Ok the story goes like this: I was driving quite fast on a trail on my ranch and a very large hole in the road snuck up on me, I hit the breaks and the hole and heard a crack. then i noticed that it was in four wheel drive. I have an equalizer mounted under the dash and the 4X4 lever and now there is no room for the lever to move up so either the dash moved down or the tranny moved up. The tranny mounts look fine so i think the dash moved but i can't see any thing broken. Is there some thing that could bend that would do this? has this happened to anyone else?

 

Thanks

mexiburger

Sounds like you *may* have bent the 4wd shift linkage...

It's an 80' brat with a standard tranny and i don't think that there is a linkage to bend....the lever is kinda L shaped and bolted to the top of the tranny. but i will be checking that...

After looking at it alot more I have determined that it is not the dash. I have a 3in lift and I was looking at the lift blocks under the trans crossmember mounts and i noticed that the unibody looked like it was smashed in about 1/8 in. I looked on my other subaru and it was flat under the cross member. so i think the force on the leading rod was great enough to bend the unibody. Would this usually happen or is ther alot of rust in there?? should I be worried about too much rust??

You have a '80 brat with a 3" lift? I'd like to see this

 

-Brian

ya i thought you would. when I got this subaru I didn't know alot about BRATs and the title said it was and 81' and thats what I thought untill i wanted to buy a fuel filter for it(I didn't know what to think then). Then when I got the title transfered all the VIN numbers were really screwed up and after alot of phone calls I got the right title for it and now i know it's an 80'.

now about the lift, I fabed it up myself and everything is the same as the newer subarus except for the rear suspension arm mounts. I figured out the angles and found that when it moves down 3in it has to be spaced out 1 and1/2 in to keep it in the right place. I used some 1 and 1/2 channel iron and welded some flat bar to the other side to do it. It's held up just fine and i havent had any problems with it.