Subaruist

LOL!!!!

1st Generation, 2nd generation.... especially Brats, but NOTHING else, ever! ever! Nothing is as good! NOTHING! - Sorry, I'm better now..... lol

In your position, I would be looking for a larger fuel tank, from anything, even improvised, that will fit and align with the fuel filler, and bolt it in anyway, but that's me and I guess people will rightly disagree. I CAN - SOMETIMES leave well enough alone, but not too often, lol....

You lucky Bastard! I'm not into the "newer" models, but gotta admire falling into a deal like that. You can make your money back selling one or two, and then with the money, you buy your lady something really special, and let her know its because of that wonderful deal you made! - Next time, she'll be driving you over to see the next batch of Subarus you find! lol

I just paid $1,000 For same, in horrible condition, but it runs and the body is fairly good. When a friend took me to get it, he kept being real concerned about this and that, and every time I said the same thing - "I don't care; it runs, it needs to be saved, its a T-Top, and I'm getting it anyway." When the guy selling it to me said "Good luck", I said "I don't need luck, I've got a subaru!" When I brought it back and showed it off to friends, I said "I now have a 2nd generation Subaru Brat - I CANNOT BE STOPPED!" lol...

You gotta be kidding! Yeah, if the thing is not too big or drawing too much power or whatever, why not? But I gotta say, the one you mentioned could lift your Suby vertically right off the ground fully loaded! Yeah, it should do! lol.....

I may be wrong, but never forget the "Other" little possible causes. This could have something to do with something as small and hard to find as a simple short, or a loose connection, etc. Some of the most aggravating electrical issues I have ever dealt with on any vehicle had to do with something like that. - this is just a heads-up, just in case kinda thing...

Important note about ball joints... I had a ball joint go out on me in traffic, it was not fun. A ball joint failing in the wrong way is one off the few ways to bring down a Subaru almost instantly, and as far as I am concerned, one of those parts to keep on hand if you do any offroading or driving on rough roads with potholes. The way they usually fail is not to shear off though, but to just come apart, the ball coming out of the socket, so I wonder if there was more that happened with that failure. - This was on a 1979 Brat by the way.

Depending on the model, yo may not want to buy a strut that does not have the coil spring included, can be a real hassel.

NOTE: Keep in mind when you are diagnosing things like this, the less common things to notice - such as how the grease in there looks. if its worn bearings, they will discolor the grease in a certain way more than usual, and the inside of where they are held would likely have some wear sround the edges, from the bearings slopping around. From my experience, which is old, but spread across 7, now 8 subarus of three or four different models, the sound in your video is familiar, and I get the gut feeling that whatever the problem is, it is inside that bell, that is why it has a slightly hollow sound to it. It could be a simple defect of tolerances or length in manufacture too. If you replace the axel, keep in mind that reman ufactured ones often have some spray paint at the ends that completely changes the tolerances, and can make it hard to put it in. In those cases, once things were well in place or threaded, I would just start tightening up anyway, and the paint would scrape off as things came together. But if you don;t catch this, it might seem liek you have the wrong axel and it just does not fit, just because they had to put some spray paint on the end.

My preference will always be for a manual tranny. A lot of people don;t like automatics for various reasons, but for me its about torque. If you plan on ever towing anything, get a manual tranny. They are far superior for that task. Also, manual trannies are more forgiving, more robust in general, and easier to deal with if you have a problem. If you ever have to bump-start it, you want a manual tranny. If you like to put it in neutral, shut off the engine and coast down a mountain highway with only the sound of the wind whistling by, you want a manual tranny, lol... - Of course, I am not familiar with the newer subarus, so they may have some kind of something that will not work in these ways, like running dead in neutral down a mountain highway or whatever.

I have been having a very similar problem, but in mine I know that it is a problem (A) With the Carb, ( with the float sticking. It would do same, even worse, even to the point of not being able to move at all. I would flick the throttle on the carb and let it go back to idle, and keep doing this, at some point the float would stick less and I could freely rev the engine. If I did not handle the gas pedal right, it would happen again. I tried carb cleaner, b-12 Chemtool and seafoam alternately in the gas tank, and they made only a slight difference. Try flicking the throttle on the carb, or possibly doing same with the gas pedal, it may take a while, and you have to do it just right, but after a while you will notice it getting better until it operates more normally. By that I mean you rev it only up to where it starts having a problem, no more, and wait for the idel to go back to normal, then do ti again, and agin, and agin, etc. If no difference, either this is not your problem, or if it is, the float has a serious sticking problem. If this is your problem, you could possibly solve it with a basic carb rebuild kit, and just make sure everything moves or swings as freely as possible in there. If this is your problem, at worst it means replacing the carb, but a fairly simple solution. Good luck, and by the way, I am looking for a Carb for a 1983 Subaru Brat, or almost anything that can replace it.

Once upon a time, while in traffic, waiting at a light, I was rear-ended by a Ford 'something' that looked just like those old rally cars over in england, and had in fact been re-imported here to the USA. The guy was very sorry, his car was falling apart, he was taking it to the junk yard. The junk yard was going to pay him $50 for it. - but he hit my Brat! It was very minor damage, but that was beside the point - the Ford had to die for its transgression! So I made a deal with him that I would settle out of court for his peice of junk ford whatever it was. He was actually relived, both that there would be no insurance involved, and relived to get rid of this #@%$ Box that had the nerve to impinge upon the rear bumper of my Brat! This portable wastbasket also had no third gear, so the solution came to me! Once matters were settled, I came back later and and got that bumper-bumper crush zone, and drove it off to the mountains to my favorite shooting spot. I had done some checking, and the fine for abandoning a Vehicle was at that time and place $90.00, but I made an arrangement for a towing company to come get whatever was left of it when I and my friends were done with it for only $75.00. Either way, It was not going to make it back home with me, mwa ha ha ha! Friends met me there, we tied off the steering wheel so it would drive in a circle with nobody behind the wheel, made rules to save the glass and tires, engine, etc for last, turned the idle way up, started it up, and let it drive in circles while we shot the living crap out of it as it did. I really wanted to also set it on fire, just for the fun of seeing it going around in flames, but obviously could and would not go quite that far. After a couple minutes of a few hundred rounds giving it imploding freckles, it started sputtering and slowly dying, which was quite fun, and a couple of us were laughing so hard we could not even shoot anymore. When it finally sputtered to a stop, I took my 12 guage with Rottweil solid lead 2 oz slugs, walked up to it still sputtering, trying to move but unable anymore, said "Now That'l learn ya!" and put a couple slugs into the engine block. It was dead. Very dead. The two truck driver arrived, laughed a little himeslf, and drug its carcass, flat tires and all up onto the flatbed, and off it went to scrap land. It shouldn't oughta have hit my Subaru.... lol.

Did you know that the CV axel bearings from a 1st Gen Subaru are the perfect size to load into a 12 Gauge shell? Did you know that they will penetrate over 6 inches of solid pavement? Did you know that they will then bounce back out of the pavement? I only tried it once... once was enough, lol...

Way back in the day I made a LOT of money on offroad bets with my Brats. The Subaru Brat is small, has great gas mileage, has 4WD, and other advantages that can enable it to out-offroad the biggest and best out there. Here was the bet: I would drive up in my Brat to a group of guys with their trucks out in the 'nothing where there are only miles of wilderness and dirt roads. My brats were never modified with bigger wheels or turbo or anything like that. I did my tweaks, but it was a stock body, engine, tranny, etc. I would bet that I could out-offroad anyone there, and had $100.00 cash to prove it. I would get laughted at, I was laughed at so hard, laugh, laugh, laugh, they laughed hard at me and my little Brat - util I would make a point of it and say something like "Are you going to walk away from a fool and his money?". I would be so arrogant, so smug, and that was the clincher, because it was all about flaring up thier ego, and in those days, half the ime they were already hitting the beer, so thier judgment and ego were mine to use! The bet: They had to go anywhere I went, with no deviation. If I went to the left of something, under, over, through, they had to follow in my tracks without exception, if they did not, they lose the bet! Bet was taken, every time. They had big tucks with big wheels and special racks in the back to hold a spare tire, and the paint and stickers, - they had not chance! They HAD to prove they were mach, or had to get my money for partying! Well first, The Subaru Brat is a DAMN good offroader to beiging with, it has almost as big a gas tank as most small trucks, was lightweight to get over things that a built-up offroad truck would sink into, - and oh, I did mention that they are SMALLER ??? If I could not out-offroad them, I could out-last them with my mileage, and I always had a full tank when I did this, but I did not want to take that long, so I had several places memorized where there were two trees or other objects too close together for one of those trucks to pass through, and all I would have to do is fold in my over-size rear-view mirrors and go between the trees! Oh they would be pissed off! Oh they would gripe and complain, etc. but the bet was the bet, and usually they paid. Only one time did I lose this bet. I got too cocky with my failsafes and one day I was up against a modified Suzuki Pickup. These things were TINY! The cab was hardy 5 feet wide, and looked like the cab on an old 1940's 1950's pickup, and I have no idea how the hell he made it 4WD but long story short, he won. I did not mind paying up. After a while I could not do it anymore, because when I tried people would start whispering to each other and not taking the bet. Aparently my shenanigans were getting known and almost nobody would take the bet. It was great fun while it lasted, and made me a hell of a lot of money for a while, so I didn't mind too much.

Taking on a Big Rig with a Subaru Brat... Once upon a time, I was on a long road trip. There was this trucker who was the rude kind. He would race to get in front of other vehicles on the downhills, and then trap everyone behind him on the upgrades, he would change lanes without a turn signal, giving little room, that sort of thing. When I honked my little horn, he flipped me off. - Big mistake! Well, he pissed off the wrong guy in the right vehicle! I thought about all the things I could do on even a one lane mountain road where this Big Rig was concerned, but waited for my chance to really show what could be done. As sson as the highway went to two lanes each direction I went to work, or actually play.... First I literally did circles arounf him, passing him fast on one side, then letting off the gas and drifting back, around the back end and up around the front end again, I did this like 3 or 4 times, but what i was really doing was ruining his gear ratio. He could not get up enough speed to get the gears right to climb the hill right. Yeah, I know, you're saying how dangerous that is, right? Well one of the unspoken rules of reality is that people may not care whether you live or die, but they don't want to get sued! He didn't dare do anything, he couldn;t do anything, I was far more maneuveravble and faster than he was, if he even tried anyhting I could get out of his way faster than he could budge that truck! I really messed up his day. For the finale' I did something that was admittedly kinda stupid and incredibly dangerous - I passed under his trailer to the other side! - Now don't ever try this, not only because its unsafe, etc, but also because there are very few Big Rig Trailers that have enough clearance for a subaru to pass under, and if my Brat had a shell or a rear roll bar on it, I could not have done it, but I did. That being said, I had plenty of clearance, and normally might have done it agian, but going under that trailer gave me the willies', just as it should have, and at that point I took off and left him back on that grade struggling to get his gears and rig back up to speed. Never screw with a Subaru Brat - especially if I'm driving it! - I actualy don't do stuff like that anymore, lol...

The ultimate Hill climber! One upon a time I went out to a place we called "The Play Pen", a place of drit roads and incredibly steep but rounded hills, and by that I mean a couple of these hills were like something out of a cartoon, twice as high as they were wide at thier base. I and a friend watched as one built-up offroader after another tried to get to the top of this one scary hill, - and failed. The hill was so steep they dared not try to turn around, and would have to slowly back down. We were taking bets on them. After a while, the Subaruist in me could not resist anymore. I told my friend I was going to talke the hill, he looked at me not like I was crazy, but like I was a ghost in front of him, his face literally seems to flush white. - He was a smart man, he knew me. This is where tactics help you do things that others cannot with thier fancy toys. I knew the Brat would not make it up easily, it simply did not have the power. Mind you, we are talking about a greater than 45 degree grade, much greater, but that is not enought to stop a Subaru! I revved it p, punched it up the hill as far as I could, which was a little more than half-way, as good as the rest, until it all but stalled from the vertical climb. I would not let it stall, but would pull the emergency brake to hold the Brat in place, rev it up, pop the clutch, throw some dirt, and chug, chiug chug up that hill for about 15 - 30 yards, when it would all but stall again, and would do the same thing. I did this about 5 or 6 times in quick succession, and made it all the way up the hill that nobody else could! NEVER underestimate a Subaru Brat! - I wish I had bet some money on that one!

May I suggest that instead of asking what people have done "To" thier Soobie, you ask what they have done "For" or "With" it? I only say this because I have a very guilty conscience about what I have done TO Subarus in the past, lol....

- So what about that balance issue? I would think that most tire shops might refuse to service a vehicle that has such modifications, maybe not? This sounds like a good idea, did you choose those Toyo rims because they were handy, because they looked like stock subaru rims, or because they were practically better due to the bolt holes or something in thier measurements? It would great if you could post a giude on exactly how to do this, particularly getting those holes drilled right!

The 3rd scariest thing I have ever done with a (1978/79) Subaru Brat... You know how they say "Do not do this at home"? - so you do it at a freinds' house? Well don't do this! - Remember, I told you to NEVER DO THIS! - But unfortunately, the best way to explain it is to tell you how to do it, - BUT DON'T DO IT!!! I have only tried this in 1978 and 1979 Subaru Brats... #1: Find a large, smoothly paved area, get in the middle of it. #2: Crank the steering wheel all the way to the left for a left turn. #3: Put it into reverse. #4: Start giving it gas, like doing a donut in reverse. You will notice the only instability I have ever seen in a Subaru Brat; you will notice that the front right corner of the vehicle seems to be raising up, and the front end beginning to tilt and even seemingly twist up untill you get the definite impression that if you go any faster, the vehicle might actually roll or flip over. Again, DON'T DO THIS!!! But I must say it is the weirdest feeling I have ever had in a Brat, and can get pretty scarry.

- (Sorry, this should actually be #5, but I cannot seem to edit the title.) How do you make a normal everyday Subaru Brat do wheelies? The Subaru Brat is categorized as a 1/8th Ton pickup. Not much payload eh? Once upon a time I landed a deal where I would strip old Control Data disk drives bigger than a washing machine, sort the parts, and I could keep certain hardware, including the aluminum "Plattens", which were a sort of secondary frame on which most of the components were mounted. Each of these weighed 86 pounds of pure aluminum, well worth my time, as I was stripping several of these drives in a day. Each day I would then commute home, with as many of these aluminum slabs as possible. I did not do the math on the weight yet, but noticed that under certain circumstances the front end was a bit light, and if I puncjed the gas, I could do a bit of a wheelie!!! WEEEEEE!!!! I later did the math and learned that I was hauling over 1,300 pounds of aluminum at a time! Just a little more than the max rating for the vehicle, lol. Each time I went home with this stuff, I would stop by another friends' house just to bet them I could make my Brat do a wheelie, and imagine thier eyes when I did it! It was not a big or extreme wheelie, but a wheelie to be sure none-the-less! I had stacks and stacks of these aluminum slabs, and they brought me a lot of money, but I was more thrilled about being able to do a whellie in my little Subaru Brat!

Once upon a time, my (1979) Brat needed front CV joints - BADLY. I was the type to push things past thier limit, but not with this. However, I had to keep driving... So I detached the front axels from the wheels, hung them with coat-hanger wire from the "frame", put it into 4WD, and it was now a rear-wheel drive, but the steering actually improved! The CV axels did not jostle about at all, but were perfectly well behaved, and the coat hanger wire would last for a week or two before I had to replace it, which was incredibly easy. It took a couple months, but I eventually got two new CV axels. I love Subarus....

There are not many things that will stop a Subaru Brat. There are those obvious pesky obstacles like solid walls, large boulders, large trees, very large mining shafts in the ground (please don't ask, and the mining shaft did not actually "Stop" my Subaru, it just changed its direction rather abruptly, lol) For the record, I have rarely ever even engaged the 4WD for any reason, only because I have rarely if ever actually needed it. - yet another wonder in the design of these fantastic machines. One fine day, a freind wanted to go along on one of my off-roading trips. - I warned him, I did I did; he knew full well how I drove these things, but he insisted, so told him to update his insurance and get it. We raced off to the Mountains on a broad and steep highway, and he said "Why are you racing like this?", and I told him that the sooner we got to the dirt, the more time we will have to goof off in the dirt. When we got to the dirt roads, he said "Why are you racing like this?" and I said now when we start having fun!!! We went all over creation, we went places we should not have gone, we went places that were just plain crazy, and then we spied the dry lake bed. Oh, I cannot leave without going out there! So off we went, doing unspeakable things and violating every traffic rule we could, and then on the way back we had taken another course, unfortunately, because it turned out that not all of the lake was completely dried up. Below our wheels there was at least 6 - 12 inches of hard, dry broken clay, but it got thinner, until we let up on the gas for just a second, and were instantly bogged down to past the floor boards in lake sludge! I had equipment, we tried everything, but that lake sludge was worse than glue! We were forced to temporarily abandon the Brat and search for help. My friend did not understand my optimism, my faith, my grin, as we walked onto and down the nearest road. - and there is was, sitting at the base of a mailbox post was an old abandoned Subaru engine! THIS was the place to go! So we sallied forth, I offered the homeowner and fellow Subaruist $20 to pull my Brat out of the mud. First they tried an over-powered big ol' Ford F-350 1 ton 4WD truck, but it could not budge the Brat, so they got an equally built-up jeep and tied them both together with heavy towing strapping, It took the tow of them together to pull that little Subau Brat out of the mud! On the way out, the man helping us let us know that we were not the first to do this, that he had pulled vehicles out before, but nothing was ever as stuck and hard to pull out as that Brat! - So that tells you just what it takes to stop a Brat! 2 feet deep of thick, heavy lake sludge! He also let us know that there was a $1500.00 fine for off-roading on that lake, and that the only Towing outfit that would pull you out charged $500.00 to do it! - I was so happy !!!!! Despite what had happened, we were the luckiest guys in the world, and I could have been in a very bad situation, but everything was going to be OK!!! But then it was the trip back - the Brat had several inches thick of this lake sludge stubbornly making itself 'one' with the whole bottom half of the Brat. We tried to get as much off as we could, but after about 30 minutes of using 5 gallon buckets to get the stuff off, we gave up and just headed for home. The Brat drove a lot differently, and was running low like we had the bed full of scrap steel or something, and we left a TRAIL, and GLOBS of this gray semi-solid MUCK all the way down the mountain and most of the way to my friend's house, when I figured that if some cop really wanted, he could easily follow me, so I took it to a coin-op car wash and spent about $10.00 in 1987 money washing that stuff off! I saved a small container of this stuff for years as a souvenir.

I tell ya man... every once in a while Man builds something that turns out to be greater than the sum of its parts, and turns out to be a true Phenomena.

In advance, please forgive me for what I am about to write. I could be charged as a war criminal for what I have done to Subarus, and I sincerely apologise for my Atrocities. Once upon a time, Traded a computer for a Vehicle, and that vehicle was my first Subaru, a 1979 Subaru Brat. I named this one "Frankenstine" because it somehow at some time had been cut or torn literally into pieces. I could only assume it had something to do with a wrecking yard, as it did not look like something from a collision. Someone had aparently welded the pieces back together, and did the greatest job of welding I had ever seen. You could really see it in the engine compartment, on the firewall. Large, ugly, irratic lines without end where it had been welded back together. In those days, I only had room in the driveway for 2 Subarus. So when I found a third, the worst of the three would be stripped literally to the last screw, right down to the gas tank. Everything would go into the shed where I had stenciled and painted "Subaru Support". Well, on day, it was old Frankenstines' turn. But having beaten the living crap out of these marvels, I had yet to see thier limit for abuse, and since the parts on this one were not the best, it was time for a test. I stopped putting oil, water, gear oil, or anything else in it. One major problem it had was that there was a defect in the engine where compression would leak from on cylinder into the other, so it was essentially running on 2 1/2 - 3 cylinders. I had tried at least three different time to fix it, and nothing lasted. The breaks wore down to the brake pad backing plate, and I started checking the brakes for adequate function continually, and even thought they made nouse, they performed just fine. The backing plates soon fell out, and it was down to the calpiers themselves grinding down the rotor, each caliper had ground back at least a 1/4 inch. Then, one day, it acted as if it was running out of gas, except that instead of cutting out, it was cutting IN. It was picking up, boosting with power. Soimehow the engine had fixed itself. Something had somehow sealed that place where the compression would pass through, and instead of running on 2 1/2 to 3 cylinders, it was now suddenly running at full power on all 4! The best repairs could not fix it, and it had litterally fixed itself! I was now starting to re-think, have doubts about the fate I had planned for this Brat... I had completely and utterly neglected it for MONTHS. I would often drive up into the mountains to visit friends or for any excuse at all; and in summer, even on 2-3 cylinders, I would pass by new cars with thier hoods up because they tried to take the hill on a hot day with their air conditioning on. I always loved that... So this one day it was the same, until I looked down and noticed that it had just turned 200,000 miles. No record for a Subaru I'm sure, but after utterly neglecting it, refusing to give it anything it needed, and writing it off as soon to be dead and stripped, this was an auspicious occasion. So I said what the hell, and put a quart of oil in it. I did later strip it for parts, but it had beaten me it had beaten the odds, and had proved what an incredible survivor it was. This shows you an extreme of what these Subarus are capable of. Again, please forgive me for what I have done to Subarus. I could be charged as a war criminal for what I have done to Subarus, and I sincerely apologise for my Atrocities.