Great to hear you got the car back and fixing it

+1 for Matt B for getting parts. He might even have it in the correct colour for body parts.

Highly recommend getting Saloon Sti wings. You would also need:
1. Saloon front arch liners
2. Saloon front bumper
3. Door can be from the wagon/saloon

Only seeing the thread now and I had a set of steel wishbones in the garage taken off my wagon. If you need any oem parts, let me know as I have a fair few in the garage.

I have a front saloon bumper painted in 18L Black with a small amount of cracked paint on the left corner as well if it's of any use. Only issue is that I am based in Dublin, Ireland and you would need to organise a courier.

Best of luck with the rebuild

 

Not sure what I am going to do about bodywork yet. I was forgetting that I needed bumper as well with saloon wings. I can get a Blob wagon wing for about £50, less paint. It's only once I fit a straight wing that I'll be able to determine whether the bumper needs replacing or just paint.

Removed the U-brace yesterday. It's scrap so won't be going back on.

 

Removed everything I needed only to discover that I've lost my ball joint separator. So have ordered another but delivery probably won't be until after the weekend.

And I'd forgotten that there were Superpro bushes fitted already, but they have been there for 4 years, so no harm in replacing them with new.

 

The ball joint forks I bought weren't upto the job, so I have had to order a **** off great pry bar.

 

How's it all going with the car

 

Long gap for update- you'd think what with having all this time on my hands I'd be making quick progress but having 4 month and 30 month old babies to look after, leaves zero free time, day after day after day....

Picking up where I left off, the 3 foot pry bar still wouldn't separate the wishbone from the ball joint, even with me jumping on it. It did however remove the ball joint from the hub (whilst still attached to the wishbone). I imagine that this would be a lot easy with the car on a lift but all good in the end. Although I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get to use the fancy ball joint remover bought from ICP, as it looks a nicely engineered piece of kit.

Spot the odd one out....

 

Fitted the new wishbone without any drama, along with a spare Whiteline droplink I had and new Superpro ARB bushes each side.

I spent a while looking for a 32J wing without any joy. Lots of saloon wings or Blue wagon ones etc. In the end I found a cheap one that had been 32J but then had some weird matt overspray on it. The rest of the car that was being broke looked fine, just the one piece I actually wanted was defective. But it was cheap and available. It's also only going to be temporary so I can drive the car again.



Where you can see the white ripple by the headlight; that's the original shiny 32J paint....it might buff up but I'm really not bothered. I was a little annoyed when I received the wing, as whoever removed it, hadn't realised that to remove the bottom bolt on the B pillar, you first have to remove all the paint/underseal. They'd just pulled/twisted it off. It's not the end of the world though and you can't really see it. Also, I snapped the same bolt when removing my old wing (rust gets between the wing and the body)....easy enough to drill out and put a new nut and bolt through.

That weird bolt/nut combo I mentioned in post #165 pic 4? Yeah, that wasn't coming off so had to take a Dremel to it. Sure it can't be a Subaru fixing which I think confirms my long held suspicions that the bumper has been off previously, as the driver's side bumper doesn't align quite how it should with the wing. Probably had a bump in the past. The bumper has actually lined up well with the the replaced wing, however, there are plastic mounting brackets on the inside that have sheared off, so it will have to be replaced at some stage.

The biggest issue was the damage caused to the inner wing as per post #165 pic 3. I couldn't get the headlight to fit again and had to give the body some judicial persuasion for it to line up so that the headlight would fit and the mounting tab meet the securing hole in the frame. I also need to cut the plastic battery tray down by about 10mm.

The headlight housing at the rear (as well as the lens cover) was pretty smashed up, although all the lights work. Looking at my non-HID lights, it looks like the housing is identical to the HID units (there are even "HID" marking where the ballasts and motors should be attached) so I reckon I can swap the ballast and bulb holder from the smashed HID lights to the unabused non-HID units.

Ultimately the plan is still to swap the whole front end of my Bug onto this car.

 

So that's the mechanical and body parts sorted. I still need to refit the arch liner and plastic sill trim.

The final issue is the alignment. It's quite a long way out....It's much easier to see in the flesh but hopefully these photos comparing the passenger to driver side will illustrate the point:





So a lot of toe-out and negative camber. I was expecting the wheel to require alignment but the difference seems quiet pronounced, more than simply down to manufacturing tolerances?

I have been for a quick test drive to check if anything fundamentally was faulty (steering or drive for example) but everything seemed OK, except for some wheel vibration after a couple of miles, which I have put down to the toe-out.

I'm a little loath to pay for an alignment if there is something actually bent out of shape. But I didn't notice anything obviously amiss when working on the car. Bent ARB? Top mount/strut? Driveshaft? Also, I don't really want to just replace parts for the sake of it.

Here is a photo of the drop link angle, although I don't have the other side to compare.

 

https://www.scoobynet.com/car-parts-...trol-arms.html

Typical....

 

 

If only I could have seen into the future 5 weeks....

 

I finally got round to having a play with the camber. Looks like there is about 2 degrees of adjustment, so I just set it up with the lowest amount of camber. Visibly it still looks a bit out but the toe has come in quiet a lot and I expect when I get the tracking done, it will also adjust the camber further. More importantly, I have test driven it without any undue vibrations or causes for concern. I should also add that the camber gauges are only of limited use. Unless both sides of the car are on perfectly level ground, the readings are pretty meaningless. However, they are useful in showing how much adjustment you have applied.

 

I have a faint speed related hum from the wheel area. Not sure if it's bearing or pad dragging on the disc (I've had binding issues previously). Will monitor it and see if it gets any worse.

 

Wheel hum was wheel alignment (toe) BTW.

So the car is now sporting a fetching green door, courtesy of my recently departed Bug. It also has the uprated fuel pump fitted, plus I removed the Whiteline rear ARB - although I'm sure I've read somewhere that the Bug/Blob Wagon rear ARBs are different and not compatible between cars. Not sure what has changed at the rear for that to be so but haven't test fitted yet.

I've ordered some Pedders camber top mounts which should be arriving today. See if they are any different to the Whiteline ones - hoping that the bearing seat is angle as I suspect that is what caused the Whiteline ones to consistently fail. I've also going to mod the strut housings by cutting a big hole at the bottom so that the Koni insert can drop through and I should gain another inch or so of travel. With standard springs, the reduced travel probably isn't an issue but with the Prodrive springs being so short, the travel is already compromised to some extent. Every inch helps so my missus says... In the States, someone designed and made an alloy cup to go over the now exposed bottom of the insert and securely bolt it to the strut body. A shop bought the design, made one batch, sold out and never made anymore. So I'm going to just build it up with washers instead. A bit Jerry-Rigged but should work fine. Need to replace the bump stops too - hopefully 2-Pot will be along to advise whether a different model should be used.

Still needs a new wing and bumper. Undecided whether to just bite the bullet and order new from Subaru, as trying to find a decent set of Wagons body parts is proving difficult. Or swap to a saloon front end (both wings and bumper) as there is far greater choice. It will all need to be resprayed at some point and I really want an alloy bonnet too (more cost cutting when they moved from Bug to Blob) but that's all for another day. I'll get it Mot'd first and give it a full service.

 

I'm sure I've got some of those front (no point at the rear) Koni extenders, somewhere ....23mm extension, if I remember correctly.
However, Koni made 2 x differing OD's of threaded tube at the base of the insert - 20mm od and 25mm od. I machined some 25mm for the early versions.

Watch out for coil bind, with lowering springs, if you lower the front insert - contact between the top perch and the insert must occur before coil bind.
You can use the bump stops, to stop coil bind, but they are wear items.
These are useful to change contact points - Raid HP 300025:


I can suggest some bump stops, but I'd need the wheel centre to arch measurements.

FYI - The saloon front wings will increase the front wheel arch gap by 9mm.

 

What's your opinion on extending the inserts? The car definitely didn't handle broken roads as well as with the original KYB struts and was hitting the bump stops more frequently. I hadn't considered the increased gap from spring perch to top mount if I'm honest. I didn't come across it as an issue when I was researching in the US sites. I guess I could contact Peter Cambridge to see if he has an opinion.

WRT saloon wings, do you mean 9mm increase in width or height?

 

The saloon wings are wider, to allow for the wider track. The 9mm refers to an increased front wheel centre to arch measurement, as the curvature of the saloon front arch is also greater.

Dropping the insert will allow 23mm further bump travel, before contacting the bump stop, but coil bind will occur 23mm earlier, which may be an issue, depending on the spring design.

The oem 60mm front stops are soft. So, they'd be 30mm compressed before you start to feel them engaging. If you can frequently feel the stops engaging, I'd assume you must be riding on them at static ride height.

Lowering springs have less travel, before they coil bind - you could measure and add up the gaps you have between the coils, at ride height, or simulated ride height - jack under the suspension = the travel you have before coil bind.
Then push the bump stop fully upward and measure the gap between the 60mm front stop and its contact point on the insert. You may, however, find the bump stop is already pre-compressed or it has started to disintegrate, as it is constantly being heat cycled.

Or, we make an educated guess with shorter/stiffer front stops, which will depend on the current ride heights and don't drop the inserts.

The oem rear bump stops, which are 90mm and soft, may require the 2 smallest nodes cutting off. Again, depending on the current rear ride heights

 

So ride height centre wheel centre to arch are ~350mm both front and back.

Gaps between coils (measuring from front centre) is ~40mm

Couldn't measure the bump stop - not enough room to get my hand in and under the dust cover.

 

Don't drop the insert.

 

Car passed it's MoT today - no advisories.

Still having an issue with brake binding on the front. I'll have to strip them down in due course but maybe bite the bullet and buy some other pads, as I've been having issues with both calipers on and off for a couple of years now, since I swapped to PFC-Z pads.

 

Thought I'd give a update as it's been a few months since the last one.

The issue with the brake binding was to do with galvanic corrosion between the alloy calipers and stainless steel pads guides that screw into the calipers. Basically corrosion occurs between the caliper and the guides and forces the guides to bend out, thus causing the pads to bind. There are 4 guides per caliper. They have small hex bolts screwed into the calipers securing the guides. I managed to removed a couple of screws on each caliper, lift out the guides and clean up the corrosion. Perfect. The rest of the screws I couldn't undo. Managed to round one trying. So a job for another day - probably need some heat on them. After stripping and cleaning as much of the calipers as I could without actually removing them from the brake hoses, I then took a Dremel to the pads and ground the edges down until they moved smoothly in the calipers. I also cleaned up a couple of the pistons that were sticking. No more binding. Note to self - overhaul brakes once a year - not wait until they stop working properly!

Fitted the Pedders top mounts and stripped, cleaned and painted the struts before the MoT. Although the car passed with no advisories, it's clear that it need a new wheel bearing. From the wheel that took the crash impact. Unsurprisingly. I also have a clunk from the drivetrain that sounds like top mounts binding but I'm pretty sure now that it's the driveshaft. From the wheel that took the crash impact. Unsurprisingly. It's not all the time and you can drive round it. Basically it depends on how aggressively I apply right hand lock or whether I'm going over a bump at the same time as steering. As I say, I can drive round it but it's definitely there, and can be induced pretty much at will. So I'm guessing it's the driveshaft binding.

I did also replace the track rods and ends as that was relatively cheap and easy and figured I may as well replace EVERYTHING that took the force of the impact on the wheel (and obviously do the opposite side at the same time. That didn't fix the clunk unfortunately... So have resigned to replacing the driveshaft(s). Subaru want £550+ for a Wagon front driveshaft "They never fail, so there is no demand for them so we have to ship them in from Japan as a special order". Fair enough. I don't see any point in buying cheap aftermarket parts but neither do I want to pay crazy money for new OEM. Trying to find secondhand wagon shafts has been tricky, so potentially I am going to pick up a pair of saloon shafts, as they are only ~9mm longer and wisdom suggest they should fit without issue - although I'm guessing I will need to do both sides?

What else? Changed the oil in the rear diff. Will do the gearbox soon also. That's about it. When I was out of work I have lots of time but no money. Now I am working, I have lots of money but no time....The other big issue is that I'm simply not driving the car. At all. Maybe 5 miles a fortnight. I don't need to drive to work. We use my wife's Cayenne for family duties. On the very rare occasions that I do have a need to drive somewhere on my own, the wife's Cayenne is invariably parked in front and I can't be bothered to swap the cars over, so I just take hers. I need to book the car into to my local indy to get the wheel bearing changed and I'll get them to fit the driveshaft while they are at it. Thinking of also getting some Grp N engine & gearbox mounts fitted at the same time. Maybe I'll have some renewed interest in it again once the drivetrain issues have been fixed.

 

Just been reading the work since the accident. Good effort in getting back on the road! I thought it was destined for the scrapper.

 

So another year, another MoT. 723miles driven since the last one....Had to tweak the Lamdba probe to get it to pass, no big deal though. I've held off doing anything until it passed and had another 12 month ticket. I've replaced the rear diff oil and was going to do the gearbox but couldn't find my T70, so will have to wait until a new one is delivered. Have also order some service parts (fluids & filters).

Prior to the MoT, I managed to source a complete hub and a pair of genuine WRX Wagon driveshafts (second hand) from Matty B. I'm gambling that the bearing will be OK and I have a choice of 2 driveshafts - I can then replace the lot myself without having to get a garage to replace the bearing. Should it transpire that the replacement hub also has a duff bearing, I can take the one I have just removed and get the bearing replaced, rather than having to pay for the removal/fitting labour. That's the theory anyway.

Took it on a 200mile shakedown journey at the weekend. It's developed a knock/bang at the passenger side rear but I'm not convinced it's suspension related. Doesn't appear to be caused by bumps, it's more akin to something swinging and hitting the body, as if there was a tennis ball hanging from some string in the boot. Checked all the interior trim and boot contents. Doesn't happen if you open the boot and bounce the rear of the car, for example. Can't detect any play in the exhaust. Top mounts maybe? They must be 7 years old and 40k+. Struts have Koni inserts so figured that ruled out the classic Impreza strut knock?

I'm going to replace the Koni's with KYBs during the summer, so hopefully once I've stripped everything the source of the noise will become apparent or it will disappear upon install. Have to decide beforehand whether to replace the top mounts though.

Polished the headlights too!

 

Another year, another MoT pass. No advisories but the flanges on the centre section had rotted, so required a little welding. I have a full Miltek system in the garage that I'll have to get round to fitting next year.

Only covered 1300 miles this year but the body is beginning to look pretty tatty. Pretty much every panel needs attention, be it dents, chips rust etc. Doesn't make financial sense to tidy it up as it'll need a full respray and doubt I will ever see my money back. Best bet is to try and find second hand parts in the same colour that are better than those on the car.

But I have no real mechanical concerns other than a front wheel bearing and it's had lots of new parts over the last few years. Think I may try and promote the Subaru rat-rod look

 

Another year, another MoT pass...... driven 4500m this year - seems more than I remember!
The blowing exhaust didn't fixed itself unfortunately but I sealed it up with some high-temp silicone, so will be good for another year. Missed the rear number plate bulbs but a 5 min fix. Tyres need replacing but I have a couple of sets of winters to burn through first.

However, all was not good after the MoT, as I noticed a distinct lack of power, willingness to rev and a big flat spot at 4.5k. Checked boost - only running wastegate pressure. No CELs so presuming it wasn't an ECU cut. Actuator held a vacuum so diaphragm not split. Looked pretty rusty though and as I would have to remove it to investigate further, decided to buy a replacement and fit that anyway. Once removed and compared to the new one, it was clear that the spring had seen better days and no doubt not holding the wastegate closed above mechanical pressure.

Fitted the new one and straight back to ~19psi. I like an easy fix! All was not well as it still had a big flat spot at 4.5k. And again no CELs and I don't have a Tactrix to read the logs. I hadn't changed the plugs since I've had it, so decided to start there. PFR7Bs gapped to 0.70mm ready to go in. Removed the current plugs and they didn't show any worrying signs, just typical light grey deposits you'd expect from plenty of miles. However, they were PFR6Bs and gapped to 0.75mm (this maybe just due to corrosion). Fitted the new plugs and everything was immediately back to how it should be, pulling cleanly through to 6k. Another relatively cheap fix and I didn't waste any money replacing parts unnecessarily.

I've also found some renewed motivation to work on the car, now that we are in the Goldilocks weather (not too hot, not too cold, not raining) so I'm going to tackle a few more jobs that I've been neglecting. First is the leaking PS pump (covered in oil on top) which hopefully just requires some jubilee clips and a clean up. Then I may even give the engine bay a degrease and clean up - I put the washer tank in the dishwasher after I removed it to replace the plugs and it came up a treat - although there was some grumbling from the missus

Hopefully I'll find some spare time and cash to refresh the suspension this year and try and find some better condition panels to fit. And I expect the exhaust will need replacing which may necessitate a turbo upgrade (although I said all of this last year...).....although I'm increasingly aware of how crusty it's getting underneath so I'm hesitant about spending too much money on it - the cost to clean it all up, rustproof, fix the bodywork and paint, has me looking at WRXs on https://www.goo-net-exchange.com/ to import instead. I reckon I could get a mint rust-free wagon with less than 60k for ~£10k all in.


Still not done the front wheel bearing - it's not getting any worse though!

 

So finally got round to changing the springs and struts. Went for Whiteline Bug springs with Excel Gs. Swapped everything over and took it out for a test. Bang, bang, rattle, clank from the passenger front. Hmmm...
Had to go to Peterborough for work the next day so no time to investigate. Whilst there I took a punt that it was drop-link related and saw that Superpro were having a stock clearance, so got a set for half price. I was expecting these:



But what I received was the same design as the Whiteline ones:

https://i.imgur.com/NHtnxEe.jpeg
So fitted these.

No difference. Remove the whole strut and it was immediately obvious that there was play in the top mount bearing (that wasn't there before). Fortunately I have another set of the Pedders offset top mounts. So swapped them over. All good. For a bit anyway. I'm getting a progressively louder knock emanating from the same shock. Is it possible that I'm over tightening the strut nut and that's causing the bearing to fail? Pedders suggest that the nut should be tightened as per manufacturers specification, which is 55NM, according to Subaru. I couldn't get them that tight with a torque wrench. No issue from the driver's side. I have one more unused top mount to swap over, I'll try not tightening as much, unless anyone has alternative torque specs?

I'm also getting some noises from the rear on cornering, which is either ARB/Drop-link related or possibly spring bind.

As for the springs themselves, they drop both front and rear to 350mm, so will need some spacers made up for the rears. However, they are stiff. Unpleasantly stiff for a daily. I'll caveat this with the fact that I'm still running Winters with XL load rating. However, I don't remember my earlier Prodrive Blues/KYB combo being this stiff (even though these springs are rated lower than the Prodrives). They also feel less controlled over road undulations. I know that the Excel-Gs don't have a great rep for rebound control but again, I don't remember Prodrive Blues/KYB being this bad. They are obviously better when pushing on but I need something more liveable for DD.

So I plan to put the Prodrives back on with the new KYBs and see if they are as good as I remember. Then look for better shocks once the KYBs burn themselves out in a couple of years. If that's no good, then I'm not sure what other options I have - maybe fit OE springs and play about with ARB sizes?

 

49N/m for the front top mounts.

Do you need a spacer for the rear? Stock turbo wagon was 375mm front, 365mm rear (with a full tank).

Front cone washer positioned correctly?

33/28psi tyre pressures?

 

Subaru manual says 55nm. I'll try 49nm.

350/355 with the Prodrives, so I had a positive rake. 350/350 now.

Pretty certain the washer is in the right place between the cone and the top mount, as the first time I built them up I had it under the cone and the top mount wouldn't turn. So corrected it before I put it on the car.
I generally run the tyre pressures at 34 all round with the winters. Can play about with them. Plan to get some Goodyear Asymmetric 6s 91r in due course.

 

Tail of the base spring coil 6mm away from the rubber stop?

Centre hole in the upper perch rim, vertically aligned between the lower fixing brackets?

Cone washers like this?:

 

Couldn't say without taking one apart. I've done this about half dozen times before without issue - maybe I've just been lucky.