pontoontodd

Don't cry just fix it. I don't think a rear strut tower brace would do a whole lot and would make it harder to put large objects in the back of the car. We talked about putting in a rear roll hoop and some tubes down to the "frame rails." Hopefully this fix will last for a while.

I'm guessing the rust was more of a factor than the long travel. If anything the long travel makes life a little easier on the body since you're not bottoming out so hard. On my Outback I started breaking the rear strut towers loose years before we built the long travel, welded them back on and haven't had to fix them since. I don't know that long travel suspension is ever needed, but it often lets us drive faster and hit some jumps without breaking our cars. Once you've driven off road with decent suspension, driving with the stock suspension seems a lot less fun.

This is what the Forester strut tower looked like without the spare tire holding it down. Not attached by much. Most of the front seam was separated too. With a scissor jack and some boards we were able to get things back into place and welded as we went. Welded a few seams on the other side to try to prevent this happening. He is stepping up his rust free Forester search. PM me if you know of a good rust free manual trans 2000-2008 Forester for sale. I got a couple of rear knuckles from a junkyard and replaced the wheel bearing in one using some pieces of tubing and an acme screw. Much slower than using the press, but we can take it with us in case we have to replace one on the road. Thinking about going back to Ozark NF in a couple weeks.

We went back to Arkansas for a long weekend of trail riding. C had bought an Impreza OB Sport, lifted it, grooved the tires, built an oil pan guard, and removed the plastic bumpers. On the way to my house Friday morning the engine blew, big hole in the top through which you can see that the #2 rod is broken. He called me and I went out and towed his car back to his shop and we headed south. B met us at K's just south of Springfield in his Forester. We got to our starting point of Winfrey Arkansas around 5PM and met up with D and J from Texas in D's 1996 Impreza with Forester struts, wheel spacers, 225/75/15s, skidplate, snorkel, etc. Filled up with gas and headed east on 1705. That didn't work very well, trail was pretty narrow and rocky and we kept hitting gates on private property and it was dark and raining so it was a little difficult to see and turn around. Eventually we just decided to head to the nearest campground. Turned out to be a very foggy drive there, often with about 20' visibility, crawling most of the way there, White Mountain campground was at the end of a long dirt road but was nearly full. It was cold and windy but not too rainy, C cooked venison on the propane stove and we set up the tents. In the morning we all got up, J cooked eggs and bacon and we packed everything back up. Overlook near the office was pretty cool. We had a good day of trail riding, started out on relatively easy but scenic dirt roads, basically wandered east all day. The first problem we had was D's right rear tire rubbing on the spring perch. Noticed it when we got on pavement for a little while trying to find the next trail. He thought he'd bent a strut but it looked about the same as the other side. Only later did we find out he had small aftermarket camber bolts with plastic sleeves, C thinks it was related to that. He was able to adjust them enough to give him tire clearance. I let C drive the Outback for a while and we were on a fairly narrow but smooth dirt trail and then we could see that the trail was straight and uphill for a long ways so I told him to pin it. Once we got closer we could see that there were small humps, probably for erosion, all the way up the hill, about six total spaced at least 100' apart. Didn't seem like we were going too fast so I didn't tell him to slow down. Most of them were decent little jumps but one planted the front of the car into the dirt. Cracked the other side of the windshield but otherwise caused no obvious damage. Decided to get some video of both cars going up the hill again but C nosedived it on the one jump again and took it easy the rest of the way up. Later on we came up to a hump in the trail with a fairly sharp top and a fairly sharp muddy ditch on the far side. Didn't think the Outback or Forester would have a problem but wanted D to look at it to see if he wanted to do it since the trail was a dead end on the map. Got over it in the Outback just fine but then a minute later we weren't seeing anyone in the mirrors and went back to see the Forester stuck in the ditch, the RF IB CV joint had pulled apart. I pulled him out with the Outback and we replaced the axle with his spare front. We had gone down a fairly long trail and hit another dead end and were heading back out. There was a long switchback with a fairly steep rocky shortcut climb I decided to try in the Outback. D decided to try it in the Impreza and he got to the top without much drama, a little air under the front tires over a rock near the top. B got about halfway up and then had no drive, couldn't even back down. We got it back to the bottom of the hill and C thought the transmission was shot. After some more looking and letting the clutch in and out I saw that the RF axle had pulled apart again. This time we put on my spare Interparts Legacy FWD axle. He said it also started running rough again and after C put the old plug wires back on it it was back to running well. He decided to take the easy route. Then we realized that our shortcut didn't go all the way back up to the main trail. After we cleared out a fallen tree we were able to take another trail the rest of the way up to the main trail. Somewhere around here K pointed out what he thought were small mountain lion tracks. We decided to head to a campground near Ozone and first we went down to Clarksville to get C a tent and propane at Walmart and filled the cars up with gas. C got a box of fried chicken at the gas station that we shared. While we were there an old guy drove through in his red Pathfinder and C asked him if he would sell it for $500 (one of the themes of the weekend after he blew the engine in his Impreza). The guy starts telling him about how it's the best car he owns even though he has a couple newer Chevies. Then he asked us where we were from and what we were doing and says “don't you have mud in Illinois?” I hit a nice lane divider on the way into the Walmart parking lot and got a little air. B picked up a spare CV axle and met us there. On the way up the highway to Ozone, D pulled off into the closed Chat and Scat service station, his car was running rough. His snorkel ran through the front fender into the side of the airbox and the elbow at the airbox had come loose so he got a lot of muddy water in the airbox which had clogged the air filter. B ran into town and got a can of MAF cleaner for him, I ordered him a MAF sensor at the nearest parts store so it would be there in the morning if he wanted it. We were able to get a fire going eventually despite the wood being wet and cooked venison, potatoes, veggies, and seasoned apple slices J had brought. The next morning we just had bagels and cinnamon rolls and some jars of yogurt/oatmeal/fruit J and D brought. I told J to ride with me for a while so he could experience the Outback. We found a cool trail that went downhill and was fairly straight for a quarter to half mile with at least a dozen small humps on it that turned out to be decent jumps. Nothing spectacular but J thought it was great going down and back up. A little later we noticed no one was following us so we drove back to find out that D had tried to avoid a rock on a narrow trail and put the car into a dirt berm. The corner light was still in the berm and the headlight plastic was blown out but it was still attached and functional. He bent the fender back away from the tire and we kept going. We were heading down a trail that was a dead end on the map but we hoped would go through that was one of the narrowest most overgrown trails of the weekend and came to a stream crossing. It wasn't too rough or deep but there was a waist high bank on the far side that was very steep. I figured we should just turn around since it was a dead end on the map but D suggested we just climb up it and back for the hell of it. He decided to try it even though I tried to discourage him. He got up the bank without any difficulty and then drove over an 8” log on the far side. We had told them to go as far as they could and see if it was a dead end, which it was. I tried to turn around in some saplings near the stream crossing and got a 2” tree caught between the front bumper and tire and bent the fender and cracked the headlight tabs. At one point we were trying to see if another trail went through and it ended at a couple of private drives. We walked around a bit and saw a shot up refrigerator, an old shack, and a waterfall that C, K, and D walked behind. We drove to Alum Cove natural bridge to do a little hiking and make sandwiches. Eventually D and J headed to the parts store and home and we continued. I was trying to head towards the rocky hillclimb we drove when we were there in February. We were driving down a wide dirt road and came to a pine tree fallen across most of the road. There were muddy tire tracks around the end of it we probably could have followed but an old couple was cutting it up with a chainsaw so we stopped to help. By this time K was feeling ill. When we got it all off the road they said something about the school bus should be able to get through now. We followed a dirt/gravel road along a river and drove under a waterfall. The road eventually came to an 1/8+ mile wide river crossing. It didn't look extremely deep but the water was flowing fast so we turned around. We decided since K was feeling ill we might want to head towards civilization. The closest campground was Long Pond along a river so we headed up that way. The main road up there was paved so I decided that wasn't desirable and tried taking an alternate route. At first it was a gravel road and then we turned off on a goat trail. Not overgrown by UP standards but probably the narrowest rockiest trail of the weekend. It eventually came out to a pipeline grade that went back to the paved road on the map. We got most of the way to the road and then it was a very steep drop down. We stopped at the top and enjoyed the awesome view. Tried a side trail which came to an even better view. I had told C I thought it would go through since it wasn't overgrown but if it didn't then we'd just get to enjoy it twice. Back on the road B flashed his lights so I pulled over and they said there were sparks coming out the bottom of the car. All we could figure is that the heat shields on the cats had some grass in them and were smoldering. Due to the detour we didn't make it to the campground before dark but it was nice and we had a big level spot right across from the bathroom with running water. Cooked the rest of the venison and had the best sleep of the weekend inside of three sleeping bags. Mountain lion tracks in a streambed next to a quarter we put down for scale. B had pointed out his LR strut tower seam towards the rear of the car was pulling apart earlier in the weekend. I didn't think it was a big deal since it was towards the rear. Then I saw the 2-3” gap between the floor and the bottom of the strut tower through which you could see the foam around the spare tire well. We brainstormed some ideas for fixing it and K threw out jamming the spare tire between the top of the strut and the roof. We were able to do that with the tire deflated and propped up the top of the tire with a 2x6 down to the bottom of the RR strut tower. Then we inflated the tire and when C lifted up on the LR corner of the car at the bumper the gap closed up some. It did cause a bulge in the roof and wrinkle above the window. We figured we'd take it relatively easy and tried to get to the rocky climb from our last trip. I let K drive the Outback and we were heading to the opposite side of the river to get to the climb and the trail kept getting steeper and rockier downhill. I suggested we stop and walk down to see if we could cross the streams/river. We spent about an hour hiking to the bottom and checking out the various crossing options and didn't see anything feasible, but we did get directly across the river from one of the spots we reached last year. We hiked back up to the cars. The Forester had been idling the whole time and I took video of the tailpipe while B revved the engine and created a huge cloud of white smoke. I think he used five quarts of oil over the weekend. At this point it was after 10AM and we had a long drive back home and we all knew we should head back. We stood there and bullshitted for a long time and C pointed out it was the first time all weekend I wasn't eager to get back in the car and start driving. K kept driving and we took a different route towards the old ski lodge we had found on our last trip. He thought we should stop and clean the windows at the next gas station so we did that and fueled the cars. When C and I went to the bathrooms one of the cashiers started telling us about how they'd seen us a few times over the weekend, then we would pull off into the woods and they'd see us somewhere else and said “I know you had a good time this weekend.” The road had awesome views. One of the roads we took had a bunch of tight switchbacks going down and a cow tunnel under the road. We got up to the old ski lodge and parked near an old large metal A framed building and made sandwiches and bullshitted for a while. There was a large dilapitated round wooden building nearby that looked like it was being spray painted on the inside based on the plastic over the doors and windows. After a while a 4.5' tall lady came out by herself and asked what we were doing. We told her we were just relaxing and eating lunch and we'd leave soon. I thought she was pretty brave to just walk up to four guys that she obviously thought were suspicious. We drove around the rest of the lot, saw the top of one of the chair lifts, the post office, ski chalets (some of which are probably occupied) and headed north. Stopped at the candy factory and world's largest gift store. We got to K's around sunset. B's RR CV axle had been making noise all weekend and was apparently getting very loud, so we swapped that out in K's shop. We headed north and fairly shortly realized the LR wheel bearing on the Outback was very sloppy. I called Oreillys in Springfield and they had the bearing, seals, and hub. I parked the car a little way down a dead end road and we drove up to Oreillys and bought the parts right before they closed. We ate a bacon cheeseburger pizza at Mario's. Got back to the Outback, drove back down to K's, and replaced the wheel bearing using his lift and press. Headed home again, B went home to the suburbs. I dropped off C and got home around 4AM. Overall one of our best offroad trips yet, everyone had a great time. Not as large as the UP and farther from home, but we can't go up there yet and Ozark NF might have more good trails per acre than the UP, but it does seem like a little more pavement driving to get from one to the next is required than the UP. The trails are a good Subaru difficulty level too, I could do 99+% of the trails we were on in my stock Impreza.

Thanks, we have certainly put the car through a lot! I'm hoping the two rust free Outbacks I bought from out west last for a while. I'm excited about the 6MT and R180 also. It would be nice to really be able to beat on the drivetrain without worrying about it.

That looks good, I'd do the same thing in the rear.

Alternator has still been putting out 15V (or 16 depending on where and how you measure it) most of the time. I had an extra alternator plug with wiring so I wired one terminal to switched ignition and started experimenting with resistors on the other one that is supposed to get 4-5V from the ECU. With a low amount of resistance, say 10k ohms, it gets about 9V at the alternator when plugged in. This is about what the ECU is putting out and causes the alternator to run at 16V. With more resistance (10M ohms), the voltage at the alternator pin is under 6V and the alternator was putting out 15V. Then I realized I didn't have the center pin hooked up to the battery yet. I connected that and now it puts out 13-14V at various RPMs and under high or low load. So I'm going to leave it that way for now. Still have the plug wired into the original H6 wiring harness I can plug in to the alternator. While trying to adjust the alignment I noticed the RR CV axle could plunge quite a bit, but the joints were fairly tight. Took that out and took the outer boot off and found the snapring on the end of the bar was broken. Put in a different one, regreased, and reassembled that. Rear wiper hasn't worked for at least a few months, we've looked at it before, seemed like the motor was good. I tried to find the rear wiper relay based on the wiring diagram but couldn't. Had my friend look at it and he noticed some wires going down out of the main bundle behind the RR wheel well, those went to a relay that was bolted into the hole in the bottom center of the picture below. Amazingly that nut just threaded right off. Since that wheel well hasn't been sealed in a decade or so the wiring was corroded and broken. I cleaned up the terminals on the relay and put new female spade terminals on the wires and the rear wiper works again. My friend replaced the RR CV boot and wheel bearing on his Forester and we put in a catch can. It seems to be getting oil in the intake and fouling the plugs. Right now we just replaced the PCV valve and plumbed the valve cover breathers to the catch can, might have to do that with the crankcase breather later.

In case anyone else is trying to put a newer EJ trans into an older EJ car, the main issue keeping the 2005 Forester trans from being a direct swap was the axle stubs and seals. I have a few 4EAT stubs and they fit the front diff but the seal diameter on them is 30mm. The seals on the trans are much bigger. I thought about buying or reusing some 30mm seals, the OD measures about the same. Instead I ordered some IR35x30x13 inner bearing races and siliconed them onto the stubs. They're smooth and hardened so hopefully the sleeves and seals will last a long time. They seem like a good fit in the seals, there's a good amount of tension. The shift yoke is different, the later transmissions use a straight bolt and the older ones used a shoulder bolt, so I swapped that over from my old trans. Other than that everything is the same, this 2005 Forester trans seems to work well in my 1999 Outback.

The main issue keeping the 2005 Forester trans from being a direct swap was the axle stubs and seals. I have a few 4EAT stubs and they fit the front diff but the seal diameter on them is 30mm. The seals on the trans are much bigger. I thought about buying or reusing some 30mm seals, the OD measures about the same. Instead I ordered some IR35x30x13 inner bearing races and siliconed them onto the stubs. They're smooth and hardened so hopefully the sleeves and seals will last a long time. They seem like a good fit in the seals, there's a good amount of tension. The next issue I ran into while reassembling was one of the exhaust studs started pulling out of the head. I unthreaded it, drilled and tapped the head, and installed a threaded insert. Trans is quiet and shifts smoothly. Alternator is back to putting out 15V, not sure why. Engine is back to cutting out for a split second occasionally.

Interesting. Those tow hooks are tough, we've pulled cars out of the mud with them many times with some hard yanks and they hold up well.

Seems like power steering leaks on Subarus are common. Check all the line fittings you can get to. I think there are a few on the driver's side near where the steering column comes down to the rack. There are also two on the passenger side just above the crossmember. If you have to add power steering fluid you know that's leaking.

Plugged in a blower motor out of the H6 donor car and it works, so it was definitely the motor and not the wiring. I noticed the passenger side wiper arm has a little bend to it. Pulled up on the driver's side wiper arm and it seems to increase the force on the wiper. Bent the wiper arm to give it a little more preload. Haven't driven the car in the rain but judging by spraying water on the windshield and running the wipers it definitely helped. Also gets the spring a little farther away from the windshield, that was still rubbing occasionally. My friend thinks it may have been bent originally and has been flattened out by hitting too many tree branches. The bolt that connects the shifter to the u-joint on the '99 is a shoulder bolt. On the two transmissions I just bought ('05 Forester and '13 Impreza) it's just a normal bolt, so one end would have been loose in my shifter. The bushings are a different size too, so I have to use my old u-joint. While looking at these I noticed the "weld" connecting the two round pieces. Has anyone ever seen these fail at that spot? The two in the picture are from the 05 and 13, my 99 looks the same.

In case it helps someone out in the future, the pinout for my 99 Legacy Outback trailer wiring connector is: 12V battery right turn brake left turn running lights ground Looking at plug on car with catch at the top. This is probably the same for many years and models of Subarus although they have different wire colors. The converters seem to use standard wire colors: white = ground brown = running lights yellow = left red = brake green = right large red or black = battery + The converter I got from a junk car seems bad, the left turn light is on when you plug it in.

I think the stock bumper beam on my 99 Legacy Outback was plastic/fiberglass, so definitely not safe for flat towing. Should have clarified, on the Subarus we've flat towed we have a tube under the radiator support and oil pan that attaches to the tow hook mounts and front crossmember. That's what we tow with. Running safety chains around something else in addition is a must.

So I got one of these converter boxes from a junkyard. I think it was from a 2007 Outback. I plugged it into my 1999 Outback and it's definitely not right. One of the brake lights on the trailer lights is on all the time, even with ignition off. The six pin plug is the same at the back of the car but the wire colors are all different (I cut the plug off the car I got the wiring from). Does anyone have a pinout or wire color chart for the Subaru converter box?

I've done similar to what woodswagon has done. I like the idea of backfeeding the lights on the car being towed, might have to do that eventually. We've always used the HF magnetic tow lights. The problem with those is that the wiring is very weak, each conductor has about four strands and they break easily. I just rewired it with some new four color trailer wire and put a new four pin end on it. I've also used a coiled trailer wire connector, takes stress off the wires while turning. https://www.amazon.com/Wesbar-787206-5-Flat-Coiled-Adapter/dp/B007V4XME4/ We are usually towing one Subaru with another so this helps keep things in line: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/cht-17200

We put the 52 mile trans in the car this afternoon. Have to wait for the sleeves to press on the axle stubs before I finish hooking everything up, they should be in by Tuesday. The blower motor doesn't spin with 12V applied to it, it's getting 12V, so need to find/buy a new motor for that. Wondering if the 18V running burned it out. It does probably have 20 years and 256k miles on it. Before we pulled the trans I ran the car again and it's still only making 12.5V. If I turn on everything it still makes 12V or a little more, so it seems to still be working just not making 14V. I have tried another alternator that was working good last year that's doing the same thing. I checked the wiring again, one pin is 12V with ignition on, center pin is 12V straight to battery, the third pin has good conductivity to the correct pin on the ECU. The FSM says that pin should have 4-5V with the ignition on but it's 8V, would that cause this problem? I think I have another alternator plug and I'm tempted to wire that in completely separate with a resistor to that third pin so it has 4-5V, wire the other two pins to battery and ignition and try that.

Thanks for the tips, I need to get on this, I've been watching TSS fab and haven't seen any updates on the 4.44 / 4.86 R&P. Clear out your PMs please.

Drove about 90 miles to pick up this gem. 2005 Forester 5MT with 52 miles on it, they said it was out of a crash test car. Funny how much cleaner it is than the 2013. 4EAT stubs fit, seals in the trans are too big. I ordered some 30x35x13mm ground bearing races that I can hopefully press on the stubs to make it seal. One of the switches has the wiring cut, I have a few of those lying around. Impreza drove out there and back great, almost four hours round trip. Head gaskets seem to be holding.

Subarupartwholesale shows the same part number for the front diff side gears in the 2005 Forester 5MT and 2013 Impreza 5MT, so I think my 4EAT stubs should fit.

Did you get front wheel drive or four wheel drive SVX axles? Car-part lists them separately, there's a pair of 4WD SVX axles in town for $45 each. I know the early 90s Legacy FWD axles were bigger than the 4WD axles.

Noticed car-part lists tons of different axles for 2003 Impreza. I understand AT and MT are different, sounds like you're saying the sedan is wider than the wagon, so that explains the front. For the rear they're showing different left vs right and different for RS/TS/Outback/WRX (different for sedan and wagon)??? Are there really ten different rear axles?

I would really like to find a 5MT with less than 100k miles and 20 years on it. Must have 4.11 ring and pinion and VSS. A taller fifth than the stock 99 Outback (.87) would be nice too. The only thing I can find like that I can find is the 2004-2008 Forester. According to the FSM and subarupartwholesale, they had a VSS until 2008. In 2009 it shows a plug. I've seen pictures on car-part of a 2004 and 2005 with the VSS in the side. Car-part is showing the 2004, 2005, and 2006-08 do not interchange but I don't know why. According to the FSMs and cars101 the 04-08 Forester has about the same ratios as my 99 OB but a taller (.78) fifth. The pictures on car-part show plugs in the side, no CV axle stubs. The plugs look pretty big too, I'm assuming it's the same issue I ran into with the 2013 Impreza trans. It looks like those bigger seals can be replaced without unthreading the side caps, is that right? Couldn't find stubs on subarupartwholesale for 04-06 Forester in the front axle or front diff section. Anyone know if my 2002 4EAT stubs would fit? Again, worst case I turn up a couple sleeves in the meantime to make the seals work. There are a couple of 2005 Forester 5MTs with about 60k miles on them within 50 miles of my house for about $500. Anything else I should check?

My wife's been driving the 2001 OB H6 from Oregon for a couple days now and at most one night there were a few drops of oil or trans fluid under the car. Nothing this morning. So I probably got lucky and the head gaskets aren't leaking. It still needs a tie rod and rack boot and have to put the drip tray back under the front end but hopefully will be a reliable driver for a few years.

I replaced the valve cover gaskets, oil cooler gasket and hoses, resealed engine oil and auto trans pans, replaced engine and trans filters (three total), engine/trans/front diff oil, coolant, spark plugs, belt, idler pulleys, and air filter on my 2001 OB H6 a couple weeks ago. My wife's been driving it for a couple days now and at most one night there were a few drops of oil or trans fluid under the car. Nothing this morning. So I probably got lucky and the head gaskets aren't leaking. If you do all that at the same time it's not too bad, unbolt the exhaust from the engine, remove engine mount nuts, jack up the engine, then you can push it to one side or the other at a time. For the record I used MAHLEVS50489 from Rockauto. Would have just bought them from the dealer but it's expensive when you add up the valve cover and spark plug hole gaskets from Subaru.