What did you do to your subaru today?

I bought them precut from Lamin-x. I did end up shaving off a little bit from both lights with a razor blade.

 

That's how it looked when I used it. I was also very wtf about it.

 

Got one winter tire and the u brace back on the car before my 7 year old harbor freight impact finally exploded. Little by little, i think I'll finally buy a lift next year

Remaining tasks
- 3 winter wheels
- u brace final bolt
- shifter bushings

 

If you're in the market for a decently affordable, kick a$s new impact:

https://www.amazon.com/AIRCAT-1150-...mpact&qid=1637108842&qsid=134-9000473-2899401

According to Amazon I bought mine in October of 2013. Spent multiple years in a semi truck shop with me and it's still going strong.

 

I would but my compressor wouldn't keep up with an air impact. Going to try a cordless electric until i get my new out garage built with a big boy compressor.

 

Well in that case, I've also got this one. It's an absolute beast. Haha.

https://m.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200685183_200685183

 

It's nuts. I had to replace the rear axle on our (c)rusty 92 GMC truck a few years ago. My u bolts were so bad there was absolutely no hope of saving them. Cut em off with a cut off wheel and went to U-pull to source some "new", just barely less rusty ones. If I didn't have the impact at that point I don't think I would've been able to go home with any... Haha.

 

Yeah, that was my other driving factor for chosing cordless was saving time at upull. It's nice to be able to zip them off or snap them off in seconds.

Speaking of which, i need to make another run to see if the ls3 is still there.

 

Put them mudflaps on, looks good!

 

Brought home my newest ****wagon last week. Shell has 199k on it and was significantly worse in person than I was hoping for based on the description and pics. Motor is freshly gone through and the tranny is new to the car. Said it needed a radiator and a turbo back to be "finished". Got all that and more sitting around at home so Plan A was to slap it together and go.

Car hasn't been driven in 2+ years so everything is crusty. Interior was half gutted and it's just a mess in general. So onto Plan B, which is putting the motor into the silver one to hopefully resurrect that pile to winter warrior status.

Silver one hasn't been driven in about 2 months due to what I'm assuming is burnt valve(s) round 2. Idles like crap and the cylinder 3 misfire and flashing cel is a daily occurrence. I've been searching for a suitable replacement for a while now with not much luck. The market is still ridiculous and I kinda gave up hope for the time being.

That said, $1600 for a (hopefully) healthy motor and another shell to sell parts from (and turn into yard art) sounds like a good bandaid for now.

Also hoping to put Forester XT struts on the silver one, so if anybody has some tips/secrets on that they wanna share, feel free!

 

How are them rear strut towers looking lol?

 

I noticed he never answered you. Haha. They're about what you can expect from what I could see. Thing's on lowering springs of some sort so you can hardly see into the wheel wells.

 

Been chipping away at my Saabaru todo-baru™ list for the past couple weeks and finally got it wrapped up just in time to miss my goal of beating the snow.

Highlights include a non-dented RR door, shifter goodies incl. red bushings for 乇乂T尺卂 hrsprs, fresh OEM coolant to replace the nastiness, and a new battery to replace the one from 2014.

 

Well the driver side looks nice

 

Worked on my winter car this weekend (just in time, right?).

My 2000, 350+k mile Outback. It was parked this summer due to a blown strut mount. When the Forester was done, I went to pull the Outback in the garage, and a brake line blew. So, 2 new sections of NiCopp brake line (yes, I keep this stuff on the shelf in my garage. I need to start stocking the stainless flare nuts, too). Cut, flared the stock lines back under the back seat, and used unions from there back to the first section of rubber line along the frame rail. The BE/BH fuel tank (and likely all newer cars) is further forward than the older cars that I'm used to, so I had to rethink my routing. I ended up fishing it across over the crossmember behind the fuel tank. Was annoying to do, but the end result is better, I think.

Then I removed the front strut to replace the mount (in a reminder to do these in pairs, I had already done the other one about a year earlier....). It literally fell apart. Assembled strut/spring/upper perch fell out, with the rubber mount still bolted to the body. All the balls were gone from the bearing. Yikes. I bought this spring compressor when I was doing the Forester suspension, and it is so slick. Clamp one end in the bench vice, lay the strut on it, and I can take much of the tension off just by spinning the nut by hand.


AND, found and began coordinating another project (THAT'S what I need.....but this one is for my wife). Hopefully I'll have news on that over the weekend.

 

Started on my widebody project for the GC last night. Definitely going to have my hands full over the winter... and spring... maybe summer. Taking my time on this intentionally (to get it perfect) and unintentionally (work, wife, kids).

Projects details-
2000 2.5rs sedan
ABW 22b 60mm widebody kit

 

All you have to do is call!

 

Tailgaters, right?

 

I've gotten myself with that a couple times.

 

Well, it was a few days ago, but I don't get online much.

Drove down for Christmas. 1/2 mile from my Uncle's house in Farmington, and the exhaust in my wife's '04 Outback VDC gets considerably louder, followed by the unmistakable "ting ting" of the exhaust dragging on the ground. I said F it, and finished the drive. And then spent about 10 minutes of Christmas day with my car parked crooked on the curb of a very nice neighborhood, laying underneath my car using a coat hanger to keep the midpipe (of which the rear flange had broken off) off the ground.

Oh well, annoying, but in the grand scheme of things, pretty minor. I'll weld it back up in the next few days.

 

Could 100% be worse. on my VDC the exhaust did the same thing so my dad volunteered to weld it up after I did lunch with him since we were only a couple miles from their house. I grabbed his car, went back to work, he took the wagon to weld the exhaust on the lift.

Driving it onto the lift the exhaust caught, shifted the car over, slipped off the lift and sheered the hydraulic line to the lift, that sprayed fluid everywhere (car, garage, etc...), car slammed into the post and dented its fender.

Approximately 4 hours and $250 later, the lift was fixed and the exhaust was welded. Lol

 

I was at work during it all, not sure who had a worse day still.

 

DOH!!

Well...I haven't fixed mine yet, so it could still all go wrong.

 

It was a pretty fun wagon, I'd entertain the idea of another at some point.

No idea what's up with my OBS tho, battery said LOL-F-U yesterday, today just crank, no start. Smelled like it was getting fuel, had spark, no notta. Fairly glad I kept the TL at this point too. lol

 

GTI which doesn't move in the winter, it hibernates... GC8 which hasn't moved under its own power in a decade, OBS which is apparently dead at the moment, TL which loves to drain the battery if it isn't driven at least every week or two, then the wife's Jetta.

 

No MR/RR cars.

 

We drove our '04 VDC yesterday morning, and I went back out to move it last night at about 8pm, and it wouldn't start. Very strong crank, no fire. It would pop over on starting fluid. After a brief panic about trying to diagnose fuel pressure issues (I do not have a pressure gauge), I decided to check codes. P0118 would not clear, and the coolant temp read -40. Check in the FSM, and the fail-safe is to default to 70C/158F. I went back out to check the sensor, and found this:

2022-01-22_08-55-29 by Numbchux, on Flickr

Wires are completely chewed-through. Luckily, I'm a hoarder, and with a few minutes of shoveling I was able to get to my parts engine and cut the pigtail off it, but I think in order to make the repair, I'm going to have to remove (or at least lift) the fuel rail on that side. So that's my project for tonight....

 

@Chux You really do have all the fun

 

Was able to get the hatch struts replaced today. Easy enough, just required a 2nd set of hands to do reasonably safely.

 

What other people don't balance the hatch on their heads?

 

Right? Or make like hacksaw Jim Duggan and use a 2x4.

 

Because broke down... Haha.

I got the motor pulled out of the white car before Christmas in preparation to then pull the motor out of the silver car and do the swaparu. However, my shop quickly got filled up by crap from the wife's flower shop and also a huge ass project (building a walk in cooler from scratch...) that has not only taken up my shop space but also damn near all of my free time. Good times.

Finishing up the last of the ceiling and wall panels today hopefully and will start assembling them as soon as we can get the rest transported to the flower shop.

The whole issue here is that she had to move the shop with a minimal timeframe (building owner raised her rent an absurd amount with basically no notice). The cooler at the old place was also old and instead of attempting to move the entire thing we're building our own. Only downside is it's basically going to be a freestanding structure and there's not enough room to build it on site. Plus it's expensive to build even doing all of the work myself, so the goal was to basically design it so it could be assembled on site (and subsequently disassembled almost as easily for when the time comes to move again).

Long story short, she's up and running the new shop (Toni's Flowers) on the west side of Anoka (in the old DMV location) and will soon be taking orders for Valentine's day if anybody is in need. I mentioned making a 10% off code for Subaru peeps that could be put in when ordering online, so I think she might make that happen as well.

Anywho, the majority of my hooning so far this winter has been done in our truck (00 K3500 crew cab long box w/ a 454) or her shop van (03 E250 w/ a 4.6). Either one has actually been pretty fun. The truck is so long it's actually really easy to keep control when sideways.

 

FUN!!

twitch, twitch



Both of the PCV hoses going to the LH valve cover, which had to be removed to get the fuel rail cover off, crumbled in my hands. That sucked. But, with some extra length in the pigtail, I was able to repair it and reroute it around the injectors, so I didn't have to remove the rail.

 

Mocked up wheels on my latest flat engined project.