to return to civilization for fuel. I looked into rectangular off the shelf gas tanks but none of them seem to fit well in the spare tire well. My latest idea is to just make one. Two pieces of aluminum, fairly simply cut and bent. Can keep the floor flat this way, should hold 10-12 gallons. Thinking I'll just make the flat flaps wide enough to bolt in under the strut tower braces. Fairly easy/simple mounting and might stiffen the chassis a bit without adding a lot of weight. Thinking 1/8" thick aluminum, two ports in the front, one high, one low. Already have some of the parts. Took the Impreza down to southern IL over the weekend. Drove on a lot of icy/snowy back roads on our way to various hiking trails. A few that were dirt but nothing real crazy. One time we stopped on an icy uphill grade because there was another car parked off to the side and I decided to ask them if they needed anything. They didn't but at first I was getting just some rear wheel spin trying to drive back up the hill. Locked the center diff and drove up without any drama, after about ten or twenty seconds of that I unlocked it, never had to use it the rest of the weekend.