Sublimejoe

Not bad. Take any pics of you doing it?

 

-Justin

Nah, I dont have a camera

He is right, the Legacy grill does not fit the Outback perfectly. I had to make my own:

Did you ever end up selling your XT SublimeJoe?

Yeah, unfortunately. I sold it around the same time I picked up the RHD one, which is just now back together and running/driving:

The quarantine has me pretty bored, so I finally got around to cleaning up my outback. I bought the car from a friend a couple of years ago, he came across it with a blown motor and swapped in a JDM ej20 before selling to me. Here it is before I did anything:

Aside from that one door being slightly different color the car was mostly just very very dirty. Over the last month or two ive done a bunch of maintenance to the car as well. Wheel bearings, brakes, parking brake adjustment, oil change and surely some other stuff I am forgetting.

First up I swapped out the black door handles to body color versions, and repainted the black trim at the bottom of windows.

Next up I ordered some red film for the tail lights. This has been a challenging install for me in the past, and it seems that is still very much the case.

Before:

After:

Its so wild how just the most minor of things can really change the look of a car. Once I get the car all cleaned up I will take some real photos. Next up is to replace the power steering pump and probably the battery.

Got power steering lines set up!

Also here is a picture of my old car for good measure

Fock yes! Must be hugely satisfying to finally drive it!

It is indeed very satisfying!

This was the first time I drove it on the road in four years, and there are definitely some bushings and stuff that need replacing before its really road worthy. I ordered a few and will get those on before getting an alignment. I am also running open header because of the turbo crossmember annoyance.

Updates! Went through a lot of troubleshooting to fix no start issue. Eventually got it taken care of and now the car starts every time!

I spent most of the day yesterday driving around town:

So frustrated with this car right now. I wired the crank sensor using an XLR microphone cable from microcenter. It was $14 for 25 feet.

This did not change the no start situation. However it did clear codes 11 & 13 which are the crank position sensor & cam position sensor. Good enough for me.

Today I checked everything for the seemingly hundredth time and find nothing to be amiss. I pulled the hose from the inlet on intake manifold to clean the fuel filter and lines. I sprayed air into the lines and it seems to be fine. Blew air into the hard lines on the firewall back towards the tank.

While I had the fuel lines off I ran a line from the inlet line directly into this smart water bottle and tried to start the car. The fuel pump seems to be pumping just fine, this was how much fuel is pumped when cranking the car for ten seconds. Oddly enough the car turned over and sputtered for about ten seconds before stalling out. This was the only time today I got the car to turn over and run. With nothing connected to inlet or return on intake manifold.

Anyone have any ideas on what could be the issue? I am getting a code 42 on the cluster, which is idle switch. The throttle body was messed with a little, but could small adjustments cause enough of a difference that the car doesn't even try to start? It seems to be something is preventing the car from knowing its ok to start, rather than an issue of it not getting spark/fuel.

Update:

Took plugs out, they are soaked in gas from trying to start it so much on Sunday I guess. The weird thing is the plugs still smell like bad gas. I have already drained the tank twice using the fuel pump. Am I going to need to remove tank and lines to clean properly?

Also, a friend of mine pointed out that I dont have an oxygen sensor connected. It never even crossed my mind that I should have one since I dont remember removing one from the old motor. Ordered the sensor and it should be here tomorrow.

Going to take my car in for a rear bearing replacement. I've been tolerating it on the way to work, but this weekend I realized how f'n loud it really is with the whole fam in the car. Ain't got time, nor tools desire to do it myself before our road trip next week. Or at least that's why I procrastinated so long.

 

Other than that, just enjoying the status quo. The car friggin rips, although it helps that I've been on 91 for awhile and forgotten the E85 rush.

My rear bearings are super loud too. Almost unbearable. I tried to replace but could not get the axle nut off no matter what I tried. Guess I need to take it to a shop as well.

[attach]276189[/attach]

Hahahahaha, that's radical

Transformation Thursday my friends

Folding mirrors?

 

Your wagon is truly EPIC!

 

SC

Thanks man! The power folders are one of the first things I bought for this car many years ago.

Fixed the rear wheel camber today. Put hood back on.

Well thanks to some help and some more help from Josh the car fired up today! It only has a header on it right now because of the crossmember situation so I only let it run for a few seconds. This is supposed to be a video of the car running, but for some unknown reason it is not.

I am so super stoked that it finally starts. Need to grab a few things from auto parts store and I should be just about ready to drive it!

Wired up my power folding mirrors, ran the wires under the dash nice and clean & connected to the switch. Now I have to figure out how to keep the switch in its place nice and tight, im thinking some velcro.

Swapped out my blue radiator stays for some titanium ones that a friend sent me.

Parts Needed:

Fuel Filter Bracket, Upper & Lower Rear Window Molding, Corner Lights without broken tabs

Nice. My friend has a studio over there, 52 O street studios.

Lots of that happening in DC these days

Well, my lovely internet friends, I made a quick decision for once and pulled my ej20 and dropped in a running ej22. My friend Skylar came down from dirty Jersey and we pulled the 20 out and dropped in the 22 in a couple of hours. Got everything bolted down and plugged in. The car didn’t crank for some reason, but the accessory power worked and all of the exterior lights and dash lights worked, for the first time in many years!

I’m not entirely sure why it’s not cranking but it was pretty late by that time so I put everything away for the night. I know that all of the grounds are not connected. Another issue I have is the exhaust manifold doesn’t fit because I have a turbo crossmember, any suggestions to work around that?

Charles Town to Dulles took 45 minutes today at noon. ZERO traffic, zero LGTs. Guess the breed is dieing off nation wide.

 

Back to So Cal for now. Probably be back a few times over next 3 months. Planned relocation is late June/July time frame. Visited too many homesites over 3 states to remember them all without notes. BEAUTIFUL country.

There is a guy who lives right near me, a couple miles from Dulles, who has a perfect white LGT. Plate says LGT STI or something like that.

that sucks!

Such a huge pain in the ass. It took literally fifteen minutes from start up until the point when I went to take that last bolt out, then another day and a half to finish. Since the bolt they used didn't have that washer type of head on it the bolt was sitting down in the recessed part, leaving almost no surface for the socket to fit on.

Replaced drivers side rear wheel bearing. Def took a little sledgehammer persuading

I just did the drivers side front on mine too. Was going perfectly until the last bolt, which someone previously had decided to replace with a completely different sized bolt. Had to take the knuckle off and cut the bearing off of it. Sucked.