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Its lifted, now I got questions


SubaSport
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I lifted my 82 GL wagon four inches. Now I am having trouble with the shifter and the 4wd shifter. I cant get reverse because the 4wd is in the way. Do I have to modify my 4wd shifter to get it out of the way? Any suggestions would help.

 

Also, what kind of spacers have people used to extend the streering colomn?

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http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=20274&highlight=steering

 

check out this thread for steering ideas.

 

you may have to cut and extend the 4wd shifter linkage but I'm pretty much talking out of my rump roast there, I've never had to bother with a 4wd shifter. The only time I've done a lift that dropped the engine was on a car with an auto tranny. My current lift keeps the motor in the same place.

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Hi Subasport,

I lifted my 88 2-door Hatch 4 inches and extended my Steering linkage, shifter linkage and 4wd linkage.

 

For steering, simply cut and extend the peice with the splines on one end and the rubber on the other 4". Use a peice of 3/4" tubing about 4 1/2" to 5" long. Keep it straight and weld all the way around on both ends. With a 4" lift that is all you need to do.

 

The shifter linkage need not be extended, just carefully heat and bend the tubing below the chrome rod on the shift lever until you can shift into all 4 gears and reverse. I did, however extend my linkage for a stock look and feel inside. That process is a little more complicated to explain but I can get some pictures of mine if you are seriously interested in doing it.

 

I found that a modified 4WD linkage WAS absolutely necessary for easy shifts into reverse while 4WD or 4-Lo was engaged. The easiest thing to do is to fabricate a flat plate 4" or 5" long that bolts to your lever linkage at the top and to your linkage bar at the bottom. The plate should sit straight up and down. On mine, I welded a bolt into the top of the plate and drilled a hole in the bottom of it. You may have to grind part of the linkage here and there to make it fit and work just right. I can put up a pic of the plate I made if you can wait till this weekend.

 

Unfortunately, with the flat plate setup you'll probably have to chop up your rubber shifter boot and maybe open up the hole in the floor a bit. No big deal but enventually I wanted to seal it up right with the OEM boot so I ended up cutting, bending and extending my linkage bar instead. That was a pretty involved process too, but it is a more elegant solution cause you can use the stock boot and everything stays sealed up nicely.

 

This may seem like a given, but make sure to remove all of your interior console plastic junk and shifter boot and stuff before you work.

 

Let me know if you need any more advice.

Ryan

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i recently put a 3" ozified lift on a hatch and had the same problem. this hatch was originally 2wd, so the 4wd lever was not mounted stock. so i moved the 4wd lever (drilled new holes in the driveshaft hump) so that the lever took a higher road. then i could get it into reverse. it's harder in 4wd , espesially low.

i really think fixing the shifter slop will fix the problem. there have been posts on the slop topic. search it out to fix it.

 

before you do anything, i would take the one 16mm (i think) nut off the 4wd linkage under the console and separate the two parts of the lever. then you can play around with where the lever needs to be to let you shift into reverse. hope that helps.

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