FlyB0y

I have a few questions for those of you who have done things to lower the total weight of a gen 2 brat. I don't think I can do the door elimination thing (that would have been easy tho!) I'd like to keep the main part of the body intact, but I am not afraid of hollowing things out, wondering how feasable "air contitioning" the sides of the bed would be ... gonna be taking out the front fenders for the most part too I think and replacing them with very minimum for protection. The main weight-loss on my brat will be eliminating bed-long tool boxes and NOTcarring half my garage in supplies with me

Naw ... don't burst their bubbles ... let them lose their gearing and lose the ability to effectively pass at highway speeds :-p I already did the swamper route, doesn't work with a EA-81 .. and I'm not really interested in the EJ swap ... too much frankinstien wiring for me ... BTW if you look on the polaris Sportsman 800 that uses the same Kenda tires I am describing, you will find that it has a 6" wide rim, sits just over 26" tall (same hight as the old Cooper Discoverer's that can't be bought anymore) and the actual width of the tread is 8.5" ... It's amazing how much difference there is in a tire that is listed at a certain "width" and the actual width of the tire when mounted ... take this all with a grain of salt ... (or the whole shaker if you need it ) please give me a little more credit, I am doing my homework ... and if I am not mistaken, Sweet82's buggy also grossly exceeds the listed weight limit, and he doesn't run his at 5psi, but 25psi and last I heard neither he or Jerry's racing friend has had problems with blown beads I'm just not willing to go EJ swap or T-case to get decient gearing, I believe 26" will be more than enough at nearly 4" taller than stock, and very close to stock gearing, I am very comfortable with this combination. :cool:

*****UP-DATE!!!**** I just got off the phone with the Kenda ATV tire rep, and she said the site needs to be up-dated!! The first tire listed here: http://www.kendausa.com/atv/radial.html (K537 HD Side-By-Side Bounty Hunter Radial) has a weight rating of 925lbs!! for the rear tires sized 26x12-r14, and the front tire is rated at 770lbs!! and the size is 26x10-r14!!! So!! no more concerns about weight!! :burnout: ALSO .. I asked her if I could mount said front tires on a 14x6" nissan 2x4 truck rim and she said it should work fine!! :cool: Ok, on my quest to find a schrubery, I mainly only got alot of scratches in the woods, however, I DID find an even better 14" ATV tire! :banana: Kenda Makes a 26x10 R14 (That's right radial:brow: ) that is QUITE agressive, comes in a 6-ply and is only $80 ea at the local Polaris ATV dealer!! no shipping even, and they can be installed at a local tire dealer the same as any other (un-like the old style ATV tires of the past) ON THING YOU MUST KNOW ... THESE WILL BE OFF-ROAD ONLY!!!! do NOT use these on the road at anything approching high-way speeds .. they will fail under those conditions. I will be using a second set of rims for these tires and I will swap them out at the trail head once I start. Just wanted to pass this on to ya ... gonna have some pics of some mounted on my brat in the next few weeks! (I hope ) depends on how much $$$ it takes to get my legacy sport on the road.

There is a very simple way to drill your hubs for 6- lug .. but that is the easy part .. the hard part is grinding the metal down on the back side to make it flat. The real important part is to realize you cannot use mag wheels unless you have this done very presicely by a machininst. All I had to do was knock out 2 of the studs leaving 2 that are opposite each other, bolt on the 6 lug wheel and use this as the pattern for the 4 new holes, but this is not an easy project with just a hand drill. It took me about 6 - 8 hrs total of time to drill and then grind the back-sides of the hubs & rear drums. I used a 9/16 drill bit, and not all the studs fit snug after this, so I had to use JB weld to make them stop from spinning. You might try a 17/32 or 38/64 to keep the hole just a little smaller so you don't have the same trouble. Since doing this conversion, I have not had one problem, so I say go ahead. As long as you have the 2 factory luggs holding the wheel, it shouldn't be hard to drill the other 4 holes accuratly enough to keep things centered.

Kewl, ty for the info, I will have to try that .. I have a manual that shows removing the sun-roof & motor ... but I'm not really that worried about having a sun-roof ...

Heya Jamal! nice to meet ya ... maybe once I get it on the road and your in town we can hang-out ... So you work in LA? I'm originally from Portland OR, but a girl got me moved out to Msla, and only reciently I have been in Hamilton, trying hard to get moved closer to Msla ... all my friends and church family are there ... Nels (Free Range) is in Lolo too maybe we can all get together some time ... :cool:

Good call nipper, I think getting the ATF changed & new filter is a good investment, thanks for pointing out the fact that the turbo will mean it's worked extra hard, and has less longevity. Now if I can just find a good automatic antennae in the JY and figure out why the sun-roof doesn't always wana open/close (thank goodness they have a nifty lil way to manually close the roof with an allen wrench! I thought I was going to have to put a tarp over it :-p ) I will be doing great

The ATF looks good, but not sure how long it has been since it was changed, I know that ATF can go for 15,000 even in severe conditions, but I am not seeing any regular schedule for changing it yet in my owner's manual/warrenty book. I'm pretty sure it was changed in the last couple of years, but not how many miles it has been, gonna find that out from my friend soon. I was looking at the rear diff and noticed it's a 3.90 geared LSD (not that I am planning on 'wheeling it) so I guess it has the "good" low geared rear-end. I hope to make this my daily-driver/bussiness vehicle.

gotta up-date on the tranny ... I checked it b4, but not close enough :-p turns out the tranny was about 1 qt low, so I am going to full it up and hope this is the "mysterious" cause of not shifting fully untill warmed up (I checked it b4 at the cold mark doh!) don't think it was driven much at this lvl, so I am hoping it should be ok. Can't wait to try it cold with full tranny fluid P.S. one more question for you legacy owners .. my radio doesn't get very good AM reception, is this common with the 91's? I am replacing the broken anntannae, hope that might be the culprit.

Heya all! I just got my new to me '91 Legacy Sport Sedan (yes it's a turbo) and it's a nice looking car I will post some pics here soon ... I have some questions and concerns, but just excited about having annother Subie for the road, gonna make my brat a "bearly" street legal off-roader once I have the legacy on the road. First off, it has a quark with the automatic tranny .. untill it warms up, it doesn't get out of first ... it goes into reverse and everything, just doesn't want to shift up for about 5 min warming up. Also, I have been reading the owner's manual, and it has a "auto" shift mode. I have read the manual, but I still don't quite understand how the "manual shift" mode works. It also says it is "full-time 4wd" as opposed to Awd. What does this mean performance-wise? Is this truly 4wd or is it just an early Awd?

Whoa! 25 PSI on a tire that is rated at 5 right? hehe ... I have a question for ya too ... my mechanic is concerned that with the weight of a gen 2 brat, I will have a hard time with the beads holding because of the side load on anything harder than sand or mud? Also I understand thatin the 6-lug there are bead locking wheels available ... are atv tires compatable with bead-locking rims? thanks! .... Dayn

You know, I might just go with all "Front" tires ... they are perfectly sized for standard rims, and $10 cheaper hehe becides, I'm not going to mud-bog, just trails with a lil mud here and there ... and narrow might be better for on the brat

Good point, I definatly agree on the off-road only use of these tires .. and the particular ones I have seen in the store were front tires, so they were more like 7" wide, and I believe there are some in-between those sizes, so I will make sure the ones I get will work on my 6" wide nissan rims. As far as clearance goes, I believe I will be ok since I have my wheel wells open enough for even larger super swampers.

Oh Yeah! I just found them for $120 ea at a local motorcycle shop (AL's Cycle in Hamilton) with a wait of only 2 days! (vs 2 weeks from Les Schwab:dead:) Can't WAIT till I can afford these tires! Looks like the new trend in ATV is 14" rims to allow for street rubber for your ATV so I know for a fact (they had some street rubber on 14" ATV wheels at Schwab) that these will work on a standard rim Oh and when you look at the description of the 14" tires on the site they specificly state "thinner sidewalls of the 14" tire makes for more of a all-terrain tire with less flex than the 12 inch adding greater stability" so, these should be PERFECT for our purposes

http://www.itptires.com/mudlitextr.html W00t!! all I can say is ABOUT TIME!! :clap: Just when I was thinking of resorting to 15" back-hoe tires for a full time off-road tire, I happend to stop off at Les Schwab Tire and find this AMAZING new ATV tire that is not only RADIAL, but also comes in a 14"!!!! soon as I have the cash to buy the tires (and new axles ) I am going to have these on a seperate set of rims to put-on when I go 4wheel'n might be a while till I can do it as I have a ton of other things going on (starting a new business, and getting a more "streetable" subie on the road) I will definatly be paying the $300 (or less if I can find it on the net :-p) to Schwab/Tire Ramma for these 6-ply brutes! for all of you who stuck it out with 14" wheels here is your reward hehe (now if we can just get a streetable version too )

Well, first off, I am trying to remember which mounts I have, I have a '85 brat with a 5-spd dual range, and I need tranny mounts, do I need EA-81 or EA-82 mounts? Also, if anyone can tell me where to get some solid mounts? If not I will just get some OEM. Thanks!

Ok ... I am tired of the JY and rebuilt axles ... What's the toughest life-time axle out there? I'm willing to pay extra for something that will last longer plz post your favorite ultimate axle

Ok, I took the break drum off to check the pads, put it back on, and tightened the axle nut. About 30 - 40 mins later my friend calls me up and says something is wrong, I come to look and some-how the flat washer that sits on top of the outer bearing has rotated so that the finger is out of the key-way about 90 DEG and stuck hard. First off, I am at a loss as to how this could have happened, I was sure that the drum was seated all the way before I tightened the nut, and now I wana know if anyone thinks the bearings have any possiblity of having survived. It got hot enough to liquify the grease, and was driven about 10 - 15 miles. I tried to see if I could tighten the nut enough to force that washer to spin and line-up, no dice, and it seems that it might have started to strip the axle/axle nut. How is the best way to go about getting this off?

Well, it was still a bit dirty when I went to clean it thoroughly today, and the only thing that looked suspect was again the incredible deteriorating powervalve ... I think I will just order annother one of them and see if it makes a difference ... I can remember befor when I had some serious problems untill I replaced it the last time (my carb was idleing too high and dieseling alot ... got that fixed, didn't know at the time it was hard on the power valve :-p ) My power valve wasn't as bad as it has been in the past, but it was pretty fragle and crinkled up like a fallen leaf. Gonna see if that does it

Well, that old filter was pretty sad looking, I replaced it, and still no dice ... I'm just about 100% sure that it's just a bunch of debris in the secondaries, because if I'm stomping it through 1st & 2nd gear, no problems it's only when I get up to over 50 mph and I am in 3rd that it has to be feathered ... I just need to take it all apart and clean it thourghly but I did order a new front and back filter from the dealer to have the next time I need to replace it ... no one seems to know the right ones at the parts houses

Ok, ok I know ... bad pun but I really need to find some decient winter tires .. tired of my swampers slidding all over on ice ... I have a pic here of the general idea of the traction I need, aggressive, self-cleaning and a tire with an over-all size at or below 26" ... idealy a 195/75-14 (nothing bigger than205/74-14 ... ) bias or radial ... narrow is better ...or a smallish 15 would work too, just have to get some 6 lug 15's from the JY, no biggie ... these tires just HAVE to be smaller than 26.1" tall, I don't wana have the same problem of the lack of power I have with my swampers ... here's the pic:

Is this the one near the tank? I have never changed that one ...

Nice! I'll have to help you "make sure it works" with the welder :-p ... I have a new fuel filter somewhere behind the seat ... gonna run down the hwy and back with nothing on the carb in a few here ... and I checked the ditsy vac line it's on ... the plugs look pretty good, if anything like things are running a bit lean ... little more grey than the tan or chocolate of perfection ... could it still be the accl pump even tho I get a good stream of gas squirting?

Sorry I didn't get back sooner ... all great suggestions, and here is what I can say so far, when the throttle is pulled back, I do get a squirt of gas, and there is no choke, no choke tower even, I have run this way for 4 - 5 mon, no problems ... I did with-in the last 2 mon. put in a JY ditsy when mine started going out. I'm not noticing any erratic tach or anything, but I have yet to put in new plug wires ... plugs are only about 3 mons old. Also I think I can rule-out the snorkel, since I didn't have this problem initially and I have tried running it with just the hose leading to the filter and had the same results. I guess I could go a few miles on the hwy and back with-out anything on the carb, but I doubt that will make a differance. Maybe I will just get a good coil and new wires .. any suggestions for an after-market coil? MSD? I'd like to get the best bang for my buck, but I have no idea what a "good" one costs. Oh yeah ... I have a custom 2" free-flowing exhaust, so no cat to plug and I am pretty sure that the carb adjustments are good, I just re-set them starting with the base-line settings, and I have the air jets sizes 160 and 175 respectively (I was concerned it was suffering from in-ablity to use the extra air forced in by the snorkel at high speed)

How did they do on snow and ice? That's annother reason the TSL isn't ideal for me in Montana, something like 4 - 6 mons out of the year, the places I want to go wheel'n are covered in Ice and snow, so a mud tire is only needed in about 30% of the places I go, and if I can get more of an agressive ice/snow tire that can handle a bit of mud too should be best for me