pontoontodd

I shipped the tow bar, hitch, lights, safety chains, and camping gear to my brother in CA a couple weeks ago. He bought a rust free 2002 H6 Outback with 226k miles on it a few weeks ago for $1600. He had to clean out the IAC valve and the front bumper cover is broken up but other than that it seemed to run and drive well. Last Thursday morning my wife dropped me off at the bus stop and I went to Ohare and flew to LAX. Brother picked me up at the airport in the Outback. We stopped for lunch at a Mexican restaurant and then went to the grocery store to stock up on food for the trip. I had him pop the hood with the engine running when we parked and the coolant was bubbling in the overflow bottle. He said it never leaked a drop of anything though, and I never saw anything leak on the entire trip home. Got back to his house. He and our friend bought a yellow 1973 super beetle that is of course also rust free and in pretty good shape. He insisted we go around the block in it for old times sake (I used to own a 1972 super beetle about 20 years ago). After a few hundred feet I wanted to get out of that death trap. We hooked the cars together and did a test drive around the block and he watched me do some U turns and stops to make sure nothing was rubbing, etc. I left his house around 5PM PST and headed towards our friends' place near Phoenix. It took a while to get out of town but once I got on 10 I could cruise easily and steadily at 80mph most of the time. The trans downshifts violently, and at only about half throttle, so I was trying to keep it from doing that but it still downshifted often. The engine would be at about 3000RPM, then jump to 5 or even 6000RPM before the trans pulled it back down to about 4000RPM. One of the tires would occasionally chirp this was so hard. The engine would sometimes jump up in temp when idling at a stop but immediately drop back down as soon as the car started moving. I eventually figured out it was just slowly losing coolant, so every 200-300 miles I'd let it cool off and have to add about a quart. Got to Phoenix about 12:30 AZ time and went to sleep. In the morning they fed me a big breakfast of eggs, bacon, fruit, and banana bread. Then we cruised around town a bit, he showed me a few restaurants and hotels, and then stopped at a parts store to get coolant. I left their place maybe around 1PM. The drive up to 40 was fairly steep and I got about 12mpg on that tank, a lot of it going 40-50mph at half throttle to keep it from downshifting and trying not to push it too hard. Once I got on 40 it was easier going and I got about 18mpg the rest of the way home. I drove to Santa Rosa Lake State Park and set up the tent. The forecast I'd looked at showed lows in the 40s the whole time and route I'd be taking home, and it wasn't super cold when I went to sleep. Apparently it dropped below freezing because even with long johns, heavy socks, and a hooded sweatshirt I eventually got too cold to sleep. This was about 4AM so I figured it was time to hit the road. A few times that day I took little naps and would then add some coolant. Got past St. Louis late that night and stayed at a Super 8 in Staunton. The next morning I got up about 6AM, showered, had breakfast. Got on the road about 7AM and after a couple of hours of easy cruising I noticed some black things flying off the VW. Put on the flashers and pulled over. The LR tire lost about half its tread. Put on the spare and somehow lost the VW door key in the process. Fortunately the ignition key also works for the doors. Drove through Bloomington and stopped in El Paso to double check the lug nuts and everything else. Got home about 11AM. Unhooked the Subaru and VW and unbolted the towbar mounts from the VW. Took me a couple tries to start the VW to move it. Drove the Subaru to the car wash and Farm and Fleet. It's pretty fast, especially once it revs up and considering it's geared taller than the five speed cars I'm used to. Squats a lot under low speed acceleration. Some guy in a 70s Corvette pulled out in front of me and got on it. I pinned the Subaru and was almost keeping up with him until I realized we were going 80mph (downhill) and slowed back down. Here's a few pix of my three Subarus and my friend's Forester after we rebuilt the engine. For now my wife is driving the 2002 OB since her old car needs some work and is getting pretty rusty. My plan is to get a nicer 01-04 H6 OB for her, then I will drive this white one or use it as an engine donor. Trying to find an engine donor for the 99 or a slightly better driver for me also. So I'm on the hunt for some 01-04 H6 Outbacks. They seem the cheapest and most common six cylinder Subarus and they're pre CAN bus, so I figure it makes sense to switch the fleet over to that. I put a small hose clamp on the overflow hose out of the radiator and that may have solved the coolant loss problem, but we haven't driven it enough to be sure. The 96 Impreza's trans is really getting bad. One thought is to take it to the off road park one more time and then pull some parts off it and scrap it out. Another thought is to replace the trans and keep/sell it. I'm also considering just putting it on CL as is and see if someone will give me good money for it. The rest of the drivetrain seems good, it always starts and runs well, but I doubt it's worth much. Thoughts? What would be the best repair manual to get for the 01-04 H6 Outbacks?

Rolled forward the odometer I'd picked up with the good trip odometer this morning. First you take the clear and black plastic cover off. Then you unscrew the five silver screws holding the speedo in from the back (white/printed circuit side). You don't have to remove the face of the gauge. I pulled out the part that slides in the side with the blue gear on it, but I'm not sure you have to do that. I took out the two screws in the back too but that's unnecessary. I popped the circuit board off the back, again you might not have to, but it's easy to take off and put on. MiniTransAm gave me a little advice, mainly you have to pop the shaft out of the little tabs. So here is the shaft popped out of the slots: Turn the numbers to whatever you want, then snap the shaft back in. When you do this it's a little tricky since you want to get the gears lined up axially (left to right in the picture) and turn them so they fully engage. Hard to explain and the first time I put it back together the numbers didn't really stay put and I had to do it a couple times, but it's not too bad. Maybe it would have been easier to swap this odometer reset mechanism onto mine instead.

Had one of the mods change the name of this thread since I'm going to be building an H6 Outback in the next year or so, and a lot of that will overlap with this build (same front suspension, etc). Sometime this winter I'll probably rewrite the first post with links to the long travel build, trip reports, etc. I mentioned a few weeks ago my friend drove his Forester over and we started on head gasket replacement when we realized the bearings also needed replacement. He drove my Impreza home in the meantime. It's about a two hour drive and the trans was acting up a bit. Lately it's been sticking in gear, especially second and third. You have to mess with it and pump the clutch to get it out of gear sometimes. It hasn't stayed in fourth for about a year and occasionally pops out of fifth now. He had some King bearings drop shipped to my house. The rod bearings seemed good but the mains had .003" clearance, about double the max the manual specs. They also had no endplay. My Dad and I tried the next set of main bearings he had ordered from Rock Auto and they had about .002” clearance, so we oiled up, sealed and torqued together the bottom end. Over the next few days I intalled the piston pins and some other things on the bottom end. There is a steel coolant pipe that runs from the heater hose in the back of the engine on the drivers side down to the water pump. The small pipe coming out of it going to the throttle body looked pretty rusty so I suggested that he order one. He didn't, partially because it can take a week and a half to get parts from the dealer, also if you replaced every part of the engine as you go the repair would be ridiculously expensive. My friend showed up Saturday morning. He said the Impreza was pretty good until he got to town and then the trans started making a loud whining noise for about ten minutes and then went away. We put the engine on the stand and finished assembling it. It went in the car and on the trans fairly smoothly, we spent the evening hooking everything up. We had some difficulty installing the clutch dust shield until we had the engine jacked back up about 2”. Once we had that installed and most everything hooked up it was about 10PM so we called it a night. I got up around 6AM Sunday and we got back to work. We hooked up the exhaust and spliced a new piece of tubing in the oil pan guard, welded that, filled up the engine with oil and coolant, and fired it up. It took some cranking before the engine had fuel and oil pressure and then it started. Seemed to run smoothly and we didn't see any leaks. Drove it around the neighborhood a bit and when he pulled back in, there was smoke coming out of the hood. There was a small puddle of coolant by the rusty coolant pipe on the engine. We didn't think it was too bad so he headed out of town. By the time he drove through town the smoking was getting worse and the temperature was starting to rise and the check engine light came on. He topped the coolant back off and drove back to my house. After a little looking we decided the leak seemed to be out the rusty pipe opposite the little welded on tab, so we couldn't just slide a piece of hose over it. We decided to just replace/bypass the rusty pipe. We used a piece of 5/8” heater hose and a tee we made out of some barbed fittings. Took an hour or two but seemed to eliminate the leaks, he headed back home around noon. He said the coolant on the block eventually all evaporated off. Halfway home he cleared the codes and the check engine light didn't come back on.

Those are similar to some of the shocks Fox offers. The basic problem is that you can't replace struts with shocks. You could try to mount the shock body to the spindle and mount the rod to the car body, but you'll probably end up bending the shock rod. Also with the springs inline with the shock you'll have a lot of binding and friction. There are various aftermarket struts for these cars, some of them offer more travel than stock, some are pretty cheap. I honestly don't know enough about any of them to recommend a brand. We've thought about trying them but decided to make our own. Did you look back on this thread or look up inverted struts to see how they work? Not trying to be rude, but I think if you look back at this thread you should able to figure out what we did. The spring rates we're using now are fairly close to stock, but I'd like to go stiffer, mainly for a little more ride height. I've gotten some decent quotes on custom wound coil springs. I'd like to buy something off the shelf but the only spring chart I can find is MOOG. The travel/lift we're running doesn't seem to be wearing out CV axles too quickly. It probably only sits 2" higher than stock. We're running more droop than stock but that doesn't happen often, and when it does there's little to no load on the tire, so it doesn't seem to cause problems.

They're inverted struts. We made housings that bolt to the spindles. Those have bushings in them for the shock bodies to ride in. We made upper mounts to adapt the shock top mount to the car body and provide a spring perch. It's not a bolt on, order it from a catalog situation. Look at post 333 and 334 (page 14) to get an idea of what I'm talking about, or look up inverted struts.

We did make longer front control arms, but you wouldn't have to. Rear links are all stock. The struts involved a lot of fabrication and machining. They are inverted struts. I know this is a long thread, but you can either look back through it or look up inverted struts to get the idea. We did start with 2" smooth bodied Fox reservoir shocks but we had to machine the shafts and do some other things. You can buy long travel inverted struts from a few companies who sell them for rally racing. We are planning on making a few sets fairly soon. I've been getting quotes on custom springs. I want to make new housings with a better bushing setup for this car, and we'll probably make a set for my friend's Forester and at least an extra set of fronts for a second gen Outback once I start on that. So we could make you a set, I'd have them professionally welded and painted, but even making enough parts for four or five cars they'd be $4000-$5000 for a set of four struts.

I've always wanted to try a set of the Heri axles but can't seem to find someone who actually sells them. Do they seem weaker than OEM? Curious if/how/where you broke them. Mainly we just leave the stock axles in the cars. We've replaced quite a few boots now, usually when they just start to leak or tear. I have been replacing my front axles as they go bad with the FWD early 90's Legacy axles, but they're hard to find now. They had bigger CVs and center bars. But I think the only CV we've actually broken has been an outboard cage in one of those FWD axles. Seems like the travel is more limited by inner CV plunge than the angles.

That Delphi MAF sensor that lasted a few months was new from Rock Auto. I didn't realize it has a 12 month warranty, thanks for mentioning that, I'll see if I can get a replacement. More on the H6 cars soon, I'm going for the 01-04, they're cheaper, seem to be more common, and sometime between 2005 and 2008 they switched to CAN bus which probably makes engine and trans swaps much more difficult.

Also, any thoughts on the MAF sensor? The one that just failed was a Delphi that I put in just before the Vegas to Reno, so it has seen some dust but has only been on the car about three months.

Wife and I went camping over the weekend with the Outback. We were on a lot of gravel roads but nothing challenging this time. Before we headed back the engine started running really rough and the car was bucking violently. I unplugged the MAF sensor and it ran OK the rest of the weekend. A little rough and stalled occasionally but we made it home fine. So thanks again to Uberoo for that tip! I didn't have the spare with me and the only parts store we stopped at wanted $200 and had to wait a few days to get it. I replaced it with a used one when I got home and it ran fine today. I had good luck today at the pick & pull. Got a mass air flow sensor, wiper fluid bottle with pumps and hoses, gauge cluster, three wheels, and some little pieces. Anyone know how to roll forward an odometer easily? I found this post: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/38259-speedometerodometer-quit-cruise-still-works-vss-or-speedo-head/?do=findComment&comment=308126 but it really doesn't explain what to do.

That would be a long drive for a 100 mile race. I'll check out their schedule next year, whether we go there, CO, or TX, it's a long drive. Thanks for the heads up on that series, it's good to have options. There are some 100 mile woods enduros much closer to home that we might be able to run, but they usually don't allow cars with glass. And it's really not the same as a desert race.

Sounds like the course near Columbus is 8.5 miles and 6-8 laps depending on class? Not sure that would be worth the trip for us. I was thinking the 200 miler, but it sounds that course is smoother. Our thought is to hit one or two that are as long and rough as possible early next year to really put the car to the test. One of the courses in Texas is supposedly really rough and they usually do a 200 or 250 mile race there. I'm just thinking if it's cold we wouldn't get a decent test of the cooling system. I definitely appreciate the offer to help at V2R. I don't think there's any way we could put together a group of volunteers to do what Baja Pits does. They have mechanics at every pit with fuel, tools, food, water, welders, etc. Also, there are no chase trucks allowed on the course. It would actually be a decent race to watch if you picked out a couple spots to hang out at for a couple hours each.

Thanks, it's sort of based on what ferp did. I just looked it up, are you talking about the YORR series? Do you know what the courses are like? Sounds like the longest one is 34 miles. Looked like 100-200 mile races on their website. From the few videos I looked at the courses looked fun but smooth. But it always looks smoother on video than in person. Depending on where in Montana it's at, it might be closer than west Texas. Isn't it usually cold in early May in Montana? There are some races in Colorado we're looking into. Some of the guys at the V2R also suggested running a desert race where they run the slower classes in the morning and the trophy trucks and class 1 buggies in the afternoon. That way you don't get run over and the course isn't as torn up. Plan is to do at least one next year before the V2R to put some hard, fast miles on the car.

We made a big skidplate for the front of my car a couple weeks ago. Started with a piece of 1/16" 4130 normalized, I think it was 36" x 42". Cardboard template my friend made up for one side: Trimmed the edges and made some cuts: Bent and tack welded: Bent the rear edge up so it would be less likely to catch on things when going backwards and add some rigidity. Check to make sure the bends look good: Spacers for both sides of the crossmember just outside the exhaust and mounting tabs: One of the mounting tabs welded in place to the tube that runs from the front to the swaybar mount: Drilled mounting holes for the above tabs and spacers and fully welded the seams on both sides. Trimmed the overlap from those seams and welds. It is extremely rigid with all the bends even though it's just 1/16" steel. A little spacer that bolts onto the rear of the crossmember to keep the skidplate off the exhaust: Welded and painted: Installed: Skidplate painted: Here you can see the aluminum spacer holding the skidpan just below the exhaust: side shot: Fully installed, tucked behind the smaller steel panel that goes under the bumper:

THIS!

Made a skidplate for the front end, I'll post up pictures of that soon. My friend drove his Forester over and we were going to replace the head gaskets over the weekend. It's been overheating on him when he tries to drive it on the highway and he has to keep adding coolant. There were all sorts of bubbles coming up in the overflow one time we looked and it was warmed up and running. We took the engine out and got the heads off in a few hours. Block and heads seemed flat and we didn't see any cracks. Head gaskets were missing at least half the rubber on one side though. He took the oil pan off and discovered some metal shavings on the oil pump pickup. They looked like little flakes of bearing material. We decided to tear the engine down completely. The rear main bearing was definitely coming apart and the other ones didn't look great, but probably still OK. The rod bearings were about half worn to the copper and were stuck to the journals. I'm surprised none of them spun. Crank's still pretty smooth but no one in town has bearings. He's going to order some and we'll get it back together. He already has a new timing belt and clutch disc we'll put in. The toothed idler spins more freely than the smooth ones, but it seems like that's normal, is it? Anything else we should do or check while we're in there?

If you cut some of the ribs loose from the underside, I think Scott is right. You can probably just take a torch to one side and let it cool. If you think it's already junk, just play with it. Otherwise maybe you could clamp it rigid on the car in the shape you want and weld it that way, but it's liable to spring when you unclamp it. If you wind up at a wash in the weight savings vs reinforcement, I'd say that's pretty good.

Have you saved all these pieces you've been cutting out? I'd be curious if you weighed them all at the end to see how much weight you've removed.

Well if someone offered me a decent amount of money for the Outback that would certainly change my thinking!

I really don't know how long the engine swap would take. Mechanically we could probably take out the four and bolt in the six in a weekend. I'd need either an H6 radiator or different hoses but I think the wiring would be the most time consuming. Worst case I know of a guy who can trim down the wiring harness from the donor car for $500 so I would only have to hook up a few wires. Six speed I'm not sure, I think the axles are different but I have to check. A donor car would probably be $1000-$1500, six speed about $1200. At this point this is what I'm leaning towards in case you can't tell. In the long run I'd like to do a few more desert races but I don't anticipate doing it for many years in a Subaru. There is a decent looking H6 Outback for sale in CA right now with 130k miles for $2500, so probably $3000ish for a decent car we could build up. $1000 just for cage tubing, we could use a lot of the parts from the 99 but then that would have to just be scrapped, or figure up to another $3000 for seats, harnesses, window nets, fuel cells, pumps, etc. The front suspension is the same as far as I know. The rear suspension in the 01-04 is completely different, so we'd be starting over there. I probably wouldn't do it a lot differently if we did another one from scratch. I think the main advantage would be that we'd have a lower mileage rust free car.

Trying to decide whether to swap an H6 in this car or just buy an H6 Outback and make that race legal. Either way I'm planning on an 01-04 OB H6 and a manual trans, probably six speed. In 2005 they went to CAN bus (?) which would make swapping engine/trans much more difficult. They also seemed to make a lot more 01-04 and they're cheaper. Long term plan is to get one for my wife, donor for engine swap, and a complete car for manual trans swap and long travel for me to drive to replace the Impreza. Pros/cons: Swap: cheaper, probably less work Race prep an H6 Outback: More solid body if I got a rust free car. No major wiring issues to figure out (mainly manual trans conversion). I really don't need two cars with cages, it basically makes the car a two seater except for small people or short trips, and can't recline the front seats. I could steal the fuel cells, pumps, and some other things out of the 99 and scrap it out, which seems like a waste. If I keep the 99, even just as a street car, I'd have to buy another fuel cell(s), pumps, etc. Probably close to $1000. If I wanted to race both, I'd have to get another pair of seats, harnesses, window nets, probably race radio, etc. $1500-$2000. Anything I'm missing? Would it be better to race prep an H6 rather than swap the engine into mine?

Is there any good way to compress the tensioner when installed? If you put everything together but one sprocket is off a tooth and you need to loosen the belt to move that, there has to be a good way to do it. I've pried up slowly with a prybar until I can get the pin back in. It works and I've driven the car since, but I'm afraid that might damage the belt. Not a lot of room or good visibility with the radiator in place.

Are you talking about the hoop we run in the back of the car for the races? That's so when we get nerfed the hatch doesn't get destroyed. Our limiting factor on travel and tire clearance is the springs. We're already pushing them almost to coil bind and they have no preload, so there's no good way to move the spring perch up without using a shorter spring and losing travel. Taller tires would be nice, more ground clearance would be good, should improve the ride quality too, but the current gearing is already barely tolerable with the tires we have. I wonder if we'd start to wear out or break axles faster too.

Engine was dripping coolant from the water pump area, so I got a water pump and new timing belt and we replaced those yesterday. Seems to have cured the leak so far. Might have just been the water pump gasket. Not too bad to do in the car.

Rerouted and replaced most of the fuel lines, rewired and mounted the pumps on top of the fuel cell. Put different color zip ties on each hose for future troubleshooting, that's already come in handy. Used Gates 225psi fuel hose which seems to kink more easily than other fuel hose I've used, but works. Any suggestions on a good 3/8" hose for fuel injection? The pumps definitely make more noise now that they're in the car, but once you're moving you can't really hear them over a little tire and wind noise. The power wire to the fuel pump that used to go to the top of the stock fuel tank is questionable, light gauge to begin with and slightly corroded now. I should probably run a wire from the fuel pump relay to the back of the car sometime. Ran it a bit, everything seemed good, then went for a test drive around the block and when I got back there was fuel spraying out the bottom of the car. It was coming out the gasket on the surge tank. My first thought was that the overflow hose from the surge tank was a little kinked and maybe that was causing the tank to build up pressure. Wanted to replace the gasket and shorten the studs so I took that all apart. Then I realized there's still a check valve in one of the bulkhead fittings designed to keep the gas from coming out the vent in a rollover. That must have closed and kept the fuel from going out the overflow. So I removed that ball and snapring. That might have been a small part of our problem before, the pump flowing through that little hole in the side of the fitting was probably heating up the fuel a bit.