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Subarus of the Rubicon


MorganM
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Best Subaru movie thus far Zap. I've watched all of them several times now (rubicon + the other 5 subaru offroad videos)

 

Definatly a hoot seeing Beasticon (aka: weeble wobble) go through most everything with ease.

 

Qman's Brat was awsome; no tcase mod? Couldnt tell with that driving! Just worked that throttle and clutch to make everything look easy.

 

I wont use duders first name in the brown Brat; does he have a handel on here? He's was pretty heavily modified too; did he have the tcase upgrade? Why did he have limiting straps; is there something special I didnt notice about the suspension? Did he drive there or trailer up too?

 

Anyway I loved seeing those Subarus going big on the rocks; good thing ya had the welder! Looked like a seriouse PITA doing that stub in the diff :eek: Looks like such a fun place; not just the trails. The whole atmosphere seemed like a really special area to be. I can see why now there is so much hype around the Rubicon trails.

 

Thanks

 

ps: thx for the photos. that one beetle was so incredibly sick; straight out of a comic book and onto that dudes trailer! I still am not a big fan of mud though LOL Half those photos were of someone stuck! :lol: Ah well; mud is fun I just dont seek out the nearest mud pit. I enjoy some on the trails though :)

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The "Brown Brat" was "Un-hatched" and the driver is Lumpycam, the limiting straps wer to keep from over extending the rear DOJ's. That car (it WAS a hatch) has the T-case mod and if I remember right was using R180's front and rear. He drove it there and back. I didn't get to go on that run, but I meet up with them here in town when they wer on there way down.

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Eric did a great job on that one.

 

My Brat was as close to stock as you will probably ever see on the Rubicon trail. 4" lift and 27" SSR Swamper with a welded rear diff. Funny thing was rather than standing out it was practically ignored the whole trip. I trailered it down. The motor only had 50 miles on it when I loaded it on the trailer for the trip. It drove home though.

 

The brown "Unhatched" belongs to Lumpycam. He had the first t-case. Only had a 6" lift and was running 30" tires with R160 diffs front and rear. He was running 4.44 gears and an LSD in the rear. He reworked the floor pan to get the case up and out of harms way. He drove it down to the trail. But damage to the front suspension required it to be trailered back.

 

Johns was huge like no other. 12" lift and 35" pizza cutters(didn't look like it on a Sube though). T-case and auto trans with a 2.2l. Definitely had a bunch of firsts on that trip. It was trailered down and back

 

Preparation was a big reason we accomplished what we did. We had on board welders, on board air, spares in every rig. And many years of off roading experience. (Probably over 100yrs combined experience).

 

It was definitely a trip I will never forget. But, I don't know if driving 1500 miles to run a 4X trail is worth it or not. But will be a life memory for sure.

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Thanks for the good review Morgan. It was a blast, something I'll never forget. While those guys did it in rigs, I did the whole thing on foot carrying a camera and tripod. (with a blown out ACL) lol

 

Like talked aobut before, the camera never shows the true angle. It was a constant up hill climb. The Pebble Garden was one of the most remarkable things I'll ever see.

 

Glad you dug the photos, I threw in the muddy ones just to show you what fun we have, stuck or not. hehe

Speakin of photos, did you watch the sunset? We were treated to it after coming down from the mountains, it really cheered us up after 4 rough days and nights.

You're one of the very few to get the unedited version.

Thanks again.

 

EZ

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Ah Lumpycam; how come he never comes on here anymore? To busy welding up more sick rigs? That unhatched was really neat out there. Even though I couldnt see it I could tell it had mean gears somehow; so he had a 6" lift + tcase + 4.44 gear diffs. Was the suspension reworked for more extension; thus requiring the limiting straps to prevent pulling the DOJs apart?

 

I kinda like the idea of EJ22 + 4EAT + tcase. Seemed to do very well with that setup. The 12" body lift was huge; couldnt even tell those were 35"s! I thought they were the same size as Lumpy's LOL.

 

OK so thats why Qman's brat was driving on the trip home shots. Thats awsome his made it up there fine with all those extensive modificiations. Was he just running a hopped up EA81 then? I think ppl didnt notice Qmans so much because you made it look as easy as the bigger Tcase Subarus :grin: PLUS you got this Beasticon coming behind you that makes everyone say WTF IRL ?! :eek:

 

Yeah the camera wasnt doing all those trails 100% justice. On some shots I could tell that the whole thing was pretty much uphill; ether steep or really steep and all of them had big rocks + sand! Having been out on the rocks a few times myself now I can really fill in the gaps where the camera tends to flatten everything out.

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Dunno where Robert is, he dropped off this last year, I should give him a call.

 

Can't remember just what suspension he had.

 

John actually had 32s, sorry Ken. Robert sported 30s I think. Stock ea81.

 

As far as not noticing Ken's Brat, I think they were all in denial. lol

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Yeah, it definitely bugged me at first. Then it was just funny. Especially when we did cadillac and the guy says, "wow, they all took different lines and they were all different then the normal line up the hill".

 

Plus the fact that I ran street air pressure the whole time.

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Yeah, GREAT video! What kind of spare parts did you guys bring with? I've been reading up on what you did, and it seems you bent a couple of struts and 3 or 4 axles. What else would you suggest someone brings with? It's cool I might have to try it sometime, as I live about an hour and a half from the trailhead.:brow:

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actually, i shot lumpycam a pm the other day, he responded. he prolly just doesnt post much anymore. hey Zap, do you have any more soob's on the rubicon video's? if so, i want one!

 

Sorry Clay, I'm done copying and selling them. Good to hear Robert's out there still.

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Yeah, GREAT video! What kind of spare parts did you guys bring with? I've been reading up on what you did, and it seems you bent a couple of struts and 3 or 4 axles. What else would you suggest someone brings with? It's cool I might have to try it sometime, as I live about an hour and a half from the trailhead.:brow:

 

We brought stub axles, axles, control arms, a spare welded diff, strut rods, welding rod, extra metal and a lot of creativity.

 

John had tranny issues before we even got to the first obsticle. The pick up tube came loose losing all pressure to the final drive. That was fixed in the morning and we were off.

 

I blew a stub axle on the first rock. I had never experienced such positive traction offroad. So, when the tire got a little wedged I just gave it more gas. Wrong thing to do there.

 

Lumpy bent a strut about halfway through the first day. Also blew a stub axle that required disassembling the LSD unit to remove. We ended up welding some supports around the strut to get it off the trail. Then we went about repairs for the night. The next morning we were off again. Lumpy bent the other strut which required more welding.

 

John ended up blowing a rearend and bending the rear diff support. More welding and the diff and hanger were good enough to get back on the trail. Rather interesting how the diff exploded though. The floating gears came completely apart. We ended up welding the side gears to the case to get it back together.

 

Hat's off to John for thinking of getting the welders. And to Subaru for sponsoring them to us.

 

I would not recommend taking a rig with less than 6" of lift and 30's. I did it with less but it was tough. I took one bypass trail and it was as hard as the trail I tried to avoid.

 

Most importantly, do not go alone. Most of the people we met on the trail were cool and were willing to help. But the Rubicon is also famous for the other type of trail rider. They are trying hard to rid themselves of that reputation however.

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  • 8 years later...

This may be a stupid question but how exactly do you bend a strut?A strut should only see up and down forces right?I could understand it if you bend a radius rod and it takes the strut with it but how do you bend a strut just by itself?

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When you are wheeling on stuff bigger than your vehicle you can bend things. If I remember he was trying to climb over said object and bent the strut tube right above where it had been modified. These rigs were not normal everyday Subarus. Not ever everyday wheelers. Well, except for mine that is. 

 

No disrespect intended but if you wheel and have "never" bent a strut rod maybe you aren't doing the same kind of wheeling that the rest of us are. My Hatch was designed to have the strut rod be the fuse. I could change one in under 10 minutes. I knew if there was going to be a problem that is where it would be. Carried a couple of spares. No problems. Everyone does things differently. If you haven't broken/bent those than good for you.  Most of us are not so lucky.

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Bent strut argument deleted.  sue me.   :)

 

I know this is an ancient thread, but does anyone have any pictures or video of this?  Can I buy a DVD?

 

It's been a while, why not?

 

I'll sell 10 copies to the first 10 folks who pm me.  I'll give you my paypal addy, we'll go from there.  No paypal?  Sorry, money orders are so last decade.  

 

15 bucks shipped.   This will include an hour's worth of Rubicon footage plus an hour of filler stuff. (Wheeling vids sent to me, plus some rally x and stuff.)  I'll also throw in the "Best of the Hatch Patrol" vid that's about 2 hours long too.  2 dvds is what you'll get.

 

It'll take me a while to burn that many copies the old fashion way I have to do it.  I'll ship them all at once.

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