BagRidersJohn

Looking awesome man!! You know I understand and appreciate the attention to detail and labor going into this!!

I hear you man!! I've used a number of local powdercoaters over the years and am lucky enough to have found a good one that is close to our office, but that's about 30 mins from my home. Our business is nearby other automotive shops which makes it convenient to leverage their specialties when needed -- for example I had a shop down the road vapor blast all my aluminum parts and they came out great! There is only so much I can do for the chassis on my back with various grinding tools. One day I'd love to do a full restoration on a rotisserie but this just isn't the right time or car for that. I'll check out your build thread!! Thanks again for sharing! --- Well, another setback but no real surprise given the circumstances. I found a small area on both sides of the frame crossmember near the tow hook brackets where the rust has compromised the metal. Fortunately, it hasn't spread to the inside yet and its a pretty simple and flat surface so I'll be cutting that out, treating anything behind it, and welding in some new steel before laying down the epoxy and undercoating. The journey never ends I am happy to have a project car that gives me so much opportunity to learn and practice and refine my skills. Its my hobby after all

New (to me) fuel tank and straps showed up, woohoo!

Thanks!! "Labor" is definitely the right word for it That sounds awesome man!! Definitely post some updates!! I don't plan on doing too much to refinish the subframe/crossmember as the one I got from California is in perfectly good condition and at this point, I'm just itching to get the car back together I'm really excited to finish up my work on the chassis though, it's been a lot of effort and I know the outcome is going to feel great! ---- The abrasives I ordered that I think should be all that I need to finish up the grinding should arrive today, so I'm excited to hopefully be done with the super dirty stuff as of this evening. Woohooo!!!! Last night I took a trip to our YouTube studio (check out Bag Riders on YouTube!!) and used our nice sand blast cabinet to clean up miscellaneous smaller parts: trailing arm to crossmember braces, the little brackets that sit under the fuel tank, the bracket that holds the brake line union, and some other random small parts that came off the car during this whole ordeal. Here's a photo of one of the trailing arm / subframe braces all cleaned up and ready to be recoated. Very exciting, I know

Happy Monday! Update time! In what will come as a surprise to no one, my rear brake line brackets were a bit crusty after nearly 200,000 miles across 13 years in the north east, Seeing as I'm replacing/restoring literally everything in the rear suspension, I just couldn't leave these brackets in such a state of gnarly. After learning that new OEM parts would cost me well north of $100, I decided to go about restoring them. Not that I'm opposed to shelling out for OE parts by any means (I just bought all new rear brake hard lines!!) but I also like to keep cash in my pocket when at all possible, like everyone else First, I cleaned them up with a brush to remove all the loose stuff, then I soaked them in white vinegar for a day or two. They came out looking like this: Next, I used a rotary tool and wire brush to continue cleaning them up -- voila! I knew that if left like this, they'd rust again right away. I soaked them in a metal etcher which leaves them with a "cloudy" type of finish, like this: Finally, I hit them with some epoxy that dries hard and protects the surface of this metal. Nice! These little details got me excited to see everything back together so I loosely bolted one side of the rear suspension together so I could (mostly) see it. There are a couple little things missing that I'm going to sandblast and refinish this evening. Otherwise, just need a couple of new nuts and bolts to complete the refresh back here. And last but certainly not least, I made substantial headway on removing rust/scale from underneath the car. I spent most of my day yesterday lying on my back with a variety of abrasive tools; mostly an angle grinder with a flap disc and a couple pneumatic die grinders with wire attachments. I'm definitely feeling that in my back today I ran out of wire attachments so decided to call it a day. I ordered more abrasive attachments that will be here on Tuesday so I'm hoping I'll be able to finish cleaning this up and have it ready to apply new coatings by the end of the week.

Finally got winter tires mounted and an alignment! While a bit under powered, the car drives great. Just putting miles on it now, breaking in the clutch and trying to notice any other stuff I should replace. I think one of the front axles is on its way out but I need to do more driving to know for sure. The other night while on our way home, my wife encouraged a quick photo-op stop as the sun was setting on a particularly clear evening. Looks nice! I'm excited to put a mild lift and some aftermarket wheels on this car Still considering a "quick respray" in the spring/summer but we'll see how I'm feeling then. The light gold has grown on me a bit!

No, you can remove the filler neck without removing the tank! I did however, end up removing the tank anyhow --- Since I want to grind away some rust on the undercarriage, and seeing as I've got the whole rear end apart anyhow, I decided I might as well drop the fuel tank since I don't intend on ever having another more convenient time than I'd have now. The tank came out with ease; I had my wife help me balance on the way down but basically just put a 4x4 on the floor jack to sit in the center of the fuel tank that straddles the driveshaft and we kept it steady as I lowered the floor jack. The tank itself is in OK condition, it does not appear to be leaking from the seams but some of the brackets on it (e.g., for EVAP hoses and such) are pretty toast. I scooped up a low mileage fuel tank out of California that is in excellent condition that will be replacing this one. Nothing to hide here, the underside of the car isn't clean by any stretch of the imagination but its also not terrible. All the rust in this photo can be removed, which is what I'll be doing next. You can see a little bit into the dogleg area that I've done some epoxying before as these are a known weak area on these cars. Sometime ago I ground away any rust in that area and epoxy'd it, and as you can see its holding up great. So, next on the agenda for me is a whole lot of time on my back with the grinder, yayyyyy Once I've removed everything I can get to, I'll be applying a couple fresh coats of epoxy and some 3M undercoating to breathe more life back into this rig. I'll do the mid/front of the car at another time once I put a lift in my shop since those areas dont require nearly as much effort to access compared to the rear of the car. And finally, another glamour shot of the front fitment I'm super excited to get the rear suspension back together and test fit the rear wheels which have bigger lips than the fronts

I hear that! Thanks again for the kind words --- I had some shop time over the long weekend and made some headway, finally! I applied butyl sheets to the LH floor pan. The factory sound deadening had delaminated. I also hit the floor pan with some epoxy sealer before laying this stuff down. Sorry for the bad picture but you get the idea! One of my many "while I'm there" things was replacing my worn out trunk, fuel door and parking brake cables, all of which were stretched out beyond the tolerance of their respective adjustment mechanisms. Trunk and fuel door were first, sorry no pictures of that but use your imagination. With the interior all taken apart, replacement of these is a breeze. The parking brake cables required a bit more effort but ultimately came out with ease. I have all new everything for the rear of the car; I'm super excited to see it all come together! Exciting picture of old vs new parking brake cable, oooo, ahhhh, ooooo! Finally, and last on my list of "stuff to remove" was the crusty fuel filler neck. Miraculously the tank is in pretty good shape all things considered. This sucker didn't want to come apart from the flex hose that couples it to the tank but with some careful convincing I got it out without any damage. Next up is some grinding of some surface rust on the underside of the car around the rear suspension mounting points, then a fresh coat of epoxy sealer and undercoating. Not looking forward to this step but once that's done I can start putting everything back together which I am VERY VERY excited for So that is going to be my motivation to power through the "not so fun" part Thanks for reading!

As I was going through parts in storage I found my WRX original steering wheel and 5MT shift knob so I decided to throw them on the Outback along with a 3" extension. I can't recall the vendor of the shift knob but its pretty darn heavy and with the extension it is a lot of fun to throw around! The knob and "new" steering wheel (the one in the car was pretty worn down with > 200K on it!!) made a big difference. So far I've just puttered around town for "shake down testing" and all is well but boy howdy, does this car need an exhaust haha. Unfortunately, since its the early PZEV / low emissions model I'll need to fab something up so likely a project for another time. I found one thread where a guy modified some UEL Headers intended for a 2.5i but I think I'll go the route of modifying the OBX H6 exhaust since it should be pretty close to begin with. I bought an H6 exhaust gasket to compare against the H4 flange and its close but wouldn't bolt right up without elongating one of the bolt holes. Either way, it feels like a better starting point than a UEL header so that's what I'll end up trying when the time is right. It doesn't look half bad for 16 years and 200k miles I'd say! I'm excited to put a mild lift and a more aggressive wheel/tire combo sometime soon

Exactly! I'm just glad that I can put the car back together and shoot it as a whole. No doubt it is still some decent time to sand it all down and re-shoot it, but not nearly as much work as I went through. I know I'll end up with nibs and bugs, and hopefully I can lay down enough clear so that I can remove them with confidence. A friend and coworker sprayed his LS400 at his shop around the same time I did mine. He laid down 5 or 6 coats of the SPI Universal clear which is promoted as staying soft / very friendly to cut and buff even a month or longer after spraying. He put a lot of effort into wet sanding out all the orange peel and man, it came out fantastic. Its a black car and the paint just looks like glass. Its great motivation for me Thanks for the words of encouragement

Thank you! This was my first full respray and honestly my first go at many things in bodywork land so I had some steep learning curves and redid plenty of stuff along the way, but I sure do love learning so its all fun That is awesome, I love 944s!! I spent some serious time looking for an inexpensive / "needs some TLC" Turbo model (not specifically for the engine, more-so for the rest of the stuff on that model) for another build/project car but my energy on that dwindled. I'm still debating between that or perhaps a C3 Corvette which my wife is a big fan of so that earns it some serious points haha In either case I'd put it on air ride (duh!) and drop in some other motor. I'm leaning towards a JZ of some sorts which would be a bit sacrilegious for the Corvette, but fun either way. I know both have been done but I'm a "do it for me" type of person anyhow, so that doesn't matter much to me Regarding the outcome of the paint -- it looks good enough in photos but there are a lot of problem areas, so I intend on knocking the body panels down with 800 and re-shooting most of it in the spring time. That's the cost of learning I guess Fortunately the jambs and body kit and some other stuff came out totally fine, so that will allow me to hang the doors back on the car and spray it all assembled. The biggest problem for me was that, presumably in a hurry to get it done before the end of the day, I didn't adjust pressure at the regulator after spraying the sealer so ended up with some nasty dry clear in a couple areas and some tiger striping in in the base coat I took advantage of this "learning opportunity" to practice wet standing and buffing and learned that I need to put down more clear next time in order to get a perfectly "glass" finish like I want, since I didn't have quite enough clear laid down to cut as much as I need to. I did end up with some dirt/dust knibs and given my intention on respraying I used them to practice knib removal and they came out with ease. I also had giant mosquito land in the first coat of clear on the hood and it like, collapsed down into the clear and messed up the coat really bad. So yeah, the plan is to get the car all back together so its driving and basically road ready (except glass), then knock it down with 800 and respray the car as a whole, "just" base and clear since the bodywork is all straight and the sealer went on really great. This time around I'm going to try another clear from SPI that they explained stays "soft" for longer (i.e., you can cut/buff it with relative ease even after a month) and is tailored towards laying down 4-5 coats in order to grant plenty of depth for the cutting/buffing process. I used their "Production" clear which is intended for body-shop use as it goes down thick and hardens up quickly, making it perfect for (as the name implies) production body shop work. The time between coats on that was pretty short if memory serves, and because I was going around my shop spraying each panel individually I wasn't able to chase the "wet edge" which I think also caused me some issues. Anyhow, overall a great learning experience and I'm not in any way bummed or upset about the fact that I want to go over it again. In fact, I am excited for the opportunity and have confidence in myself to do a great job

Good news fam, I finished up the work I wanted to get done on my old Outback rebuild and spent the last weekend cleaning the HECK out of my shop. In doing so I hung a couple more body panels on the ol' specB and couldn't help but to slap a couple bolts in my Rotiform wheels so I could get a little preview of what is to come! I also made a loooong list of "to-dos" on my whiteboard and with that I dont think there much more procrastinating I can do For real though, I am ready and eager to dive back into this car and get it on the road for summer!!

Little update! tl;dr = Car is up and running! I finally got around to adding fluids / whatever else is missing in that last photo, primed the oil pump, and it fired right up (and continued running, equally important ) to my great joy. However, I wasn't done yet! There was a very very loud squealing-type noise that wasn't obvious as to where it was coming from. At first I figured it was the P/S pump wailing since I had just replaced basically the entire system except the hoses off the reservoir, but after a thorough bleeding the sound remained. I thought maybe the timing belt was rubbing on the guide so popped off the inspection cover and no sign of abrasion in there, thank goodness. All the accessory belts are in good shape and at proper tension. I decided to poke around with a stethoscope while the engine ran, and I was relieved to find that the engine and accessory pumps all sounded happy, but left me wondering what I was missing. With the engine off, I started to turn it over by hand to see if the noise would present itself and sure enough, it did. It sounded just like a warped rotor where you get a "grindy - dragging sound" every rotation. At this point, I thought maybe I got a bad clutch disc? Maybe I made a careless mistake during installation? I wasn't sure. With the engine running, the sound seemed to be loudest while under the car, but that is tough to say since things tend to be louder in confined spaces like that anyhow Next, I enrolled the aid of my favorite (and very good looking I might add) helper aka my wife to come and turn the engine over while I did more stethoscope work. Immediately as she started to turn over the engine, I heard a scraping noise and crawled under the car to investigate. Lo and behold, I quickly found the culprit. The flywheel inspection cover (the thin piece of metal that bolts to the bottom side of the engine) must have been slightly bent at some point during engine installation and ended up with half of it bent upwards into the bell housing. I removed the bell housing bolts, jacked up the motor enough to access the hardware for the cover plate, removed it, bent it back into shape with a mallet, and put it back on. Voila! All happy now! Time to go get some snow tires on the ol' girl and put some miles on it! Probably wont be doing much until the spring time so, until next time I made a few "layout" things to reflect what's been done over the last few months, to summarize: -- Black leather interior swap -- Custom upholstery on the pillars up -- Replaced steering rack -- Replaced damaged panels on LH side of car -- Rebuilt engine, replaced valves & valve seals -- Brake job

I guess so! Of course the SOHC EJ is extremely common but I assume you must be speaking about your personal experience. In that regard, compared to the early DOHC NA they are a little easier to work, but honestly for a rebuild its all in the same ballpark. In comparison to the turbo motors, there are many differences of course. IMO the NA motors are just easier/faster to pull and there are fewer things to be mindful of in the cylinder heads. I like working on both types. I've owned far more NA Subarus over the years as they're a dime-a-dozen here in VT but prefer the turbo variety for I think obvious reasons I don't have much experience with the F-series engines so can't comment on those --- I had a couple hours in the shop yesterday and plopped the engine back in. Not much left to do now aside from add fluids, cross my fingers and start it up! Aiming to do that tonight so wish me luck

Had about 45 minutes last night and got the timing components on! Next up is valve lash adjustment, fastener final check, then this puppy is ready to drop back in!

I got a few hours in the shop on Sunday and managed to get a few things done. Resealed the oil pan Resealed the oil pump Installed new water pump Cleaned up the pistons / deck Reinstalled cylinder heads I've spent a decent amount of time just cleaning gunk off the under/back side of the block so that in case I spring a leak at some point, I'll at least be able to see it! For better or for worse The pistons had a lot of carbon build up on them. I had started to clean one piston off as you can see, but for once in my life I remembered (or, almost remembered!) to take a "before" picture before going at it! But with a bit of elbow grease and a white Roloc bristle disc, they cleaned up nice (I hadn't cleaned the old gasket material off the deck in this photo yet) The 642 MLS gasket laid on the prepped deck And here is where I left off. Next up is installing timing components, adjusting valve lash, then back in she goes. Very excited to get this hoss out of my shop so I can get back to work on my specB!

Speaking of winter driving... who else thinks the traction control in the LGT does perhaps more harm than good for a confident driver? It feels like it just kills throttle response, which puts a real damper on "when in doubt, throttle out". I regularly disable traction control when there is snow on the road for this reason.

Thank you very much on both points! I'm real excited to get back to work on my specB just have to finish an engine rebuild for my winter rig and then its full steam ahead!! Thanks! I think they clean up nice. I was inspired to do this by Abbitt Wilkerson's white specB that we put air ride on a number of years ago.

Thanks! That is nice to hear It sure is! I really enjoy it, though. For my job at Bag Riders I'm at a computer all day long working on abstract problems, so something about the generally linear process of mechanical work like this just helps me wind down mentally. I like working with my hands and the sense of accomplishment that comes consistently with a project like this. At least, that is the case most of the time, save those days where nothing goes as expected --- I've been really busy with work and various around-the-house/property stuff recently, but have spent a bit of time working on the Outback. I don't believe I included a picture, but I replaced the rear main seal and resealed the service plates Also slapped on a new flywheel. The old one was looking prettttty bogus. Remember that nasty leaky steering rack from a few posts back? I cleaned up all the gunk that had collected on the crossmember and installed the new-to-me rack. I also picked up new low and high pressure lines (the ones that poke up on the passenger side of the vehicle) from the dealership as well. New TOB is in there too, the old one had a lot of play in it... probably original! I made this fascinating 4 panel picture showing the before/after: At the very least, now if there is another leak, I'll be able to identify where its coming from Last night I had a good chunk of time to myself and was able to replace all 16 valves and valve stem seals and got myself set up to reassemble the cylinder heads. Overall the heads are in really great shape. The valve seats cleaned up very well and the new valves lapped in easily. So that's about it for now. It feels good to have knocked out the valve service so now its just reassembly and we're back on the road. I'm excited to get this car out of my shop so I can get back to work on my specB and take this thing out for some fun in the snow!

Thanks! No I am not. I went over the factory headliner and sunroof panel which are foam backed but did not use foam backing on the pillars.

I did a little tinkering over the weekend, but not a whole lot. I got the heads back from the machine shop the other day having decided against having them grind new seats. They quoted me about half what I paid for the entire car so I decided against it in favor of just replacing all the valve stem seals and cleaning up the seats at home. I started by removing one of the intake valves from the cylinder head but wasn't able to clean it up enough to get my lapping tool to suction onto it, so I said to hell with it and ended up just ordering a set of aftermarket valves to start fresh. We'll see how they look when they get here, I'm not expecting much but reviews were favorable and they fit the bill. The seats on the heads look alright so I'm hopeful that I can just take the new valves and lap them in and be on my way. Once I decided I wasn't going to be lapping valves, I went ahead and pulled the accessory pumps, sump, pickup etc. off the short block so I could get it onto the workbench and get to the rear main seal / oil separator cover plate. Everything came off easy with the exception of the crank position sensor out of the oil pump, which was corroded in place. The electrical connector came off in one piece then I had to carefully press out the metal sensor housing (the part that protrudes from the oil pump casting). I got it out without damaging the oil pump and have a new crank position sensor on the way. I cleaned up the housing on the oil pump with a dremel so the new sensor will slide right in. With the accessory pumps removed I he-manned the shortblock off the engine stand and onto the workbench for further disassembly. I didn't take any "before" pictures (classic) but the rear main seal was super shot (hey, after 200k its done its duty) and the oil baffle cover plate was also weeping a bit, so that came off for a reseal. In case you've ever tried to remove this thing and struggled with the Phillips head bolts, an impact screwdriver is a godsend for these things; always easy and successful for me. I tend to jump around to different projects in the shop so with the seals removed and cleaned up, I decided to move onto the rack. As was evident in one of the previous photos, the rack is leaking like a sieve so I picked up a used one off eBay for a reasonable price to swap in. The old rack came out without too much of a fuss. Can you tell which one is new vs old? I have new high and low pressure hoses and o-rings to install onto the "new to me" rack as well.

Not my specB but following up on my last post, our Outback 3.6R Touring arrived today. Absolutely love it!

Thanks for the kind words! Definitely a lot of time consuming work but I'm happy with the results I had a nice leisurely Sunday fun day in the shop and yanked the tired EJ259 out of the Outback. I've pulled a lot of EJ's but never a 259 before. Overall the process is basically the same as the more common 253, just a few different electrical connectors for the additional O2 sensors and lack of VVTI sensors on the cylinder heads. The timing components were in "not terrible" decent condition albeit I have no idea how old they are... the bearings were definitely on the older side as they spun very freely with the typical "skateboard wheel" sound you get with older bearings. The hydraulic tensioner was also leaking pretty severely around the piston which is a telling sign of age. You can see the weeping around the cylinder heads Here you can see the RH cylinder head with the gasket still in place. Note it is a single layer gasket, presumably the revised version that Subaru insisted was a "fix" around the time of the head gasket lawsuit. The cylinder crosshatching is still visible on all four cylinders which I was happy to see. I'm not doing bearings or rings on this motor so no splitting of the short block. I took this picture so I could compare to the 642 MLS gasket that I use on 253's and sure enough that one will work. And the 642 gasket as a comparison (off by 180 degrees but you get the idea) And here's where I left it last night Cheese! I bagged up the cylinder heads and brought them with me to work today where at some point I'll take a trip down the road to the machine shop to have them decked flat. Aside from the head gaskets, timing components, water pump/ t-stat and replacing the "assumed" gaskets (e.g., intake/exhaust), I'll be doing a few other seals on the engine to ensure this old goat keeps the fluids inside: - Rear main seal - Crank / front seal - Front/rear cam seals - Water x-pipe o-rings - Oil filler neck o-ring - Reseal oil pan + oil pan o-ring - Reseal oil pump + oil pump o-ring - Reseal rear oil separator plate - Reseal camshaft retaining plates - Valve cover gaskets / spark plug tube seals Not engine related, but also picked up a low mileage OEM rack & pinion and power steering pump as the ones on this car were toast. I'm also replacing the TOB while I'm in there, and slapping a new clutch in as well... maybe a flywheel too but I didn't give it a close enough look last night to really make a decision on that. I think that does it for now. Hopefully the timing belt kit I ordered is the right one, I'll update this thread when I figure that out so that other EJ259 rebuilders will have a solid source of information!

Kinda kickin' the can along on this one, but over the weekend I pulled the motor out of the aforementioned Outback so I can rebuild it before we get some serious snow here in VT. I needed to make some space in my shop that was taken up by body panels and such and I thought hey, what better place to store these parts than on the actual car? So I loose fit the JDM frontend and let me tell you, its got me real motivated to get crankin on this thing just as soon as I get my Outback up to snuff! Also exciting, bought a 2018 Outback 3.6 Touring. By far the newest car for my wife and I. It is down in Florida, hope to have it on a carrier this week and up to us in Vermont sometime next week! Woohoo!

Thank you!! Haha it is very rewarding, especially when you go the extra mile and hit it with the shampoo and brush!! Lmao I appreciate the kind words! -- We had family visiting over the weekend which gave me the push I needed to get the car back on the ground and out of the shop so we could use the space for "donut on a string" game since there was rain on the forecast. So I did and now here I am to share another update! Before I re-hung the doors (with the help of my wife of course, shouts to her) I snapped a quick photo of the (mostly) reassembled front and rear interior in all of its sparkly clean glory. The driver door sill trim is missing as it goes over the "kick panel" trim which covers up the wiring down there which I needed to access when installing the door. Not too shabby for 200k on the odo Truth be told I have another steering wheel (out of my WRX way back in the day, pristine condition!) Using a soft bristle brush with an interior cleaning product is a great way to lift dirt and debris out from tight trim panels. I also use a brush and swirling motion to suds up the cleaner on the dash and trim plastics. For edges or areas where panels meet (like around the shift boot) I first go around with a pick and vacuum, then follow up with the brush and suds approach. I decided to install the cleared headlamps I had my specB on this car, since I picked up a set of JDM lamps for my specB and therefore had no immediate use for these. I think they clean up the front end nicely! And behold, the driver side! Remember when I got this car it had been sideswiped (or had sideswiped a yellow bollard) which severely dented/scraped/damaged both doors, the fender, and the QP trim piece. The previous owner had "attempted" some body repair which as far as I could tell was literally smearing body filler as if it was play-doh, hitting it with a heavy coat of spray paint and calling it a day. There is still some scuffing visible on the "flare" part of the front bumper and the replacement fender had a minor dent by the headlight, but we're gonna have to live with that stuff. The rest of the damage (and the poorly done repairs) no longer plague this side of the vehicle. So! Now that the interior looks and smells like a new car, and the exterior looks like... well, less of a reflection of its 200k odometer reading (for real though, I'll give it cut and buff if I dont respray it) I'll be moving onto some other repairs to get this ol' girl ready for the VT winter. The EJ259 is tired and leaking like a sieve so it will be coming on out for gaskets and seals. For now, I'm going to leave the bottom end alone unless I find some super glaring issue upon disassembly... maybe next summer I'll do rings and bearings. With the engine out, I'll throw a new clutch in there and likely a few other odds and ends "while I'm at it" (famous last words) Thanks for reading!