alex0856

Getting very very close. And feeling grateful for kind and patient friends. I had been hoping to be able to drive the car to my grandfather's interment yesterday but it just wasn't in the cards. He always liked my car and always had fast and impractical cars himself. I wish I would have had the chance to take him for a ride in it, but that's okay. A word of advice to all - call your grandparents/parents/elderly friends and relatives today. They've simultaneously got lots of time and limited time, and they'd love to hear from you. Back to business - The trans and driveshaft are in, with new bushings to boot. My subframe was like a wet noodle before (I pulled it off the trans in one piece) but now it's much firmer. I'm expecting a solid improvement in handling. Tonight I blew 3 hours trying to replace a CV axle boot that I accidentally tore. Unfortunately an OE boot would not fit my aftermarket axle so I decided to fill the small tear with gray gasket maker for now. Since I've got two new boots I'll probably hit pick N pull for an axle and rebuild it. The inlet and AOS are all set, just need to make connections and decide on how I'm going to reroute the wiring harness. Question for all - does your shift linkage have this much play between the washer and trans bracket? I had lightly sanded mine before reinstalling to remove some built up surface rust. My bushings fit snugly in to the linkage itself but I've got this gap and can't say if it was there before. The linkage has about 2mm of lateral play. The bushings are almost new. If that's supposed to be solid then I suppose I'll buy a new one.

Never. After this go round of remodeling there will be very few plastic and rubber pieces left to replace. When I did my suspension and brake overhaul it felt like a brand new car. I'm expecting it to drive like a dream. Also, I'm in way too deep at this point. Sunk cost isn't a fallacy in this context, it's a way of life.

The trans is ready to go in. Replacing the oil seal on the linkage was pretty annoying but I got it without damaging anything. I attempted the screw trick but there's just not enough meat to get a proper bite without risking marring up the linkage or housing. I found that a heat gun, a shaved down pick, and patience was the way to go. Last night I put in new rack bushings, shifter joint, trans mount bushings, and tore down my short shifter. The bushings are pretty new but the metal needed cleaning and the grommet that goes on the tunnel badly needed replacing. I didn't expect to be able to get that part new but it turns out Subaru still uses it in other cars. Go figure. I'm on the road for work today so no shop time tonight. Tomorrow everything should be coming together.

Being a car person is a bummer sometimes. I should sell it and buy an automatic Corolla. My car still isn't done unfortunately. A mixture of the "while we're here" curse and finding more problems has dragged it out quite a bit. The trans is sitting on the jack ready to go with a new fork, spring, and pivot ball, and the clutch is installed. I drained the coolant to pull the turbo because reasons and found the lower oil drain was crushed - probably from 22 year old me using channel locks on it. It wasn't causing a restriction from what I can tell, it was just oval shaped and causing a leak. Fortunately you can buy replacements still. Today I'll finish getting the perrin inlet installed, then the AOS and rack bushings. I might even get the boot swapped on my year old CV that somehow got a hole in it. While swapping my heater hoses and pulling the upper rad hose I found what appeared to be coolant seeps, likely from the car sitting for so long. I think I've got contamination in the system as well. I'll probably do some sort of flush once it's on the ground. Hopefully my shift linkage seal and turbo oil drain will be here by Tuesday. I'm supposed to be driving it to Seattle next weekend. I think the problem all along was misalignment caused by dumb kids replacing a clutch without the proper tools. Here's some pics of the gore. You can see where the clutch disk was only partially grabbing. I wish I had got one of my bell housing before I cleaned it out. The ring on the back of the flywheel was from a nut that fell in to my bell housing and landed perfectly behind the flywheel. I'll have to find it and take a pic. It's got nice char marks on the head. I'm glad I bought a new timing inspection cover.

I have wanted one for a long time but you can't buy them new anymore unfortunately. I'll probably end up going aftermarket at some point.

Oh definitely. He has told me this himself. I find myself feeling self conscious about using his lift every time I ask. So I help him with his projects whenever I can. He's been working on scrapping a WRX for a while now which was tied up on the lift so we spent a Saturday stripping it so it can be hauled off. Although I won't lie, I found dismantling a car that I didn't need to put back together a lot of fun.

I recommend the vacuum pump method. I've also used the cheap one man bleeder kit. I vacuumed the living hell out of my lines when I did my flush and my car brakes like it was new.

I wish. I just have a very cool friend who lets me use his lift. I bring my own tools so packing those up sucks but my motivation to do my own work increases 10 fold when I have a lift to use.

Didn't start until almost 5 because I'm a dysfunctional person. It's a wonder that I can even get myself dressed in the morning. I went until about 9 before calling it a night. Fluids drained, bolts removed, thingies and gizmos disconnected. The subframe bolts are loose. Just gotta remove the driveshaft and I should have the trans out within an hour tomorrow. Feeling very grateful for my desert and west coast car (sorry midwesterners)

Well, as I feared, adding deadening and insulation to my hatch means it no longer opens itself until you get about halfway, even with new struts. If I give it a little momentum when I open it it'll go to the fully open position. I probably added 10lbs at least. It stays open without issue and does not close itself if you push down on the hatch until you get about halfway. This will likely mean that the struts will wear out sooner. Still can't bring myself to shell out for OEM especially because they may have the same issue. I think the next step is to look around for struts on newer Subarus and see if they have the same mounts. If I get lucky, I'll find one that bolts on and was built for a heavier hatch. It's a minor inconvenience for now and definitely a fair trade for cabin noise. Sitting in the cabin you'd never know that my exhaust is as loud as it is, even at freeway speeds. Today I'm starting my clutch replacement so that should be fun. Hoping I can finish by tomorrow night.

Well I'm glad we had this little discussion. Fortunately I have no HVAC issues since replacing my blower motor BUT I do have two new heater hoses to replace in the near future. I think I'll take that opportunity to do some flushing and clean out any build up, if there is any.

What is the HVAC unit?

I had a surprise 12 hour work day so no stealership trip for me. I did hit the hatch with some damplifier though, so all that's left is to swap out my 3rd brake light flasher module and put the panels back on. Really looking forward to seeing how this helps with drone.

I'm sure there is, I haven't looked. If I had another car to strip, I'd be taking the dash and cabin wiring harnesses, front seats, center console, ECM, and steering wheel. I should probably research this

Today I sorted through my weekend pick n pull haul and started the final step in my insulation project. An 06 NA wagon showed up and it fortunately hadn't been picked clean. I've been wanting an extra set of roof rails so needless to say I was stoked to get a set for $13. I'm hoping I can get the rubber bits off in one piece so I can get them powdercoated. I'm sure I'll have spent more than the $180 it would cost to buy them new (yes you can still buy them) once it's said and done but it'll be a neat project and that's what matters. The most exciting find though was a cupholder liner. I've never had one in my car and have yet to be able to find one that wasn't trashed. I'm still beating myself up for not stripping the black interior 07 OBXT 5MT that was at the Vancouver pick n pull in January. I was in the middle of moving so that was low on the priority list, but the car had everything I would have needed for an Si drive upgrade. As for the hatch, I peeled the felt off the hatch panel, added a layer of luxury liner and put the felt back on top of that. The panel is quite heavy now so I'll be picking up new clips tomorrow to make sure everything stays tight. I've just got to add damplifier to the hatch itself and I'll be 100% done. For now anyway, until I inevitably rip out the headliner and door panels. Don't mind my fire hose, I needed it for work.

Unfortunately there are no plug and play options for our cars so it would require pretty serious modification. I think that as long as you can find a powered opener that is the same length is the strut then you'll be good. The wiring would be fairly easy too especially since our fobs have a trunk unlock button. I think the tricky part would be finding a way to adapt to our mechanical trunk latch. The system appears to tie in to vehicles that already have an electric latch. I don't believe that it's motorized. So, you'd need to find a way to have the system tell a motor to release the latch followed by a delayed operation of the powered opener.

Will do. If these don't last l may shell out for OEM. The lowest I found them for was like 90 bucks a piece. Of course at that point I could just look in to an aftermarket electric opener/closer...

Tuff Support. I got them on RockAuto. They work well. The hatch will fully open after I pull it out a couple of inches. They have this annoying shudder as they slow down toward the end but that may be because mine are no longer perfectly aligned. They're strong though, closing the hatch is no longer a 1 handed maneuver which I'm fine with.

I also replaced my hatch struts this weekend, which turned in to a 4 plus hour nightmare. It was an important lesson on using impacts for small bolts. I impacted all 4 small bolts off, which it appeared had never been removed. I used the impact to start the bolts with the new struts and finished them by hand. The 4th bolt snapped the second it started to snug up. After breaking two easy outs and mangling my hatch with a drill, I hit up a welder friend for solutions. The plan was to create a nut insert to weld on to the hatch as I'd destroyed the threads that were there. Problem is, as we learned the hard way, the hatch is aluminum. It turns out that the struts are bolted on to a floating steel washer backer plate thingy that's riveted in to the dead space inside the hatch. Presumably Subaru did this because bolting the struts directly to the aluminum hatch wouldn't last. We got it out and attempted to repair it but the welds just wouldn't take. So after hours of fussing he said screw it and fabbed a new one in about 20 minutes. We painted it purple just for fun. We fished it in through the hole for the wiring grommet, bolted it down with new grade 10.9 bolts and away I went. I never knew that the hatch was supposed to open itself.

Yes they are. I actually forgot that that's what I was getting myself in to. So I'm looking forward even more so to this upgrade. I might wire my old high beams to a separate switch just for funsies while I'm there.

Will do! I saw these in person in 2017 (some of you may remember MrTris) and was sold instantly. The light is very "clean" so even though you're limited to 35W bulbs the overall output is better.

One of my cheap HID ballasts gave out after 9 years of service. I'm impressed they lasted that long. So, being that I am a "while we're there" kind of person, I pulled the trigger on something I've wanted for a long long time.

After 3 or 4 months of driving a tin can I finally got sick of it and stayed up until 1 on a work night finishing the interior. More damplifier pro and luxury liner pro was placed wherever I could fit it and all I can say is holy crap I didn't think the car could be this quiet. I can't wait to do the doors as I'm now distinctly aware of the noise coming through them. I'll also use this as an opportunity to introduce my carputer. I've wanted to do this since I first bought the car, but in 2014 the technology didn't exist to do it well. Now it does! I had tossed around the idea of relocating the clock to the ash tray but I use mine as a coin holder so I decided to find a way to make it work. I found a GPS in an 06 Outback 3.0R at my local pick N pull, gutted it, reassembled the housing, and then trimmed it to fit inside the dash and around the cubby. Then I cut a small piece of ABS plastic to act as a backplate and permanently attached a wall mount for a tablet to it. It's not pretty, but once you block it with the tablet you can't see my handiwork with the dremel. I removed the cubby and ran screws in to the vents to reattach them to the cubby housing. It was tough to get everything back in there but I was able to make it fit. Unfortunately I cracked the cubby housing so the next time it comes out will likely be in pieces. The tablet is just a basic Lenovo M9. I turn on my phone's hotspot and use it for Waze and Google maps. It charges via the USB port on the back of my head unit. Some might find it obnoxious but I like having the dedicated Waze machine. My phone usually stays in my pocket which removes the distraction.

What were your complaints about the DMFW, even though you didn't have one? I've never had one but I've always been curious to try one out.

I'll be keeping mine for as long as possible. I've owned multiple newer-ish vehicles and here we are in 2024 and it's back to being my only vehicle new cars are a terrible investment, it actually makes more sense financially to keep the Legacy on the road. We are very fortunate to be a part of a larger enthusiast community. Even though the LGT is relatively niche the cross compatibility of many parts is a huge advantage. My coworker complained to me that he can't get parts readily for his Focus RS. I don't have that problem (yet). I figure I've got about 10 years before parts start to become scarce. At that point the ICE will be approaching its last days and alternative fuel sources will be the only option. Personally I see a market in the future for electric or hydrogen conversions. They already exist ofc but a move toward mainstream for car enthusiasts sounds plausible to me. That's another reason why I haven't purchased a newer vehicle with an ICE. Alternative fuels aren't there yet so I'm stuck between spending 50k on either an obsolete technology or an experimental technology. I'll leave that to the average consumer and stick with my shitboxes for now. I do want to purchase either a Suburban or NV2500 at some point but they'll be at least 10 years old and over 100k miles.