pontoontodd

Haven't made many big changes to the car lately, did have to replace a bent rear strut. I'm sure that shocks some of you. Also bent the last Forester steel wheel that was straight, still haven't bent any of the "normal" black ones. Minor thing but it made a big difference in cargo bouncing around vs staying put was a 4' x 6' elastic cargo net from Harbor Freight. Simple, fast, and effective. After breaking a few mirrors I finally found some folding Legacy mirrors, not exciting to most I'm sure: Also did some corrosion repair on the driver's side strut tower. Should have checked that when I did the passenger side. Everyone who has driven both of these cars thinks the Impreza rides better, or at least doesn't bottom out as easily. I do have winter tires on it vs the mud tires on the Outback, plus it has both swaybars which probably makes it harder to bottom out one corner, but I think the springing and damping must be stiffer on the Impreza. Never replaced a spring or strut on the Impreza and it has over 250k on it now. Getting ready for a big off road trip in September, so here are some more questions: Lighting - Ideally I would get at least two 8"+ HID spot driving lights but I would really like to fit something where the grill used to be. I could fit a 20 or 30" LED light bar but I keep reading they don't work as well as HIDs for long distance/spot use. Navigation - We've used smart phone GPS a few times now and it works alright but I really want a bigger screen mounted in the car so I can glance at it while driving. Leaning toward a tablet and USB GPS plug in. Communication - I have a couple of old CB radios we might use but I was also looking into renting sat phones, this place rents them for $30/week: http://allroadsat.com/iridium-satellite-phone-rental I was also looking into HAM radios a bit. We might have 4-6 cars/trucks on this trip so we might split up, at which point it might become impossible to find each other. Extraction - so far we've relied on shovels, sand ladders, and mainly snatch straps. I should really probably get a winch, but it would be nice to put it on either end (or side) of either car. Has anyone here done something like that with just a short strap and some kind of extension cord/jumper cables? Would a 3500# winch be enough for these cars or should I go 6000#? Any thoughts / experience on any of those things would be appreciated.

A little video and some stills from our trip to the Badlands this past Saturday. A good time as always.

You can also just remove the small end boot straps, especially if you're not doing a lot of river crossings.

You can get new hubs from Rockauto for $10-20 each. The wheel bearings can go for quite a while and just keep getting sloppier and noisier. I've been told the car will become undriveable due to the slop before anything catastrophic happens, but I wouldn't push it. You could try retorqueing the spindle nut, I've had them back off slightly even when staked.

When we went to Interlake we bent a control arm by hitting a huge rock over a blind hill. We were able to straighten it out enough by running a strap to a tree in front of the car and backing up a few times. Beefed up both of those when we got home. Video from that trip:

I also upgraded the screw jack:

When we were in Kentucky we bent a strut. Still drivable once we adjusted the camber bolt all the way positive. When we got home I straightened it and braced both front struts. Unfortunately one of them had no damping and the other wasn't great, so I replaced them with new ones that are not reinforced.

Thank you very much for this advice. I did this and we went back to Interlake over the weekend. As you can imagine by the name, there is a lot of standing water and the engine ran great the whole time, even after quite a bit of washing before we headed home.

Trying to get a set with the ball spline in the middle and fixed joints at both ends if that's what you mean by slip yoke. So the later ones should work, front and rear, just knock the ABS rings off? What year/model should I order for?

I've been trying to get the name/number of a retail distributor, so far no luck. Their main distributor is World Pac. Supposedly their return rate on standard replacement axles was 18%, with these ball spline axles it's 3%. I was going to get a set but they don't have the ball spline version for a 99 Legacy, just the normal replacement.

Alloy or steel? Can you link or post to a picture?

check out this thread http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/122602-99-obs-suspension-lift/?hl=%2Bbrand+%2Bfront+%2Bstruts&do=findComment&comment=1042022 also, these cars are pretty light, adding 500# will affect your performance more than it would most cars

If this car is that much slower than your LGT, are you sure there's not something wrong with the engine? Plugged air filter, etc? Brakes dragging? Is this with three other people and gear or just yourself? Have you driven another 2.2 OB before? Mine has the 2.5 DOHC and seems reasonably fast. More power is always better, and I've thought of turboing mine too, but you should probably make sure it's running right first. I'm not sure the forester struts are much taller than OB, and I think the springs are softer, so that might not get you much lift. I did a 1.5" strut lift front and rear, you could probably go 2". The rear shouldn't sit any lower than the front, although it looks like yours does, you might want to check if any of your springs are broken (look near the top perch). If you do anything with the struts or lift blocks, do it all and go as high as you can while you have it apart. Surprisingly, you don't have to protect the exhaust, it seems to stay intact regardless of the fact that it hangs below everything else. Oil pan and gas tank you should do something about. I put 215/75/15 Hankook Dynapro MTs on mine. They rubbed before the lift, almost never with the lift. I did go to Forester steel wheels since they're offset farther away from the struts. Those wheels are cheap but apparently weaker than other Sube steelies. If you have other Sube wheels with 215/75/15s they would probably have to be spaced out about 1/4" to clear the rear struts. If those are the type of roads you're driving on, you'd probably be better off with stock sized tires, the taller tires will just hurt your gearing more.

You're definitely right that the rear suspension binds up at full droop. I hadn't thought about the bushings having to flex sideways, but that certainly doesn't help. What amazes me is that, from what I can tell, the bushings are bonded to the inner and outer sleeves so they have to flex just to pivot normally. However, you don't have to compress the springs/struts to get them in, even with a 1.5" lift, so I don't think that really limits travel. Also, a flex pit isn't going to compress the stock springs and struts close to full compression, or you'd be bottoming out constantly, so that isn't going to show the full extent of travel he's getting. Northcoast - I like your rear bumper/tire carrier/plastic bumper trimming.

Makes sense, my 2.2 SOHC doesn't have this problem. I'll see how the grease works. Some of those things I would have liked to go slower but that was the minimum speed to get up hills, etc. You can see a few spots in that video where we didn't quite make it. Also, in a few parts the engine was wet and made no power below 3000RPM so I had to keep the revs up. Maybe over the winter I'll go dual range. All that being said, we did ride the trails there for maybe 18 hours, bent three wheels and one strut.

Unless you're going very slow all the time, don't put any grease in the CV boot. It will just cause the boot to balloon out at speed, sling around, and generally tear itself apart. Pack the joint full with a good moly grease if it's an outboard/fixed joint. The inboard/plunging joints don't need to be packed full.

Has anyone used these axles yet? One of the guys I work with told me the guy making these says he's selling a ton of them.

Do a little searching on here, check out some build threads (including mine) for ideas. I'd heard the 96 OB is just a rebadged Legacy with no lift, but I could be wrong. There should be spacers between the subframes and the body from the factory. Yes, the open front/rear and viscous center diffs leave a lot to be desired. A lot of people prefer the autos because you can lock the center diff and the converter lets you crawl more easily. From my experience, in order of benefit/time, I'd recommend: Go over the car, make sure everything is working properly, brakes, struts, check for broken springs (usually at the top), loose wheel bearings, tie rods, ball joints, clicking CVs, structural rust, etc. Guard under the oil pan - go from the crossmember to the radiator support, which you should also beef up. Guard under the gas tank - that will be the next thing to get beat up and it is a PITA to replace. Remove front and rear bumper covers. If you don't, the mud/sand will eventually if you're really offroading it. I have mine set up to easily go on and off. 1.5" or 2" strut lift. Pretty easy if you can do basic fabricating, helped a lot more than I thought it would. 215/75/15 off road tires. With the diffs and gearing mentioned above, you will actually want some wheelspin in a lot of situations, off road tires are as much for durability as traction.

1)They claimed it was a Subaru wheel torqued to spec. They did say it was bent from a previous run. 2)You're right, but if understeer on dirt causes a wheel to fail they're never going to live while beating on them off road.

video from our trip to Kentucky: still interested in any advice on my wet electrical issue

Most of the offroading around here you'd probably consider closer to rally than wheeling. FWIW, I measured the Forester steelies at .20" thick! The steel wheels on my 96 Impreza are .16" thick, I think the aftermarket one I got when I bent one of the stockers is .18" thick. I think the Forester wheels might just be a weaker design though due to the "spokes" and they're pretty flat, so I'm going to try a couple normal steelies and alloys and see what happens. None of them are expensive, I'd just like something that will hold up. While we're on the topic, I just bent my first strut, what other stock suspension pieces should I beef up or have spares?

So I've now bent four steel Forester 15" wheels on my 99 OB. They are $20 each and offset a bit farther from the struts than most Subaru wheels. I've considered trying alloy wheels but the rally guys say they're stiffer so you just start bending suspension parts instead of wheels. Plus I am afraid they will break instead of bending. I also considered trying other Subaru steel wheels and then I saw this video: What do you guys run and what seems to hold up the best?

We drove 600 miles to Rush Off Road in Kentucky this weekend. Many more, steeper, and taller hills than we have around here. If we did a lot of those types of trails I could see why you all want low range t-cases. I'll put up some video and pictures soon. We bent three Forester steel wheels. Would I be better off with alloys? Are other 15" steel wheels stronger? Also, the Outback still runs rough when the engine gets wet. It doesn't throw any trouble codes anymore and it runs well above 3000RPM and usually dries out in 5-10 minutes but it's a big pain. Any ideas?

I removed the spindle/hub and took it to a friend's shop who did the pressing. It was very difficult to get the bearing out of the spindle, so maybe that's bad. I am trying to get some replacement spindle/hub assemblies, for spares if for no other reason. For what it's worth he's worked on a lot of Subarus and says they basically always just get looser and looser until they're undriveable. Yes, I tightened the spindle nut with the wheel on the ground, didn't realize I shouldn't do that at the time. Thanks for that advice though. It was torqued to spec and didn't loosen. Yes, I'm sure it's the same one. I plan on replacing the hub (since I can get a new one pretty cheap) and wheel bearing and see how it goes and try to find a good assembly in the meantime. In the long run I plan on seeing if there's some larger or higher capacity bearing that could be made to fit, even if it required machining the hub.

I tried the dual parking brake handle setup with disappointing results. I think the rear parking drums are just too small to work as turning brakes. Still considering hydraulic turning brakes. Also tied the front bumper into lower radiator support, boxed in the tow bar points, and painted it. Now that I've taken it off road a few more times, I'm really happy with the 1.5" lift. It makes far more difference than I expected it would. I would do it rather than getting mud tires if I had to choose. It does well off road with the bumper covers on and all season tires now.