pontoontodd

First set used .120" wall 4130, never bent or anything but went to .187" wall so we had grind stock for the bushings. Let me know how yours turn out.

I don't know of any stock or aftermarket longer arms for the multilink. Should be easy to make though. In most of the US (including where I live) there are no vehicle safety inspections for passenger cars.

Assuming it's a Subaru 2.5 and five speed trans, I'd just pick up a front CV axle for something like a 99 Outback, Forester, or Impreza. ABS rings are about all that changed on the EJ axles and you probably don't care. This might provide a lot more confusion than help: http://goworldparts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Worldparts-CV-Axles_Quick-Specs_May-20151.pdf If you can use a standard Subaru EJ front axle, these seem to hold up well and have more plunge travel than most: http://autoshafts.com/i-23374251-cv-axle-shaft.html

Hopefully they could be about an inch longer while still using the stock trailing arms and CV axles. Something to measure later. The top link is short, an extra inch on that would go a long ways.

I figured out why the Outback wipers were catching. One of the links was rubbing on the sheet metal cowl behind the wiper motor. There was a plastic clip in the middle of that the link was catching on. I popped that out and the link was still rubbing on the sheet metal. I tried prying the sheet metal up with much success but did pop the link off the wiper motor, which is a real pain to get back on. While doing that I noticed the cowl on the driver's side was cracked. I took the driver's side fender off because the wiper hose had fallen down and I wanted to bend the bottom of the fender away from the tire. When I took it off I discovered the sheet metal was completely separated again where I had seam welded it. We were able to use the come along from the door hinges to the front bumper to mostly close the gap and I welded it completely top to bottom this time and in a bunch of other spots and hit it with some spray paint. The next day I took the battery out of the 1999 Outback to replace the #2 coil pack and spark plug. Before I got to those I noticed the fuel injector plug looked a little loose. I plugged it in a few times and it only occasionally latched. I plugged it in a bunch more times to clean off any corrosion on the pins and made sure it was latched. Put the battery back in and it runs great now. I probably didn't get that plugged in all the way when I did the valve cover gaskets a month ago and then it came loose while we were trail riding. I cleaned out the back seat area so I could put down a piece of insulation above the muffler since a garbage bag I'd put back there melted to my backpack last weekend. While I was doing that I noticed the seat belt buckle was melted to the floor. Got that all cleaned up and cut a piece of 2” foam aluminum backed insulation to sit above the muffler. Checked the rear diff fluid, rear wheel bearings and brake pads on the 1999 Outback. I had checked the air filter on the Impreza and it was a little dusty but had no mud on it this time so the new intake seems like an improvement. I also figured out the AC fuse was blown, it was only 10A so I put in a 15A. That seems to power all the AC relays in the fusebox. So the fan is back to running with the ignition on, I cleaned up that wiring a little too. My friend got the hood prop working, it's been sitting in the back of the car for about six years. He also got the brake light and wiper on the hatch working, I'm not sure if those have ever worked since I bought the car. Looks like someone had swapped the hatch and just cut and spliced the wires rather than trying to find the harness plug. Most of the wires were broken or almost broken. The Impreza might be in better shape now than it was at the start of the year. Then we did some mock up on the 2001 Outback rear suspension. Looks like I need a longer shock shaft and body and a drop bracket for the bottom shock mount, then we can get about 12” of travel. While I'm at it I'm going to put 7/8” shock shafts, glands, and bigger bearing ends on the shocks. The smaller bearings seem to wear out fast. I might just get new shocks and sell these old ones rather than replacing 75% of the parts and having a pile of parts that are not worth much. Limitation in bump is something binding and the bump plate on the arm almost hitting the one on the frame (stock bump stop removed). Limitation in droop is the upper link hitting the subframe. Eventually, especially if the stock links don't hold up, we may make longer lateral links for more travel and a little wider track. Dug around for springs but the only ones I have that are long enough are too soft for the multilink.

I would probably keep it stock at first. The H6 has the air filter mounted in front of the wheel well like the MAF EJ cars. With the MAF EJ cars the filter gets wet and kills the engine but it's far enough from the throttle that not much gets in the engine. Just replace the filter and start it back up. Eventually I would probably put in a centrifugal filter like the one I have now from a Chevy van. Your car has the filter by the throttle, right? It seems like with that design when the filter gets wet water gets in the engine. You should definitely make up some kind of snorkel.

There is only one place I know of in Michigan where you can drive on the beach. The beach there is tailings (gravel left over from mining). It's already polluted so you can drive on it. You can't drive on the beach in Michigan anywhere else I've been. You're not even supposed to drive through rivers or streams up there and you rarely see stream crossings on trails even though there are a lot of rivers and streams. You can drive on the beach along the ocean in the US in some places.

Six of us drove up to Manistique on Saturday and found a motel where we could leave a couple cars for a few days. Wipers on the Outback were acting up, they would stick about halfway on the downstroke. Usually vibration or bumps would keep them going but not always. Even flipped up the wiper arms and it would still catch, possibly something in the linkage. We started trail riding in three Subarus around 2PM EST. After some hours of trail riding in the rain the Outback started misfiring occasionally, usually just at idle or low load/RPM. Generally headed east and wound up at I74 north of St. Ignace. Sault Ste Marie seemed cheaper to stay in than St Ignace and was in the direction we wanted to head so we went up there. They had a 350th anniversary celebration that weekend so it took us a while to find a couple rooms. Sunday morning we headed east a ways and got back on the trails. The first trails we hit were excellent just west of Bay Mills. We headed up to Mission Hill and hiked the last mile or so to the top. Not a very good view, fire tower is gone. At one point the Impreza got slightly stuck in the soft sand but with a few of us pushing he drove right out of it. We walked around a bit to make sure we didn't get ourselves stuck and found the top of a very steep and tall hillclimb. We could see down at least 100' from the top and there was a jog in the trail. When we got to the bottom we found the start of the hillclimb and could see up about 100' to a jog. According to the topo map it's 200-250' tall. Probably the tallest steepest hillclimb I've ever seen anywhere. J decided to see what the Outback could do. I was mainly worried about sliding off the side on the way back down but he assured me we'd be fine. We made it up farther than I thought we would and came back down in a controlled fashion. We made our way to the opposite end of the trail R swamped his Forester on last year to find that it was graded and bone dry. Then we took a long west/north/east loop up to Whitefish point. Picture is a few miles west of Whitefish point along Lake Superior. Near the end we were on a very soft sandy trail near the lake and B got the Forester stuck. We were able to push him a little ways until he had momentum and drove the rest of the trail. Fortunately J had driven the Impreza off to the side to a firm spot and he was able to get a decent run and drive the trail without any issues. We stopped at Whitefish point for a little while to check it out, not the greatest view without going up in the lighthouse which we didn't want to spend the time and money on. We tried to take a fairly direct route to the bluff we found along lake Superior a couple years ago. Then we took the main gravel road to the lodge and made chicken tacos. The owner stopped by in the morning and told us not to go on the east/west snowmobile trail just south of the lodge. Some couple from California had flown into Chicago, bought a new car, and drove it up to the UP. Their GPS told them to take the snowmobile trail from Tacquamenon Falls to Pictured Rocks (~70 miles). It eventually turns to two tire tracks with grass in the middle but they kept going. They came to a spot with a curve full of standing water. It's 150' long standing water that they couldn't see the other end of but they drove into it and got the car stuck. The car had 1300 miles on it at that point. So the family of four with their dog continued west on foot in the dark for six miles to highway 77 and flagged down a truck. He took them to a spot where they could get cell reception and a simple recovery was tried but they didn't have enough strap/rope/chain to reach 150' to the other end of the water. They got a ride to the nearest motel. The next day they had UP recovery extract it and tow it to the nearest town for $2200. First thing we did Monday morning was head to the pond we swamped the Impreza in a month ago. We drove the trail leading to it with R in the lead in the Forester, me following in the Outback with cameras on both cars. Near the end there are a few groups of 4-5 dips/jumps that we were hitting much faster than the last time through. On one of the last ones R was several feet in the air sideways but saved it. They said it didn't seem bad in the car but I thought they might wind up in the trees. That separated his LR wheel well / strut tower again so we did the spare tire/2x6 fix again. We got to the pond to find it completely dry. There was a pit in the middle, if C had gone to one side or the other he probably would have been able to drive through. Then we headed southwest to the Driggs river road. The northern section is narrow and winding and fairly entertaining if you're not worrying about oncoming traffic. We stopped and ate lunch at one of the clearings along the river. When we got to the southern section of the road they had graded all the jumps out of it. Then we headed over to Pictured Rocks and stopped in Munising for gas. Next we headed south to the super whoops near Rapid River. Our friends drove my Outback and the Forester, R and I followed in the Impreza since we'd done the super whoops before a few times with long travel and R hadn't driven the Impreza yet this year. They quickly disappeared. Then we drove to Jack's restaurant to have dinner. Near there were a cool metal sculpture shop and snowmobile museum that were both closed. We headed east on 2 and stopped at the big spring. It has been so dry up there the spring was barely flowing but it's still cool to see with the deep clear water and big fish. We drove back to Manistique. A few of our friends started back home and we stayed at the motel for the night. Tuesday morning we did a big loop to the north and hit a few small jumps. Outback misfired most of the way home but didn't run hot. Kept getting a misfire cylinder #2 code and torque converter clutch code. Stopped north of Milwaukee, ate at a Mexican restaurant, and filled up with gas. Outback took 18 gallons despite reading half full. Forester took a total of nine quarts of oil by that point in the weekend. Between the engine, body, and gas tank starting to leak it's definitely time to part it out and start with a rust free car. Overall a great weekend, probably 500 miles of trail riding. No major breakdowns and only got stuck about a half dozen times and never for long.

I could see the lift wearing some things out faster but not the rack and pinion gears. If you have the car off the ground can you move the end of the rack up and down? Mine was loose in the bushings and I replaced it to be safe. My advice if you're going through the work of removing it, find a good used one to put in, preferably one that doesn't have rusty lines on it. On that note, the first thing to try would be to make sure you can disconnect the lines above the crossmember on the passenger side. If you can't do that don't bother. Also start soaking the rack bolts and u-joint bolts with liquid wrench or some kind of penetrant now. I think driving on rough roads will wear it out much faster than normal driving regardless of your lift or swaybars. It has been in the car for 17 years, right?

These are almost identical to what I built for the other two cars. They seem to hold up well, we've never bent or cracked one. They move the spindle about an inch forward and an inch out on each side for more wheel travel and better tire clearance.

One arm fully welded, another one tack welded in the jig. Front suspension will be about the same as the first two sets. Going to make a few minor changes which should make things a little stronger. In the rear I need to take more measurements. I think I'm going to just get longer shafts and bodies for the shocks before I even put them on and try to get 13-14" of wheel travel. I really should replace the head gaskets in that car before I take it off road so that's probably a winter project.

Since we ripped the front bumper off our friend's Impreza pulling him out of the swamp, I decided to weld the brackets to the front bumper of my Impreza. You can see the one spot weld is already cracked/rusted apart. We also messed with our CB radios a bit. We have four CBs and tried them in three different cars and seemed to have about 200' of range with any combination. Better than nothing but very disappointing. We have our cars mostly ready for the next off road trip, so we took apart the dual range trans to see what had failed. Not surprisingly the high range synchro / baulk ring was badly distorted. The snapring that holds the hub in place had slid out of the groove, which seems very shallow. Here you can see one of the spring clips that holds the pads had broken. I don't know if that was cause or effect. I'm not sure those clips are needed or even helpful since they would normally hold the selector ring in between gears. In the case of the low range you'd either want it in high or low, not in between. You can also see the hub fits on the smashed synchro ring, the hub was definitely sliding on the shaft. At a minimum I plan on cutting the groove in the shaft deeper and getting a different snapring. Also noticed the ring/flange on third gear that is probably supposed to keep you from shifting too far was broken. Anyone know where to get dual range synchro rings in the US? I've gotten them from a company in Australia. Other than that I made one control arm for the 2002 Outback.

The tabs are for flat towing it with a tow bar. We may find out how strong it is soon. I plan on welding the front bumper and using that for recovery though.

You would be amazed by the difference the 1.6 low range makes. It's more than 60% better. You get 60% more torque multiplication, which helps, but you're also running 60% higher RPM. Imagine doing a hill at 2500RPM vs 1500RPM, the engine is making much more torque. Perfect for what you're trying to do. Unfortunately it seems like every time I pushed it at all it would break or get stuck in low range. We've talked about rebuilding it and putting it in my friend's Forester with the stock engine and tires but even then we would be afraid it would get stuck in low range. I have seen people put oil pumps on them to cool the low range but I would worry about that failing and dumping all the oil out of the trans. Really for slow off roading you're better off with a Toyota or something else with a real low range, lockers, solid axles, bigger tires, etc.

Did you ever look at the X-trail or other struts? I'm sure you could find something to give you more travel if you're willing to cut and weld. The other reasons we built our own struts are that the standard replacement struts don't have much damping, the seals blow out, and the bodies bend. If you're not driving hard that's not a problem.

We got mud in the air filter in the Impreza on the last trip so I wanted to change the intake. I think the main problem is it was pulling air from right in front of the front tire and the plastic wheel well is long gone. Figured I'd just get it to pull air from a high spot in the engine compartment, that should keep most of the water and mud out. Also the intake after the filter is 3"+, the pipe before the filter was about 2.5". I had this 3" exhaust bend lying around so I made a flange and welded it on. Sanded a few of the ribs flush and bolted it on. Riveted a piece of sheet aluminum to cover the original intake hole. I also drilled out the drain hole to about 3/4", that always seemed to get plugged with mud. I wanted it a couple inches below the hood so it had plenty of airflow. We ran a strap around a tree and pulled the radiator support forward. It worked but I wound up ripping off part of the radiator support/tow bar mount. It looked like it may have been cracked about halfway through where it broke. I replaced it with 2" square. Have to get better washers for where it bolts to the tie down point but I think it will hold. Since the lower radiator mounts are gone or broken I made up this little sleeve to support the radiator with foam in between. I drove to the carwash to blast out the condenser and radiator while the bumper is off. Steering is much better now, car is running well. Have to put some weld on the bumper brackets and bolt that back on, try to find a tire leak, secure a fender a little better, and a few other little things. Cars are pretty much ready to go for the next UP trip later this month.

The 95 Outback headlight assemblies (bottom) are one piece and hold up much better than the two piece Outback and Impreza (top) headlights. For some reason it seems like the adjusters don't rust in place either. It is not a perfect fit but with some sheet metal removal I got it to fit on my 96 Impreza. Wiring plugs into headlight bulb but I had to splice the running light wire. Could splice the turn signal wire in too. Got the radiator water neck TIG welded. Put the radiator back in, it's not sitting all the way down in this picture but you can see that there is now some clearance between it and the valve cover. I can slide my fingers between the hose and valve cover now. The valve cover was touching the radiator hose before. Since I had to drain the coolant to do that, I replaced the oil cooler gaskets and hoses and the valve cover gaskets. The engine had been leaking oil badly when it sat overnight and now doesn't leak. While I was doing that I discovered the driver's side engine mount had separated. This might be why the valve cover had rubbed through the radiator hose after over a year with no problems. This is the passenger side mount. That split in the rubber goes most of the way through. I might be able to rip it apart by hand. The part that bolts to the engine is plastic but seemed undamaged on both sides. I only found them for sale from Subaru so they were about $80 each, I think that's why I hadn't replaced them when we first did the swap. Here you can see there is a tab that holds that steel plate in place. I think all the rubber was worn off the old one, that plate just falls off. On the new mount it's difficult to remove that plate. The driver's side had separated completely and that tab is gone too. Also replaced the left rear caliper on the 99 Outback. We replaced the u-joint steering shaft in the Impreza, both u-joints were tight.

That car should be a blast! You could definitely fit an H6. The EG33 is only an inch or two longer (25-50mm), the EZ30/36 is less than an inch longer than the EJ. It is probably much too late in the build for this, but can you lower it? What do you need, 50mm ground clearance?

The front struts will be about the same, I am going to make a small change. Front control arms will be the same. In the rear I'm going to start with the coilover shocks I used for the a-arm front suspension, they'll give me 10-11" of travel. In the future I'll get longer bodies and shafts which should allow 13-14" of rear wheel travel.

I have most of the parts for long travel suspension. I am just waiting on a few machined parts. I plan on putting smaller front brakes on it so I can use 15" alloy wheels. I will use the same wheels and tires (215/75/15 Hankook MT) as my 99 Outback. I want to make fabricated bumpers, 2" tall x 4" wide rectangular steel tubing to protect the lights. Also has to have skid plates before I take it off road. I'm afraid I might have to do the head gaskets before I take it off road too, the coolant boils over a little occasionally just driving it hard in town. Never runs hot on the gauge though. I'll also add a tablet mount for navigation and convert the high beams to HID (already have the kit). Eventually I might change it to a manual trans but I want to see how the automatic works (with a cooler) and I want to leave it mostly stock for now. I'll use it for trail riding, going to offroad parks, going on vacation. Earliest I'll get started on it would be August, I won't have the time or money until then. Considering the head gaskets, it will probably be a winter project. Same with the 6MT/R180 swap into the 99. Should probably do head gaskets on that one too.

While I had the coolant drained out of the 99 Outback I decided to replace the oil cooler and valve cover gaskets since they seemed to fix the oil leak on the 2001 Outback. I got those replaced, they were very stiff and brittle. While doing that I realized that the driver's side engine mount is broken (rubber is separated). The passenger side is badly cracked. I ordered a pair of those from the dealer. I got the water neck on the radiator welded. We replaced the steering rack on the Forester since the one line was kinked and rusty. Also replaced his RF knuckle with one with bolt on wheel bearing as we couldn't fully clamp the ball joint with the bolt. Wheel bearing that was in the new knuckle didn't quite fit the CV splines, wound up putting a new bolt on wheel bearing in it, which was of course super easy. Finished editing the video from our May trip to Arkansas: https://youtu.be/2hZ0n65dPJk

Before the UP trip the cable hood latch was acting up on my Impreza and Outback so I welded a strip of steel onto the latch so I can just open them directly. Seemed to work fairly well, sometimes you have to push back down on the lever to get it to latch, but no more worrying about snapping the plastic hood release off. Had also noticed three of the four wheels on the Outback had cracks in the inner bead so I replaced those. Yesterday B fixed the fender and corner light on his Forester. He tried to remove the steering rack bolts, one of them broke off and he drilled and tapped it, another one was probably going to break so he threaded it back in for now. We will probably replace the whole rack or at least the one line soon. His RF balljoint is loose in the spindle too, we put in a different bolt with a 17mm hex and still weren't able to tighten it enough to get the ball joint tight. We'll put a knuckle with bolt on wheel bearing on that corner probably next weekend. I adjusted the parking brake on the Outback since I drove with it on last weekend. Checked all the wheel bearings and greased the struts. C straightened out and screwed down the left front fender. The lower radiator hose hadn't rubbed through, this time it split open. I think this is an old one I've been carrying around as a spare for a long time, maybe even the original one from the car or the six cylinder donor. Ordered a new one for 99 Outback with 2.5 and one for 2002 Outback with 3.0, see which one fits better. We pulled out the radiator and I cut a v notch in it so I can get that welded at a lower angle. Here you can see how close it was to the timing chain cover and the bolts I cut off. V notch cut and bent down, a little hard to see in this picture but moved the water neck down about 1/2". While the coolant is out I ordered some gaskets and plan to seal up this engine like I did the 2001. I replaced the RR strut on my blue Impreza since it was leaking and had almost no damping. B replaced the LR CV axle. When he did that he noticed the inner CV had worn a big notch in the exhaust. B fitted a piece of steel over that and I welded it in place so at least it's not cooking the CV. I hammered and ground the wheel wells where the tires were rubbing. I wired the cooling fan to one of the terminals on one of the AC relays in the fusebox so it's on with the ignition. Has an inline fuse near the fusebox. I checked the wiring at the RF headlight which seemed wrong at first but after testing and blowing out a headlight fuse seemed the same as the 95 Outback headlight. We fitted one to C's Impreza with some sheet metal trimming and hammering, should hold up better than the two piece headlight/corner lights.

Our friend M wanted to have an off road bachelor party so we took ten guys and five Subarus to the UP. We all met up at my house around noon Friday. C showed up early, his girlfriend drove his blue Outback and he flat towed his black Impreza OBS with his pickup. We went to a grocery store to buy food for the trip – bagels, strudel, bread, PB&J, pizzas, dogs and burgers, and taco ingredients. We left around 1PM and all drove to the cabin without any issues and cooked the pizzas. The next morning we cooked pancakes and packed up and left around 7AM. Headed across 2 to the railroad grade into Watersmeet, hit the mini whoop section on the way into town. Shortly after going through Watersmeet the blue Outback died and we eventually towed it back to Nordine's in Watersmeet. Eventually figured out the timing belt had skipped some teeth. C had brought a different tensioner thinking the one on there might be weak. Got it running again and headed towards the Baraga plains. After a couple more hours we finally got into an area with a lot of trails and the blue Outback died again. We got it running but not well, it probably had some bent valves. Pulled it to civilization with the 50' strap. Talked to a kid in the family that owns a repair shop of sorts, his mom wouldn't let him buy it. Found a gas station that would let us leave it there for a month, C is coming back up over the fourth of July with his girlfriend's family and will tow it back then. At some point early in the day A put the Impreza in a ditch and got it up on two wheels which bent one of the front wheels. Drove on some main roads to the Baraga plains. Drove around a sandy stunt area and got all the cars but the blue Impreza stuck at one point. Went to the sandy pipeline grade and hit that which cheered everyone up. Switched cars at the halfway point. Headed east on 28 to get close to halfway to where we were staying Sunday night. Headed south off the highway and did some more trail riding. Saw a couple of painted turtles at the start of one of the first trails. I let M and C lead the way and they decided to keep going straight where the road turned and we were on an old narrow somewhat overgrown trail. They started driving through the woods to a clearcut at one point and when we got out to look around and found we had gotten off the main trail a bit. Shockingly it went through to the dirt road we had turned off on. We found some other dead ends on the way to the campground. At one of them we noticed coolant coming out of the bottom of the Outback. One of the valve cover bolts had rubbed through the lower radiator hose. Cut the bolt and boss off flush with the recip saw and put the spare radiator hose on. The campground at Pike lake has been closed for almost a decade but the campground at Bass lake was open so we camped there. The next morning I took the overflow cap off the Outback which caused it to start leaking coolant again. A different valve cover bolt had rubbed through the hose. I was able to cut one of the hoses back, cut that bolt and boss off flush, and put it back together. In the morning we found some dead ends and motorcycle only trails. From there we headed east to Gwinn and got fuel. There was a nice little jump along the powerline on the south side of town that we took turns hitting. Looped around the south side of town on a whooped out sandy trail. Went south between Mehl Lake and Little Lake and everything seemed to be private. Went north across the highway on some sandy trails that led up to the snowmobile trail, which was sandy/dusty and whooped out. I was driving the Outback in the back and could see the Impreza bouncing around quite a bit, the right rear has no damping. Followed 35 for a bit and went down some other dead end trails. Eventually worked our way back up to the snowmobile trail but there were gates in a few places so we wound up taking 94 to Munising and got gas. At this point we decided to just go to the lodge we rented and make dinner. S cooked tacos. C wanted to do some trail riding since there are a ton of trails around that lodge. Figured we'd loop around for an hour or so, try to find an unpaved route to the Driggs River road. We went west and then turned off on Sunset Landing road. Fun road with dips/jumps and sandy turns. Came to a four way intersection. The widest straight route went right into a big pool of standing water. There was a trail right alongside it that was narrower but a decent dirt road with just a tree line in between. I drove down the dirt road and thought Cory saw me. They both joined up after the tree line. C didn't see me and had gotten overconfident from the standing water we'd driven through on sandy/rocky trails in the afternoon. He drove right into it and got stuck in the middle of the pond. It was about 50' wide and 200' long and he was stuck right in the middle. In a couple minutes there was water on the seats and they were sitting on the roof of the car. I couldn't get close to them on that trail since I started to sink in before even getting to the standing water. Water was only about a foot deep but the bottom was very soft. I got close on the side trail and we winched them over to the treeline. We were able to pull the car up the bank with the snatch strap, ripping off the front bumper in the process. It was held onto the brackets by four spot welds on each side. Pulled it back to the lodge and C told B he joined the swamp club. We drained the water out of the oil pan, pulled the plugs and cranked more out, and it sort of ran. Relays were clicking on and off, battery seemed weak, we're thinking the ECU being submerged might have caused problems. The next morning we drove back to the crime scene so we could all check it out in the daylight. At this point we struggled to get C's car running right, swapped the batteries between the Imprezas. It kept acting up for the next hour or two, hotwired the fuel pump, eventually just decided to flat tow it back home with the Outback. Outback was running hot above 70mph, especially up grades. Blasted out the radiator at a coin op car wash which didn't help much. Radiator has at least some mud on the backside of it. Had to run the heat about 1/3 of the time on the way home. Blue Impreza's hood didn't get latched properly after we got gas in Menominee so that blew open and smashed the windshield. Other than that we got home alright. Leaning towards just getting a RR strut, windshield, and a couple other things for the Impreza. Tempted to get Forester struts for it and pull the swaybars. Also tempted to just switch to the alloy wheels and snow tires and keep the steels for backup rather than buying more steel wheels that are just going to bend. Thoughts on that? The next day the Outback was leaking coolant again. Need to change the water neck on the radiator and flush the mud out of it.

While looking for rear axles we noticed that they are different lengths. Got a pair that I think are from a 98 Forester, right rear axle is about 10mm longer than the left rear. Shortly after the last Arkansas trip my wife and I went to Tennessee in the 99 Outback with kayaks. Forecast was for rain in IN, KY, TN so we stayed in western IL. Odometer went over 250k on the way down. Went to a couple different lakes in Illinois. Next we went to Interlake. Have to pay to enter now, not a lot of people out on the trails. Trails seem rougher and more overgrown than the last time we were there. Looped around to one of the lakes at the bottom of a rough hill. My wife figured we wouldn't see anyone else out on the lake and we didn't. Went up the hill without much problem and kept looping around. Showed her the one big climb just off the county road which wasn't much of a problem. The trail after that was quite narrow and washed out and at the bottom the whole area was flooded. We probably could have gone through but I decided to turn around and take the main trail back to the parking lot. On the way we stopped at a hiking trail. Trail was fairly overgrown and we were only able to follow it by looking for the markers on trees. We headed for Wood creek lake the next day. On the way to what we thought was the boat ramp we went by Wildcat off road park. I thought this was the park in KY where you can drive through a cave so we signed in and bought wristbands and a map. Then I found out this is not the park with a giant cave. Should have asked for my money back but we went out and looped around the main trail across the road from the office. There were a few sections that tested the Subaru but we made it through but I decided we should leave while we could. Did some more kayaking and hiking and had no car problems. Drove about 2000 miles, mostly on pavement, used about a quart of oil. We plan on taking ten guys in five Subarus to the UP soon, I think we have the cars all ready to go.