pontoontodd

After checking over the long travel there are a few things that should be improved. Overall it's held up well considering how hard we've been beating on it. The front has a bunch of minor issues, most of which would be solved by going to long travel struts. We might even be able to get more travel than the a-arms that way. It would certainly be cheaper and simpler. The rear has always been noisy and I think we figured out why. The top spring perches are just bolted to the body which is not square with the strut. I briefly thought about that when we were building it but didn't realize it would be such a big deal. There is about a ten degree difference between the angle of the top perch and the strut, which causes the top spring to bend outward when compressed. This has worn some flats in the coils and has been wearing out our wiper seal retainers. It even broke one apart. Ten degrees didn't sound like much but it works out to about 3/4" over the width of the perch. Bolted back up to the car without the spring and compressed it most of the way and it's within 1/8" of square now. Hopefully this will solve the wear and noise issues in the rear.

For some reason that's not in the 2015 BITD rulebook. Sounds like it would be a good fit. Class 3000 is a spec Ecotec class, maybe that's replaced 3100.

If I did a desert race in a Subaru it would be to try to finish within the time limit, not to be competitive. I did talk to BITD and they said we'd probably be in the 1800 class (the sportsman equivalent of class 1 / 1500). We might be able to run in class 7100.

I'm at a crossroads now. I think this could go a combination of three ways: Trail riding at offroad parks Expedition / car camping trips Desert racing We've done a fair amount of trail riding. It's fun, pretty cheap, relatively low risk (you can walk out if necessary). It's also the easiest thing to get a bunch of people to go along with since it's usually a day or weekend trip. We've been around most of the off road parks within 500 miles of here now and that will probably start to get old soon. #1 mod if we keep doing that would be a low range. I took some measurements when we had the trans apart and I think I could make a high / low range and front / rear / 4WD selection mechanism in place of the center diff in the tailhousing. A 2:1 low range and 4WD would make this thing nearly unstoppable, and let us crawl when we'd like to. I'd really like to do more expo style trips. Car camping on dirt roads if you will. It's hard to get many people to get enough time off work at the same time to do these, and it's a good thing to have multiple vehicles and a bunch of people along for entertainment, splitting the driving, navigating, etc. The trips to the UP we've done have been fun and we're trying to figure one out this summer. I might do one in October/November in Arizona also. Biggest mod for that at the moment would be a bigger fuel tank, or at least one that doesn't leak when it's full. We've always wanted to do some desert racing. Vegas to Reno, Baja 1000, Dakar. In the Subaru we'd just be trying to finish within the time limit. This would definitely be the most expensive option. We've been seriously talking about running one in Texas this September. Their races are about 200 miles long on a 20 mile loop so it's not as involved as a big point to point desert race. At a minimum we'd have to put in: fuel cell(s) - I would put a rectangular 20-25 gallon cell in place of the spare tire well and we'd have to remove the stock gas tank, maybe put a ~3 gallon surge tank in its place. cage harnesses race seats There are also a lot of relatively minor things we'd need, like different lights, sealed battery, driveshaft hoop, possibly added door latches and we might need a SEMA bellhousing/cover. It would also make sense to put in a dust filter for the engine and a fresh air fan for our helmets. Not to mention a solid rear bumper for when we get nerfed. Yes, I've seen the thread on advrider (http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=845950) of the guy who finished the Mexican 1000 in a Subaru. He is part of the inspiration here. We talked about getting a rust free car before we do all this work to it, but it might make more sense to just do it to a car we have first. Could always use the fuel cell, harnesses, seats, etc in a more solid car later and probably build it better using our experience with the first one. A strategy we discussed to get the most bang for the buck would be to build a few cars similar and stick together and carry our own spares. That would drastically reduce the cost of chase trucks, etc and/or the risk of being unable to fix the car in the middle of the desert. I've sort of been focused on the expo style trips, and to some extent could keep modifying the car to do all three, but it probably makes sense to choose one or two to focus on. Let me know your thoughts or if there's something I'm overlooking.

The camera is mounted on the front bumper so it might look faster than it is. We were going fast when we could though. He did say he should have aired down but we never did. I'm not sure what pressure he was running. It was trailered there and back and I had a valve core removal tool, so there was no reason not to air down some.

video from our trip to Kentucky:

It would definitely help with that, although with the long travel that problem hasn't occurred. Some rock crawlers use two so they can lock any combination of brakes.

We replumbed the brake lines before we left. Just used stainless braided flex for everything. That didn't require many fittings which also gives it fewer joints to leak from. I've always wanted to try a cutting brake on this car so we put that in. After a lot of discussion it seemed that mounting next to the parking brake was the best solution. You can definitely lock up either rear tire on a loose surface (grass or gravel), and occasionally dry pavement when you really lean on it. It definitely works, but it definitely slows the car which is often not desirable. If the car had more power it would probably work better. Turns in sharper rather than swinging the rear out as normal handbrake operation would do, so that's usually good. If the front end is pushing on a loose surface it helps turn the car without having to let off the gas. Overall probably not worth the time and money to put it in.

One of the projects we finished before going to Kentucky was this receiver tire rack. I've wanted to do this for a while and this seemed like the simplest way to carry four tires without putting them on the roof. Diagonal tube is 2" x .12", horizontal is 2" x .06". I didn't want to block the license plate or brake lights. It is just far back enough that you can still open the hatch. We discussed a lot of different ways to do this before we came up with this layout. You can even comfortably stand between the hatch and tires when you're getting stuff out of the back.

Trip report from last weekend at Black Mountain off road park in Harlan County, Kentucky: We drove the Outback down to Cincinnati on Thursday morning, got to our friend's place with the Toyota buggy around 2PM. Helped him swap out the dead battery on the Toyota, put the seat and belts back on, and loaded it up. Got to camp at twilight, swapped the tires and pulled the bumpers off the Subaru and tried to hit the trails for a bit. The Toyota wouldn’t start so we charged the battery for a bit and then headed out. After about five minutes they said we should head back, the Toyota was barely running and showing 9V. We pulled the alternator and belts off back at camp. Alternator had only 130 ohms from the + terminal to ground. He had supposedly spent two hours winching some guy out of the woods the last time he ran it. I woke everyone up Friday morning at 7AM so we could go to the parts store and get an alternator. Fortunately we were able to find one. The electrical plug was slightly different but it seemed to work all weekend, in fact going up to 16V if he didn’t have the lights on for a long time. The only trail into the park from where we camped that was still open was marked red on the map (most difficult) and had some very steep and long climbs. There was one climb we could not get enough of a run at and could only get about halfway up in the Subaru, so both days they had to tow us up in the Toyota. A low range would have been great at this place. There were a lot of trails that were very narrow with a steep drop on one side. Our friends in the Toyota would often discuss how far down it was until we would be stopped by a large tree if we went off the side. One trail had a large freshly fallen rock laying on it that didn’t allow a lot of room to get by between it and the slippery, muddy ledge. We were able to drive by in the Subaru but with much less room than they assured us we had. Since we had to (and could) go much faster than the Toyota on hills, we would often stop at the top and wait for them to catch up. One time we came to a large clearing and there was a family standing around by their side by sides and atvs and seemed entertained by the Subaru. We went over to talk to them and they immediately offered us some moonshine from their jar. We sipped on that, the Toyota pulled up, they had some moonshine and beer. My buddy later commented that if we hung out with those guys for a few more hours, everything would look like a Subaru trail. Not too much farther up the trail was the helipad at the top of a mountain. We watched the atvs and Toyota go up and tried to figure out what the best line was. About 1/3 of the way up there was a ledge that I slowed down for the first two times and didn’t make it all the way up. At one point I realized the AC was on so I turned that off. After the first or second try the guy who gave us moonshine told me I should try it in low range... The third time I stayed to the right of the ledge, which was rougher overall but I was able to hold my speed and get to the top. Most of the trails were rocky and therefore hard so the water holes were not a problem. After a while we got confident and I decided to go through the middle of a ~100’ mud hole. I had the passenger side tires up on a muddy strip and the driver’s side quickly sunk in to the windows. I kept the throttle wide open and we were just creeping through at a very slow pace. We both thought we were going to be climbing out the windows and swimming for shore for a minute. We started to pick up a little speed and barely came out the other side. Realized we had the AC on the whole time, which actually might have helped since the fan was probably acting as a prop. In this picture you can see how deep we were: At one point we were trying to get up a rocky trail and I misjudged our ground clearance and hit a big rock(s) at speed, which dented the exhaust and cracked the skid guard. Tried to take it easier the rest of the day. Eventually we got to the end a trail in the southwestern part of the park and had a long (but not too steep or rough) climb back up the mountain. After a few minutes I noticed the temp gauge was all the way up so I pulled over, turned on the heat, and popped the hood. The coolant was boiling in the overflow and the fans weren’t running. After it cooled down we drove the rest of the way up and let it cool off. Figured out we had a blown fuse and replaced that and the fan kicked back on. The scenery was amazing. I pressure washed the car as soon as we got off the trails and we swapped out the wheels and tires and put the bumpers back on. Drove home the next morning with no incidents but we did probably consume more oil than normal. This picture is a bit extreme as the rear end is heavily loaded. We do have the front and rear sitting about in the middle of the travel, which makes it sit higher in the front than the rear. We got about 6 hours of video so it will be a while until I have that edited down to Youtube length.

Nothing broke (as far as I know). There's just a lot of camber change with the short upper arm.

video from a recent test run

Thanks for that tip. Makes sense looking at the input shaft teeth.

While the exhaust was off, I sleeved a major leak and it's much quieter now. The driveshaft u joints all felt sticky so we replaced them all. One of the old cups appeared to have no needles in it. Now that I've driven it a few times I'm glad I did the group N mounts. It only causes a little more NVH than normal under full load, low rpm, in fifth gear. Otherwise unnoticeable. The higher clamping force clutch doesn't seem to have much more effort than stock either.

The 2 x 2 x .120 should be plenty strong. You could run the new rails inside the stock frame and bolt them in from the top like the EJ cars. Weld some nuts inside the new rails, drill holes in the top of the stock rails. Probably best to put some kind of stop in the old rails so if you hit something too hard it doesn't just bend/shear the bolts. Not sure what you mean by 4 chassis rails though.

Reverse idler gear missing about 1/4 of the teeth: Took a couple highway trips with the unevenly worn mud tires and locked up the center diff last fall. Since I mainly drive it on the highway or off road, I kept driving it. You can see the lower gear in this picture welded to the shaft: That broke/pushed the snapring out that holds the viscous plates in, although they were still all in place. Also broke the outer cage of the bearing that supports the center diff, but it was all intact and functional when we took the trans apart. We were barely able to get this sleeve off the input of the trans with a 3 jaw puller. As you can see the base kept chipping. Is this an original part or some kind of repair sleeve?

Alright, that makes sense.

In case anyone is interested, we are now planning on meeting at Rush off road park in KY the weekend of April 25th.

In the chance this helps your diagnosis, I've had a similar issue with my 99 Outback. Normally this happens when it's wet. Since I siliconed the spark plug boots in the heads it hasn't happened nearly as often. Car will run fine until the needle on the temp gauge swings up to the middle. Engine will stall at the next stop (manual). Engine will immediately restart, but runs very rough. Lots of bucking under light acceleration. Seems to run fine with more throttle and RPM. Shut off the engine, even for a few seconds, while coasting or stopped, and restart it and it will run fine the rest of the day. One time I had a long drive home and the restarting trick did not work. The engine would only run well above 1/2 throttle or near idle, which was a PITA cruising on the highway. Reader's digest version - try shutting the engine off next time it runs rough, count to ten, then restart it and see if it runs better.

When you guys talk about "t casing it", how exactly would you do that? Keep the stock front drive and just use the t case to drop the rear drive? Use front and rear outputs of the t case and use some other IFS or front axle? If you're doing that, why not use a RWD trans? Just curious, I've heard a bunch of people on this forum now hint at doing this but I've never seen how they've done it.

If your steering is wobbling, the first thing you should check is the u-jointed steering shaft that connects the column to the rack. You may have to remove it to tell for sure if it's bad. At a minimum watch it while someone else rocks the steering wheel back and forth slightly and watch if you can see any slop. Not super hard to replace. I had an old VW with dried up steering u joints that was sloppy enough to cause the wobble you're talking about. Another thing I had to replace on my car was the rack. You could rock the driver's side of the rack up and down in the housing a signficant amount, say 1/16" of an inch. It should be rock solid. More difficult to replace but not too bad. You should also check the inner and outer tie rod ends. Pretty easy to replace if you have the right tools. Check the lower balljoints and wheel bearings too. A lot of those components were in need of replacement when I got my Outback but haven't had to be replaced a second time, even after a lot of off road abuse. The best way to check all this is to jack the front end of the car up and rock the tire by the top and bottom. If it is at all sloppy, try to see if it's the balljoint or wheel bearing that's moving. Then rock it in a steering motion (front and back of the tire). You can really only see the outer tie rod but should be able to tell if there's any slop in the steering system. Watch the steering wheel through the windshield to see if you have any slop. If everything is in good shape, you should not be able to feel any slop in either direction. If you have enough time on your hands, remove the front struts and remove the front springs (make sure to do that safely with spring compressors). You will be able to tell if the struts are bad if there's no resistance up or down or if they have any slop side to side. Check that the springs don't have a coil broken off too.

He still has the Geolanders that came on it. They still have decent tread but they're obviously not very good in the mud. It was super slick, the Toyota with street tires might have been worse.

Video from our last off road trip:

Thanks for the advice on the clutch cover. I'll try the hose thing if it happens again. Definitely agree on the mudflaps, I could see removing the disc brake dust shields too. Not sure I agree on the timing belt covers, I suppose I should pop one off and see how much stuff is in there.

I think the main cause of the clutch slipping was mud in the pressure plate. I cleaned some of it out and the fingers came up: You can still see the machining marks on most of the friction surface. Disc and flywheel still looked good too. Is there a dust/splash shield that covers the bottom of the flywheel for these cars?