Zenki

From personal experience, refinishers will almost always focus on the smaller jobs to keep cashflow up; your car gets work done when time allows between regular prangs and bumper resprays. I'd expect a month or so. Would personally do a blue Subaru in Lexus 8X1 Ultrasonic Blue Mica 2.0, but I'm a sucker for Lexus pearls. The only problem would be finding somebody able and willing to spray 4-stage...

I'd look at listings for a 3.6R, although out of your two options I'd go with the EJ20 (turbo, I assume). The EJ253s are probably the lightest out of all the 5th gen Legacy engine options. Apparently late model WRX springs will fit BM/BR struts.

My 1/2" breaker bar is a 600mm Jonnesway that I grabbed from BNT for Flat Nats last year. Figured I'll just replace it if I break it since it cost not much money. Used it to undo big 40-something mm truck lug bolts that a 3/4 impact wrench didn't shift by jumping on it with a pipe on the end and still haven't managed to break it.

Cleaned up with white spirits (rocker covers in particular were absolutely filthy), prepped with white spirits and brake cleaner, then about three hours of masking for the manifold alone. Rocker covers were scuffed up with red Scotch-brite pad. The manifold was left as-is; I was working to a deadline and scuffing the surface with the pad looked to have pretty much zero effect, so I didn't bother. Forgot to bring the prepsol from work. I noticed that the last remnants of the factory red were on the smoother parts where the flashing was ground off, so for ideal paint adhesion you'd probably want to smooth out the entire surface of the manifold if you have the time and patience.

Pulled bits off it to sell.

Have a BR9, look for signs of rust in the seams at the top of the D pillars when you open the tailgate. Edit: not sure if it's a widespread issue or just mine, but there's a hint of rust starting to appear in the seams on mine.

Still straightening the bloody TMIC... EDIT: thought I was done straightening the TMIC, turns out some **** stuffed up the back too...

Brought it home. For the indefinite future is mine to tinker with as I see fit. Won't be prepped for a cert by itself...

Should be able to drill the hole no problem. Are they actually the right struts for your car - does the other end fit?

As some of you may know, the newer EJ engines use a stretch fit air conditioning belt. Plan A was to get a tensioner off an older motor from Pick a Part, but it turns out that it doesn't actually fit due to the front engine mount bracing. Probably possible to remove and refit one of these with a lever of some description, but I'd rather get the tool and do it properly - any recommendations? Thinking of getting the Lisle tool:

BMW would like a word with you. Flat torque curve from 1500-5000RPM.

Firenza's WRX STi, done between the two of us over a couple of days - cambelt, idlers, tensioner, water pump, thermostat, front main seal, oil filter (all Subaru genuine), oil, spark plugs, coolant, Lamco gauges, probably many other things I've forgotten about. Had to replace the centre portion of the timing cover due to a dumb courier running over it without looking where he was driving. One expedited trip to Avondale Pick a Part, an important appointment that we expected the car to be ready for, cleaning chemicals and a rattle can later... Poor car was then promptly flogged around Hampton Downs and didn't explode. Meanwhile, the Outback... didn't even put fuel into it...

2011 Outback, 142k

I used to host and maintain a couple of my own things. A Small Orange is my go-to host - I find that unless there's a member willing to donate a beefy connection to the cause, hosting locally isn't as cost-effective as people think.

For what it's worth, the placard on my Outback recommends a much higher pressure in the rear than in the front if carrying heavy loads, and that has 60 profile tyres.

Would depend on the car, I would imagine - MX-5 bonnets are fairly close to horizontal, there's no real way to get the sun reflecting off it into oncoming traffic without the sun blasting said oncoming traffic in the face anyway.

Work on this has been on and off, but here's a big progress update. Wet sanding by hand to... I think it was 800 grit. The sandpaper does not last long at all against this aluminium, it definitely wasn't intended to be used on metal. I rather like the brushed effect this has, but it'd be too difficult to get a brushed finish consistent over the entire bonnet by hand. Polished up a little test patch to make me feel better about all this work, got nice and shiny but machine marks are now blatantly obvious in the polished finish. F***K! Back to square... not one, about square three. Took the entire thing back to 500 grit, then wet sanded with 1000, 1500, and 2000, that seems to have dealt with the machine marks for the most part. There's still a couple of swirls and scratches visible, but I'm not too fussed - this is going on a racecar anyway, and it's just a practice run since I intend to polish the bonnet on my MX-5 when I buy that. Polishing this by hand takes forever... Like, seriously... On the plus side, something in these metal polishes kills mosquitoes. Eventually got tired of rubbing at the entire thing by hand. Managed to pilfer the big ol' Rupes rotary buffer from work, bought a cheapo polishing pad (cheers to Firenza for delivery) and went at the bonnet with that and the Mothers alloy polish. Only took a couple of hours to finish off the rest of the bonnet: I'm now on the hunt for an even finer polish and the softest cloths I can get my hands on to bring it right up to a mirror finish - as it is now, it's a little bit dull in spots. Might just need a bit more rubbing by hand while attached to the car, I've found it's difficult to get good pressure on the bonnet without it securely mounted at waist height or so. Maybe I'll give those 3M paint correction products a go. The cutting compound does seem to be aggressive enough to polish aluminium (telltale blackening of polish) so hopefully their Machine Polish and Ultrafine Machine Polish should be in the same basket. There was a little discussion about the cost of doing this if someone pranged you, bent your bonnet, and had to pay to replace it. A fairly standard insurance rate is $52+GST/hr, and I'd estimate this would take 15 hours if done properly. Let's call it $120 for materials - paint stripper, sandpapers, polishes, polishing pad, tons of cloths and rags - and you're looking at well over a thousand dollars not including initial purchase of the bonnet. Ouch.

All you should have to do is swap the caliper and rotors over. EDIT: actually, would help if you told us what chassis and year the two cars are.

North Shore pre-meet mini meet. Guess who lives around the corner from me.

Figured this might get a bit lengthy so I decided to make a new thread. No, it's not a Subaru; the bonnet is off im-a-bus' NA Miata. Just been stripped back to bare aluminium with a random combination of 120, 150 and 240 grit on an orbital. Didn't use paint stripper because a) the decent ones are fairly expensive, and b) I don't want to handle more harmful and/or caustic substances than I really have to. It turns out that neither 3M 120 nor 150 grit doesn't stand up to aluminium very well. The box of 240 I have on hand (Wurth, I think) did a much better job of not being rendered useless in half a minute of sanding, so paint removal was mostly left to that stuff. Now needs 500 with the orbital. The plan is to use some combination of wet sanding with 800, 1200, 1500, 2000 and 3000 grits. Haven't decided whether to finish with Mothers aluminium polish or 3M cutting compound and machine glaze - I've never worked with bare aluminium before, and apparently Autosol doesn't do a good job on aluminium. Yes, those are dents, which I am extremely unhappy to see. I can't really do anything about them because I can't access them from behind, the interior structure of the bonnet is in the way. I'll probably have to perform some wizardry with vinyls and a Mazda emblem I salvaged from a second-hand Demio tailgate to cover them up. im-a-bus wants to use a Z badge from her 300ZX instead. Nissan owners Shouldn't be too hard to get rid of those machine marks, but we'll see how it goes. They're fairly fine. Work stopped at this point because I like being able to use my wrists thank you very much.

This post got rather long so I made a thread for it.

Ordered a replacement for this trim panel which got bitten by a wild Miata bonnet. Was not cheap.

Drove it up Firenza's driveway, Outback offroading like a boss it's actually paved but there's so many massive potholes that an unsealed road would be smoother, how does this guy get a WRX up this f****

From experience Arrow can fix almost anything, but expect at least $300-400 per wheel if they need straightening or welding. Cheaper to find a replacement if you have the time and patience. We use them for insurance jobs when switching out the entire set isn't an option, beats $1000+ for a brand new factory alloy.

Yup. Heatshield.