What a rookie!

I actually got to wrench on the car today, although, it wasn't as much as I would have liked.  I only go the plugs, plug wires, and coil done.  The old plugs were pretty worn/widely gapped, coming in a .060 or wider.  I also found the boot on the number four plug wire ripped.  Either way, I shouldn't have anymore trouble with my misfire while it's wet.  I did make a rookie mistake and forgot to gap the new plugs on the driver's side, so I had to pull them all over again.  Anyone who has a DOHC Subaru knows how much of a pain this can be.

Working in my engine bay reminded me just how dirty it really is after my last motor blew up and spewed oil all over the place...I need to take some degreaser and a hose to it when I'm done with all this work.

I also found out what the little rattle was under my car when I hit bumps...left a swaybar endlink bolt loose when I did the front end rebuild.  That's fixed now, too.  Finally, some progress...feels good.

Lets do work.

I was fortunate enough to get the weekend off, so I took some time to clean up the garage and try to do a little organizing (I really need to build some shelves).  This makes room for my next week's worth of work: front rotors, Powerstop pads, freeing and regreasing the front slide pins, new Goodridge G-Stop brakes lines, plugs, plug wires, ignition coil, exhaust gaskets, fog lights, and replacing the transmission, as well as the shift linkage, clutch, pressure plate, and flywheel.  Hopefully, I can work on getting some summer tires and springs after all this is done.

New paint

I have been up in the air as to how I want to paint the car.  It's going to be a cheap job, as the Subie is more of a beater than anything.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy driving it, but it's pretty beat up and I don't really care enough to put all the effort into fixing every little ding that the car has.  I had planned on painting the car with Rustoleum, either by spray can or by the infamous roller paint job, and my choices are between black or charcoal gray.

I was messing around in the garage, yesterday, kind of aimlessly.  I found a couple cans of semi-gloss black, some sandpaper, mineral spirits, and my replacement fender I got from another SLi member.  Behold my awesome rattle-can skills.

I'm really liking the semi-gloss black.  The fender has a couple of very small dings, which are easily hidden.  I'm pretty sure the whole car will get treated with semi-gloss black and probably do bronze for my summer wheels.  I always wanted a black car.

Up To Speed

Since I've had my driver's license, I've been a Subaru enthusiast.  I've owned a Subaru for most of my driving life.  My first car, a 1998 Legacy L, was my pride and joy.  A list of suspension mods a mile long,0 JDM 4-pot brakes, Wheels, Tires, a few engine bolt-on's, and a stereo.  It was an automatic, but still fun on the autocross course and it got me around.  For some reason, which I still can't recall, I traded the that car in for a truck.  It was dumb.  That brought me to my second Subaru, which I bought as a daily driver to offset my new purchase's fuel costs.  It was a 1998 Legacy Outback that I found in the ad bulletin, listed as needing a new motor.  I went and looked at it, finding it to have the same lifter ticking that all Subaru's of the era seem to have.  It was dirty and rough, so I offered the guy $600 (half of his asking price).  He accepted.  I cleaned the car up, put quite a few hours into the paint, replaced the knock sensor and exhaust, and later sold it to my parents for less than I had in it.  At around a quarter million miles, that car is still in our family and runs fine to this day with the original motor and transmission.

After about a year, I went on the search for another Subaru, aiming for a two door Impreza or Legacy GT.  Craigslist lead me on a few wild goose chases, including an Outback with a five speed in mint condition that the owner decided to keep once I committed to buying.  I finally found a Legacy GT a couple hours away.  It was rough, had a noise in the motor, and needed a ton of TLC.  It was a 5 speed, though, and silver like my old car, so I jumped on it.  This car had been beaten on.  A few modifications had been done by previous owners, but the car was in a state of disrepair.  The more I dug into it, the more I found broken.  I fixed a lot of little things, threw my roof rack on top and some JDM Projectors on the front, painted the stockers, and drove the hell out of the car.

My fun didn't last long, though.  The motor noise, which I had brushed off as severe lifter tick ended up being much more.  One night, while I was driving home from work, the engine threw a rod through the side of the block.  Normally, I could have picked up a spare engine from someone decently local for a hundred bucks or so, but those motors had all disappeared.  I ended up finding one just a couple miles away and paid $800 for it.  It had already had the headgaskets replaced, so i threw it in.  It fired right up, and the Subie lived again.

It wasn't long after this that I went to fix a nagging vibration in the front of the car.  I started by replacing a front axle, which lead me to find a bad wheel bearing and tie rods.  While the car was apart, I replaced both wheel bearings, ball-joints, inner and outer tie rods.  This ended up taking a while, as money was tight and the car was a third vehicle to my fiancee and I, but we had just gotten a new house with a garage, which kept the Subie warm at night.

This pretty much brings us up to speed.  The car already has an aftermarket rear swaybar and differential brace, as well as strut tower bars.  The struts are shot, though, and will be replaced before long when they are replaced with the springs.  I will eventually be building a new exhaust for the car, repainting it, swapping in a newer transmission (my 3rd gear synchros are shot, as well as the shift linkage), and rebuilding the brakes.  I would like to swap the seats out for something from a WRX or newer Legacy as well.  It will be a slow build, and this car will never be fast, as I don't need it.  More on that some other time.