I currently have a fairly pristine 1979 Brat GL with a bad trans (Parts came through case) so I searched craigslist.org and found a 1978 Brat GL for $300. This 78 is a one owner car (grandma) with 112,000 garaged miles and only one dent, it is near perfect like the other car so I am planning on installing the dualrange box from a 1983 4x4 and possibly swapping the lift, 14" pug rims and goodyear mudders from a lifted 84' wagon I have, I'll let you all know how it turns out.

 

I currently also have an 82 2wd wagon with power steering, windows, cruise and a dual carb intake. A stock 2004 Forester turbo with tinted windows and 215/65r16 pirelli scorpion tires.

 

Mike

65' Mercedes-BenzUnimog 404

78' brat

79' brat

82' 2wd wagon dual carb

84' 4wd wagon rear discs

04' Forester Turbo (wifes car)

Ugg $300 brat! I've been looking for a super cheap brat! damn you for beating me to it.

Well one thing you'll have to do, if you just plan on swapping the tranny, is to pull the engine and put an EA81 bellhousing onto it. The EA71 in your Brat has a top mounted starter where the EA81 engine has a side mounted starter. Another thing is, lifting it is going to be tricky, not with th front, but the rear. Unlike an EA81 4wd car, the torion bar tubes, are seperate from the trailing arm pivot tube, whereas the EA81s have the torion bars inside of the pivot tube. This will present a problem since the torion bar tube mounts on the underneath of the body, will require some ingenious mathmatical engineering to figure out the angles and lengths of the lift blocks. Overall, sounds like a fun project! Can't wait to see some pics of it done!

took to long, caboobaroo beat me to it, ha ha but here it is anyway

 

A couple of things, the dual range 4spd has to be mated with it's larger bellhousing that is on the 1800 motor in the '83 car, the 1600 in the gen 1 brat is way smaller bellhousing, but they swap, or keep the 1800 and the d/r...

 

The transmission mounts will have to be moved, but that's just a bolt change I think? Or get a D/R out of a 80 or 81 brat... the shift linkage will fit, but you will have to cut a hole in the trans tunnel to get the d/r shifter in place.

 

The body lift will bolt up in the front no problem, in the back you will have to fabricate an entirely new setup, the 77-81 brats have a dual rear torsion tube setup.

 

lifted gen 1's are rare, good luck

Ugg $300 brat! I've been looking for a super cheap brat! damn you for beating me to it.

 

I have a 78 brat you can drive home for $400