Needs lifting for my baja surf runs...Cheers, Jeff

the tophats for the rear will be slightly different with outback/forester struts. you can most likely use your existing strut toos in the new strut. Or you can slot the holes to allow for a 2nd gen strut top, if you are getting complete struts w/ springs/tops

i used 97 outback struts with my stock top hats and springs.

98 is a solid year to order them for, make sure legacy outback, not outback sport.

 

Rears often have too long of an unthreaded shank where the strut goes through the tophat. The nut will run out of threads before it clamps the strut on the tophat, leading to a clunking noise in the rear. So you take a couple washers and grind them down so they fit in the hole in the top hat under the nut, and zip the nut back on.

 

Front's bolt right in.

 

If you undo the clips that hold the brake hose into the strut, then you can pull the fitting out of the bracket so that just the rubber hose is going through it, then use a pair of side cutters to cut the flat end of the bracket. Fold the two tabs back, and slide the hose out. That way you don't have to open the brake system or do any bleeding. Cut the new struts the same way, put the hose in, bend the tabs back flat, and put the clip back on.

 

If you have rear drum brakes, you're out of luck because it's a solid line that runs through the strut. Just pray that you can get it and the bleeder loose on the wheel cylinder.

 

It's much easier to install them if you take the swaybar link bolts out first, then put the back on once the weight is sitting back on the wheels. Set the camber bolts in the front to shift the knuckles as far in at the top as possible. You'll see what I mean when you spin the camber bolt around. You want the knuckles to look like this / \ when looking from the front, not like \ /, gross exaggeration of the angle of course.

the tophats for the rear will be slightly different with outback/forester struts. you can most likely use your existing strut toos in the new strut. Or you can slot the holes to allow for a 2nd gen strut top, if you are getting complete struts w/ springs/tops

 

If you're going to use 2nd gen rear top hats it's a good idea to run some 1/4" tophat spacers in addition to slotting the strut tower mounting holes since the 2nd gen top hat dome is larger in diameter than the strut tower chassis opening. I used 1/4" spacers from Paranoid Fabrications.