John Hall's 2007 specB - Daily turned Restoration (Respray, Engine Build, Air Ride, More!)

[BagRidersJohn]

I beefed up the tires on my Rotiform wheels to a 245/40 on a 17x10. The stretch follows the fender flares nicely.

 

Here's a close up of the rear when compressed a bit

 

In other news, we finished up the floor in the new workshop and it came out awesome. My wife and I did this all ourselves and I can see why the pros charge what they do for it-- it's a lot of work! We used Rustoleum's professional epoxy kit and also their clear coat after prepping the floor with muratic acid and a lot of sweeping/pressure washing/vacuuming.

 

It wasn't long after that when my father in law's timing belt tensioner failed and he brought his Outback to the workshop which made it the first car in there. It was awesome to work in the new shop and made me really excited to finish the interior.

[pog0]

Damn, that garage is nice! Car is nice too.

[BagRidersJohn]

Damn, that garage is nice! Car is nice too.

 

Thanks a lot! Garage is definitely a lot nicer than the car, lol I've had my hands full recently with building the deck I promised my wife like a year ago and another EJ253 rebuild but once I finish those up, my focus will shift back to the garage. I've made a little headway on some stuff on rainy days... recently got my 80 gallon 5 HP compressor wired and received all the materials to plumb off the tank so I can make use of it before installing the rest of the shop air.

 

Really want to have it all set up before winter time so I can dive into the Legacy!!

[BagRidersJohn]

Last night I FINALLY dove back into my specB. I've got a solid list of changes that I'll be performing over the next few months (don't hold me to that timeline, lol)

• Air Suspension via BAG RIDERS
  
• Monster Service wide body
  
• Replacing all 4 doors due to bottom edge rust
  
• Wingless trunk swap
  
• JDM specB Front Bumper
  
• JDM Rev D-F Grille
  
• JDM Headlights
  
• Some new aero bits
  
• Miscellaneous suspension arms
  
• Color change / respray
  

 

I'll be doing all this stuff in my home workshop and do my best to keep this thread updated! So lets get at it!

 

Last night I got started by pulling off the generic fender flares. They served me well, but its time for them to go. The 17x10 +12 Rotiform splits extend proudly past the body with the flares removed. The rears have a final offset of -18 due to the 30mm spacer I've got in there!! I am SUPER excited to build these wheels up to 18" with bigger lips. I love the face design so much, but I think the 17" diameter is just a little too small for the stance I have in mind.

 

Next up I got the into "hover car mode" up on stands and pulled off the USDM front bumper. I'm soooo excited to test fit the JDM front end!!

 

The front fenders needed some additional trimming for the Monster Service kit, so out came the angle grinder. My wife snapped this action shot of me grinding away

 

That's all for now, hopefully more updates in the near future I'm considering launching a YouTube channel to cover some interesting topics like the air ride and wide body install.... maybe

[Dre617]

Hey @%1;,

 

When you painted the rear tail light, did you paint it all with the duplicolor or just the silver trim?

[BagRidersJohn]

Hey @%1;,

 

When you painted the rear tail light, did you paint it all with the duplicolor or just the silver trim?

 

I masked off the middle area where the brake light is and painted the entire rest of the thing with the red paint and proceeded to clear / sand / buff.

[Dre617]

good to know, I like the all-red look. I am going to see if I can find some tail lights to experiment on, dont want to screw up mine.

[BagRidersJohn]

good to know, I like the all-red look. I am going to see if I can find some tail lights to experiment on, dont want to screw up mine.

 

Right on! I have another set of tails sitting in storage (not sure why, lol), I might do the same thing to those and if I do I'll put one set up for sale and shoot you a PM!

[BagRidersJohn]

Update!

 

I got a few hours to work on the specB over the last week and made some progress.

 

I started with the rear end as I had already cut and welded all that up so I really didn't have much to do aside from fit the flares. After lining things up with painters tape, I installed a few clecos to see how the panel would fit when secured by fasteners and I'm pretty happy with it.

 

While unboxing the kit I found the instructions for where to cut up the frontend and learned I hadn't cut nearly enough! All of the measurements in the template reference the bodyline that runs into the corner of the headlamp so I marked that line with some tape and masked off the rest of the fender so I could draw a line of where to cut.

 

I used a flexible tape metric tape measure (like what a tailor would use for body measurements) to get the reference points as close as I could, then marked it out on the car. Here is the front fender all chopped up and the template provided with the kit.

 

After crying a little bit because I'm chopping up my new-to-me JDM bumper, I dried my tears with tape scraps and fiberglass dust. The kit fits pretty darn good!

 

The arches lined up nice, mission success!

 

I chopped up the passenger side frontend last night so I can move onto fitting the kit on that side next, and finally installing nutserts on all the body panels for semi permanent fastening.

 

Once the kit is finished, I'll be moving onto the air ride install! I'm using a kit from Bag Riders, of course! I'll be converting my BC Racing coilovers over to air using our conversion bags, and running an Air Lift Performance 3H management system. I'm also working on building an 18" set of wheels and have a few suspension components to help dial in the fitment! The final step of this project will be to paint the car, something I've never done before so wish me luck!

 

I'm wondering if there is anything that the community wants to see regarding air suspension?

[BagRidersJohn]

I fit up the passenger side over the weekend and did some investigative work for planning out air line routing. I think I'll do a quick video on this to help out other Legacy owners that may be interested in bagging their car. Proper air line routing is one of the most critical steps of ANY successful air ride installation, but is commonly overlooked or at least not given the attention it deserves. I always tell our customers-- think of it like you're installing a brake line!

 

Anyhow, passenger side fitted! Air suspension install begins tonight

[BagRidersJohn]

Sorry for lack of updates! I've got the kit fitted and air suspension parts installed, working on the air management now. I've taken some of the quarantine time to do some good maintenance work on my wife's car too

 

Left side

 

Everything lines up pretty nice

 

The chopping process

 

Right side went smoothly. I wrapped that one panel in a grey I was considering but decided against it

 

I picked up some Kansei Roku wheels for my WRX but before putting tires on them I decided to use them to figure out what final offset I should shoot for when I go to rebuild my Rotiform wheels for this car. The Kansei wheels are 18x9.5 +38 and I just added spacers until the outer lip met the fender.

 

The front landed around 18x9.5 -5 (i.e., about 43mm of spacing added)

 

In this photo the rear is a few mm away from where I want it to be but it was close enough to figure out what I can do for a lip on my splits. In the photo its about 9.5 -12.

 

So, with those numbers I know what size wheel parts I should order to rebuild my Rotiform splits. Those wheels are currently a 10j +12 with 6.5" inner barrels and 3.5" outer lips. They're currently 17" but I'll be stepping them up to 18"

 

The fronts I'll rebuild with 4.0" outer lips and 6.5" inner barrels to a final spec of 18x10.5j +6

The rears I'll rebuild with 6.0" inner barrels and 4.5" outer lips to a final spec of 18x10.5j -7

 

I'll post some updates discussing air management next

[Febreze Mee]

This is awesome John! Enjoying every bit of this thread. Keep it coming!

[dragwagon]

Still holding it down? Car looks great!

[JMJ5150]

how much would you charge to do that mod to my map lights?

 

 

 

I already have the STI Black map lights

[BagRidersJohn]

Still holding it down? Car looks great!

 

I sure am! Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been catching up on maintenance on the family cars and projects around the house during quarantine and only fiddling with the Legacy here and there... BUT I'm pretty well caught up on all that now and about to dive into bodywork.

 

I picked up a JDM rear bumper from Randy / HKC Speed and also finished replacing 3/4 of my doors which were rusted out on the bottom with rust-free doors that I've collected over the years. Both my front doors has "questionable" aftermarket speaker/tweeter installs (e.g., non stainless hardware drilled into the door panels leading to more rust) which may have accelerated the rust, but 13 years on New England roads was probably the greater culprit haha. I also replaced my trunk (which was also rusting around the wing) with a clean wingless trunk that I saved from my wife's old 2.5i that was totaled years ago... I think I posted a picture somewhere in this thread.

 

Anyhow, I've done some small tweaks to the fiberglass in order to get the fit fitting a little tighter here and there, and went through and installed stainless nutserts and stainless button head fasteners. I used nutserts specific for plastic/composites on the plastic parts which worked out nicely.

 

While the doors are free of rust, they do have a few minor dings here and there so next up for me is smoothing those out before respraying the car. I can't remember if I've stated in the thread anywhere but I'm leaning towards a Dodge/Jeep/Chrysler "Velvet Red Pearl" which is a nice dark red that some brands offer as a 2 stage at "reasonable" prices all things considered.

 

Enough jibber jabber for now, here's the car as it sits

 

Waiting on wheel parts and some aero bits... slow and steady with this build. I'm excited to see it all come together but not in any rush

[BagRidersJohn]

Also... just noticed that Instagram has started (probably been this way for a while) timestamping their images to avoid hotlinking... one of these days I'll find time to go through and rehost images but in case you're looking for a photo that isn't showing up, it is PROBABLY on my Instagram account @bagriders_john

[Dre617]

Also... just noticed that Instagram has started (probably been this way for a while) timestamping their images to avoid hotlinking... one of these days I'll find time to go through and rehost images but in case you're looking for a photo that isn't showing up, it is PROBABLY on my Instagram account @bagriders_john

 

 

Followed, but might unfollow lol that garage space makes me so jelly.

[BagRidersJohn]

Followed, but might unfollow lol that garage space makes me so jelly.

 

lol thanks its taken a lot of hard work and money but I'm really happy and proud of where the workshop is now. next big investment is a lift from Bendpak which I'll be doing before the winter hits. i want to drop the rear crossmember out of my specB so I can clean up the chassis and spray some undercoating, replace the gas tank, stuff like that.

 

anyhow, this photo is a few days old but for the sake of having a picture in an otherwise wordy post, here ya go

 

that was the more-or-less final fit-up of the kit. the fiberglass gel coat looks pretty darn smooth but i'm going to guide coat it before painting it as there are bound to be some waves in there. i'm pretty happy with the panel fitment now at least, so saving the finishing of those panels for a later date.

 

I've been working away on the car a few nights a week. i started to install some adjustable arms in the back but of course the bolts are all frozen to the bushing sleeves so out with the sawzall. i save that sort of work for when i have some frustration to get out -- chopping up metal is a good outlet haha

 

otherwise, i blew off a few months worth of dust and proceeded to wash down the body with soapy water and got started sanding the big areas with a DA. i have a few shiny spots that will need to be hand sanded but the DA sure does save a lot of prep time. oh i also cleaned up the rough edges on my front fenders from the angle grinder using a flap disc followed by 80 grit by hand. now the edges are nice and smooth and no longer a risk of mangling my forearms lol.

 

to give you an understanding of the scope of body work and expectations, i am doing a "doors off, glass out" respray and while i have a nice big shop to do the work in, i do not have access to a spray booth so I'm not expecting the world here. as-so i am not stripping the car to bare metal as the paint is in overall good condition with no adhesion issues, so aside from areas that need body work i'll just be roughing up the surface according to the spec sheet. I'm keeping within one family of products (PPG) for primer, sealer, basecoat and clearcoat.

 

once all the body work is done and primed, i'm going to paint the car in three steps. first i'm going to paint the door jambs and all areas covered by body panels (e.g., rockers, tail light pockets, trunk gasket area, trunk lifting arms, underside of hood/trunk, etc.) with doors and fenders and such off the car and panels masked as needed, rolling edges in the door jambs and around the trunk. then, I'll re-hang the doors, trunk, hood and fenders, and proceed to paint the whole car. since i'm spraying a metallic i want to have the panels assembled in hopes to avoid any striping issues. finally, the fiberglass parts will be painted separately, albeit from the same batch of base as the rest of the body to achieve uniformity.

 

i've got a lot of work ahead of me but i'm just taking things one day, one step at a time and enjoying the process. every time i work on the car i recognize something else i want to but keep reminding myself to stay on track!!!

 

i'll post another update once I feel like I've got some progress worth sharing

[Dre617]

Do you happen to have a video on how you did your tail lights by chance, like that all red look

[BagRidersJohn]

Do you happen to have a video on how you did your tail lights by chance, like that all red look

 

I do not, but funny you should ask as I am planning on doing another set of tails as the set I did has a chipped corner and I have an extra set of stock tails in storage. I'll do a DIY of the process but it goes like this:

 

Clean parts of loose dirt / dust

Clean with wax & greases remover

Clean with dish soap & water, dry thoroughly

Mask the body of the lens, along with any areas you don't want red

Spray a light coat of plastic adhesion promoter (duplicolor metalcast does not specify a coarse substrate, but you might choose to scuff with something like 1200)

Spray Duplicolor Metalcast as-per directions on can

Let sit for a few hours, if you have a heat lamp or space heater, that helps it cure nicely

Remove any masked area on the lens

Tack cloth the lens

If the Duplicolor didn't lay down nice, lightly wet sand with 1200 grit

If you sanded the color coat, blow it off, clean with soapy water, allow to dry thoroughly

Mix up your clear coat or if using a rattle can, put it in some hot water

Just before spraying, tack cloth again

Spray clearcoat as per tech sheet or directions on rattle can

Let sit for however many hours it needs in order to be ready for sanding

Using a soft block or sponge, sand with 1500, 2000, 3000, 5000 (3K, 5K is optional)

Buff and you're done

 

Hope that helps and yeah I'll document the process when I get around to it!

 

----

 

I've continued on with body prep. All the door handles, gaskets, grommets, and weatherstripping have been removed and I've made more headway on door ding repair. I ran out of 600 grit for my DA so while waiting for more of that to come in I've been hand scuffing the hard to reach areas that you don't see when the body panels are on the car, but will be painted anyhow.

 

With the fenders off, I'm going to spray the backsides and flanges with some black epoxy primer. I sanded down to bare metal around the edges where I cut and also ground off some surface rust on the flange that mates against the chassis. Also, the factory undercoating in the wheel arches is failing in some areas (almost 200k on the chassis!) so I think I'll end up stripping all that and spraying a new coating, maybe bedliner or just a fresh coat of rubberized undercoating. I just keep making more work for myself

 

 

 

I've got a couple more body stands arriving today so I can pull off all four doors and start scuffing up the jambs and the inner doors in prep for paint. Plenty more scuffing to do but always making progress

[Dre617]

nice, thanks.

[BagRidersJohn]

My wheel parts arrived yesterday so of course I had to do a test assembly last night! I can't wait to assemble these and put them on the car, I think they'll be great!

 

I widened them, added lip and stepped them up to 18" (they were 17" on my WRX)

 

Check 'em out! This is a rear that measures in at 18x10.5 -7. This configuration is what Rotiform calls "hidden hardware" where the wheel hardware threads into the back side of the face, and the face tapers out to the wheel lip. I've always loved these wheels I'm really happy that my wife encouraged me to hold onto them and rebuild them for the Legacy. I had them on the Legacy for a while in their 17x10 configuration, but I'm in love all over again with the wider lips and 18" profile

 

 

I have to put this face back on the 17" assembly so I can have the tires pulled but man am I excited to put these things together for real!!!

Edited July 2, 2020 by BagRidersJohn

[BagRidersJohn]

Little update!

 

 

I told myself I wasn't going to do it, but lo and behold I pulled the rear subframe. It was pretty darn crusty but fortunately no bolts sheared and the chassis itself looks remarkably good when considering the subframe!! I've got a good amount of wire wheeling and cleaning to do then I'll be hitting the chassis with some epoxy and undercoating to seal it up nicely.

 

Anyhow, with the entire rear end out of the car, I'm in the process of cleaning the parts that will go back in the car (e.g., aluminum knuckle / trailing arm, aluminum upper arm, rear diff, axles, etc.) and have a TON of brand spankin' new OEM and aftermarket parts to replace the crusty old bits. I'm replacin

 

Off the top of my head....

• Rust free rear subframe from California
  
• Aftermarket adjustable lateral arms
  
• Custom trailing arm bracket to center rear wheel (to be tested)
  
• Whiteline trailing arm bushings (W63398)
  
• Whiteline rear diff bushing kit (KDT903)
  
• Whiteline toe lockout kit (KCA307)
  
• New OEM wheel bearings
  
• New OEM backing plates
  
• New OEM handbrake cables
  
• New OEM nuts/bolts for lateral linkages other odds and ends
  
• New OEM "subframe support arms" (20157AG02A / 20157AG03A)
  
• New OEM "crossmember stopper" (metal bits that go above/below subframe bushings)
  

 

As you can see in my list, I decided to replace certain nuts/bolts that were particularly rusty or were damaged during removal, but I'm not replacing every single nut and bolt back there. I've been soaking the hardware that will be reused in a rust dissolving product that works great and the hardware comes out looking new albeit with a slight etching. Everything will be reassembled with liberal amounts of anti-seize, of course!

 

Thanks for reading!

[Shogun506]

Rebuilding it from the ground up. Nice to see all the effort you're putting in

[BagRidersJohn]

Rebuilding it from the ground up. Nice to see all the effort you're putting in

 

Thank you! At this point in time for the chassis itself I'm "only" focusing on the rear end of the car, basically everything that is really inaccessible with the rear crossmember, diff, etc. installed. The motor needs a refresher as it sits at nearly 200k original miles. Whenever I pull the motor for that round of work, I'll strip down the frontend just as I have the rearend.... prop shaft, trans and all so that I can address any signs of rust above those items and do any maintenance I deem appropriate.

 

I've still got a lot of work ahead of me but it is rewarding and I'll get it done