the timing covers are a sensitive issue with your interference engine. 99% of the time,any debris in the belts will just be kicked back out, but that 1% and it throws the belt...On early ej22's just put the belt back on and you good to go,your engine though might damage itself..

Video from our last off road trip:

 

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?

I had the same problem from grass, we spent the weekend driving threw tall grass and it ended up doin the same thing kept the pressure plate from fully closing and slipt

The forester needs new shoes.Badly.Although, it was mildly entertaining watching it slide sideways..

The forester needs new shoes.Badly.Although, it was mildly entertaining watching it slide sideways..

 

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.

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?

 

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.

Reverse idler gear missing about 1/4 of the teeth:

 

 

 

 

 

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?

 

Add a brass washer on the idler shaft thick enough to stop the idler from kicking forward too far

 

Center diff....yeah it

S usually the spider not the V LSD that fails

 

Repair sleeve that comes with some clutches.

Add a brass washer on the idler shaft thick enough to stop the idler from kicking forward too far

 

 

 

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

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

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

It's actually a tip IvansImports has brought forward. Good trick.

video from a recent test run

 

So what broke? Your camber got increasingly worse with every jump.

So what broke? Your camber got increasingly worse with every jump.

 

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

No, at the beginning your front wheels were straight,at the end they were cambered in-indicating lowered ride height.So something broke,bent, or slipped making the ride height lower.Its really apparent eight seconds onto the video after the jumps.

 

 

One of my suspension experiments failed like that.I was trying to make long travel struts,and the bracket that bolts the strut to the knuckle broke the welds,so every bump made the strut sit lower in the knuckle.By the end of the day the driver side wheel had so much negative camber that the tire rubbed on the strut.There is a picture of it loaded on the trailer and it almost looks like a ball joint failed or something.

Edited April 20, 201510 yr by Uberoo

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.

Edited April 28, 201510 yr by pontoontodd

I will have to say, wow to the suspension under the Outback. Totally unexpected. 

 

Let me know if you plan on stopping by North Texas, I definitely have to see this thing in person. 

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.

 

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.

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.

 

I bet that would work nicely as primitive traction control if you've got one rear tire tripoded up in the air.

 

I bet that would work nicely as primitive traction control if you've got one rear tire tripoded up in the air.

 

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.

video from our trip to Kentucky:

 

Edited May 4, 201510 yr by pontoontodd

Maybe it was just the camera, but in some areas it looked like you were hauling some serious A55.In some of those sections I wouldn't even drive my dirtbike that fast let alone my wheeler.The toyota guy needs to AIR DOWN because those tires are not conforming to the ground at all.

Maybe it was just the camera, but in some areas it looked like you were hauling some serious A55.In some of those sections I wouldn't even drive my dirtbike that fast let alone my wheeler.The toyota guy needs to AIR DOWN because those tires are not conforming to the ground at all.

 

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.

Fun vid, thanks for posting.  It's a good testament to Subaru and how tough they are.  You were giving her hell a few times there.  

I really like the tire rack.  That is a highly marketable item to the rally/rallycross guys that don't trailer their vehicle.