What have you done to your car today?

[Joker]

Foam also likes to hold moisture & used to be a seed for the Tin -worm (rust)

[boon]

Controversial opinion: If you want a "dead" car, buy an Audi.

[Gripless]

Found more rust, again tiny. The rails have been rubbing and made little 2mm circle of missing paint.

Got bored/brave and cleared up all the rusted stone chips around the car. So scratched rust and treated, primed all ready for painting.

 

 

Tested roof sound deadening and it’s just quieter to notice, but not a big improvement. Though other than rain noise I think will be back when factory headliner goes back in since it is far more reflective than the foam. 

 

The heat insulation on the other hand is obvious. With a window cracked it doesn’t increase in temp anymore. The outside is too hot to hold your hand on but inside is warm but not hot. 

The downside is when parked in underground where it’s cold, the car is still same hot temp when you get back. Even when roof was cold the car stays insulated.

 

I did figure out the roof rib bracing gets to about the same temperature as the roof skin. Roof ribs now has thermal tape of fibreglass and alloy like exhaust wrap but super thin.

 

At 100kph the roof skin cools down from 70-80 degrees to more like 40 degrees. So didn’t need AC running on motorway.

All this is still without the headliner which should add more insulation.

[Timmah]

11 hours ago, boon said:

Controversial opinion: If you want a "dead" car, buy an Audi.

Not wrong - less interior rattles would be so nice too  

[Gripless]

11 hours ago, boon said:

Controversial opinion: If you want a "dead" car, buy an Audi.

They are nice cars, until you needs parts.

Edited January 14 by Gripless

[Gripless]

Headliner back in, just need to tape A pillar wires back to the holders

 

Lost one bolt somewhere along the way. They were all screwed back in but some fell out when driving. Turns out they are all cage nut from datacenter phone sized, so easy to replace.

 

Painting went well, no spills or runs. Even colour matched well. Did the stone chips and roof gouge all with reasonable success. 

 

Will give it 24 hours to cure then still the roof rails back on.

 

[Gripless]

Car all back in one piece.

The roof rail clips all worked fine, but they really do need the 2 little tabs to prevent any movement. The tabs were missing from all but 1 clip when I took them off. 
I found a couple in among the plant matter under the rails, but seems they get brittle and fall off.

[Gripless]

Added eyelids to headlights.

Noticed when doing indicator bulbs the top of the lens was getting a bit worn. Looks like a mix of sun and dust blasted stripping off the top layer of polycarbonate.

 

Will add a door foam tape weather seal above headlights to seal to bonnet to stop the air travelling along top of lens in future.

[WRXER]

Minor updates test fitted the headlight covers, awaiting last of the parts to land then off to panel & paint.....Finally

 

 

 

[Timmah]

Last year, a friend Mitch and I went halvsies in a 1999 Impreza SRX with the idea of beating it on the track when he's up from Queenstown and I'd personally use it a hack to take tramping and throw the bike in.

 

Recently I've started to tidy it up a little:

 

I think some new struts all round, 16" wheels with some better rubber and if I can some GTB sway bars, it will be a very fun little car, with no power

[Gripless]

Finally cut out big hole in fenders behind the front wheel vents for more air flow.

 

Just used a nibbler for the bulk and Dremel to finish and round the edges. One side is primed and painted in matched colour the other side is waiting on more parking space to dremel and paint.

 

https://www.jaycar.co.nz/nibbling-tool/p/TH1768

 

 

other people have done this ages ago. The 5 hole idea works and is far quicker but the lowest hole won’t flow as the plastic cover gets in the way. Better to enlarge the bigger factory oval than make the lowest hole…

https://www.iwsti.com/threads/fender-rear-engine-vent-optimizing-performance.191959/page-8?post_id=3207454#post-3207454

edit…

the most important thing when making holes or cutout other than don’t cut the chassis and wiring is…

leave the 5-10mm around any bend or crease in the metal so it has some strength left.

Edited January 26 by Gripless

[Gripless]

Too much happened today so only managed to get second coat of priming done at 1am.

edit..

all painted and just waiting on some new panel clips and the replacement sti badges.

Edited January 26 by Gripless

[Gripless]

Found few drops of something under the car towards rear of engine and  just passengers side of centre.

 

looked almost clear, possibly a bit yellow and didn’t smell much.

 

PS fluid is red.

brake and clutch colour is close.

engine oil is brownish.

It didn’t smell much like any of those. 

 

pulled intercooler off to check clutch master and slave.

Master is full to top, slave is dry.

AC issues

Started wiping a few bits to see if anything was wet.

 

Then saw the AC connector(expansion valve) on firewall was dirty. When started to clear it the foam(packing) surround was full of yellow oil. 

EXPANSION VALVE 73531FG000

PACKING 72133FG050

Checked the bolt online and it’s a Allen key bolt and mine is a standard 6 sided one.

BOLT 73570FC000

 

Guess when engine put in one of two times it been out someone put the wrong bolt in. Since this is a new issue it’s likely it was part of the rebuild.

 

 

Still not convinced 

While it matches colour and is on the correct side it could still be gearbox fluid or brake fluid.

 

Will have to take it to local shop to get it up on hoist. 

 

 

edit…

Had a Subaru guy look at it and says looks like wrong bolt is fitted. So may need to be removed cleaned new o-ring and make sure pump still has correct amount of oil. Hopefully it’s not a short bolt that been over tightened or the dash may have to come out to replace the lines inside that it all threads up too.

 

edit…

clean out most of what was behind the foam and while full of oil it doesn’t seem to have left any trace down the firewall so looking like it’s not what was on the ground.

 

On a side note the roof insulation seems to work both for heat and noise.

 

 

Edited January 29 by Gripless

[Gripless]

Replacement fender badges arrived. This time they are the correct ones, so stuck those on.

 

Ordered

• 63269FJ120 replacement hatch gas struts as they started to not open fully in the last few weeks. 
• Generic replacement antenna as the original one is a bit bent.
• sideskirt large push clips as found that a couple are missing.
• assorted panel clips as missing some from wheel liners.

 

Edited February 4 by Gripless

[Gripless]

Installed one speaker in passengers door, ran out of time with other little bits I found today.

 

Found sound deadening was pushing old speaker into grill. Was the 2mm tar and foil stuff. Removing it isn’t hard but the foil is razor sharp as I found out.

 

Ground inner grill to make more clearance.

Added some foam to door skin where no factory wool was covering.

 

Found issue with driver door lock.

passengers one has a ball and little pin. Drivers one doesn’t have the pin. Must have broken off when they tried to break the lock.

 

found air vent to passengers front foot well was unclipped and loose. How it came loose I don’t know but it was a pain to get it clipped back in.

Edited February 4 by Gripless

[Joker]

Nothing Subaru as of the past 4 years? Other than Put a Battery in it and move it to mow the lawns

 

 

still needs a head gasket : still have a Spare V4 Motor on a Pallet in my Shop

 

Instead : I put a Battery into the Red car and Drove it to Local Car Club Meeting last night 😎 

 

Auto-X's coming up so now I have motivation to fix that!

[Gripless]

Fitted second front speaker.

 

Had a few issues getting kicker KEY amp to auto EQ.

 

https://kickernz.co.nz/car-audio/amplifiers/key-smart

 

• First time failed since new front are 6dB more sensitive needed to fade to rear manually by ear until seemed close.
• Second was failure from volume not loud enough.
• Third time it succeed.

New speakers are way clearer than old ones, but still sounds better after EQ. Mainly more lower mid bass the rest was already nice and flat.

New 3/4” silk dome tweeters are better than the cloth 1/2” ones. Clean and soft highs, nothing harsh even at loud volumes. Though new retail price is nearly 10x different, lucky no one wants car audio much anymore so got them dirt cheap.

 

 

Plus had to add sound deadening to outer door skin this side since the door was replaced when handle was screwdrivered and bent metal. Panel beaters  just swapped door rather than they to fix the handle mounts etc. With they added dynamat sheet between door and interior trim, they didn’t do the reflection pad.

 

Edited February 6 by Gripless

[Timmah]

15 hours ago, Gripless said:

Fitted second front speaker.

 

Had a few issues getting kicker KEY amp to auto EQ.

 

https://kickernz.co.nz/car-audio/amplifiers/key-smart

 

• First time failed since new front are 6dB more sensitive needed to fade to rear manually by ear until seemed close.
• Second was failure from volume not loud enough.
• Third time it succeed.

New speakers are way clearer than old ones, but still sounds better after EQ. Mainly more lower mid bass the rest was already nice and flat.

New 3/4” silk dome tweeters are better than the cloth 1/2” ones. Clean and soft highs, nothing harsh even at loud volumes. Though new retail price is nearly 10x different, lucky no one wants car audio much anymore so got them dirt cheap.

 

 

Plus had to add sound deadening to outer door skin this side since the door was replaced when handle was screwdrivered and bent metal. Panel beaters  just swapped door rather than they to fix the handle mounts etc. With they added dynamat sheet between door and interior trim, they didn’t do the reflection pad.

 

What speakers did you opt for?

I think I put some Focal ones in the WRX, paired with a little Sony 4CH amp, but they sound quite muddy and I haven't been able to EQ them to anything nice. 

 

 

Today - the Popemobile got a new knock sensor and new plugs. It had a CEL which I'm sure was for the knock sensor.. but the one I pulled out looks OEM and only a few years old.. Another thought was it's the o2 sensor.

[Gripless]

11 minutes ago, Timmah said:

What speakers did you opt for?

I think I put some Focal ones in the WRX, paired with a little Sony 4CH amp, but they sound quite muddy and I haven't been able to EQ them to anything nice. 

Alpine DDDrives, old models but still better than 90% of any speaker ever. They had a RRP of NZD$1399 when new.

They also require very little EQ to sound good.  It they lack mid bass on the co-axial model.

 

Those KEY amps and auto EQ are very good though. The old JBL infinity Harmon ones sounded very bad with the amp EQ. 
 Just load the mp3 pink noise and wait 10 minutes and it’s pretty good.

Edited Friday at 02:24 AM by Gripless

[Timmah]

2 hours ago, Gripless said:

Alpine DDDrives, old models but still better than 90% of any speaker ever. They had a RRP of NZD$1399 when new.

They also require very little EQ to sound good.  It they lack mid bass on the co-axial model.

 

Those KEY amps and auto EQ are very good though. The old JBL infinity Harmon ones sounded very bad with the amp EQ. 
 Just load the mp3 pink noise and wait 10 minutes and it’s pretty good.

 

Notice. The ol' WRX shell and a loud exhaust = no mid bass. I've got an under seat sub that helps a little but, but it's not loud enough

[Gripless]

2 hours ago, Timmah said:

 

Notice. The ol' WRX shell and a loud exhaust = no mid bass. I've got an under seat sub that helps a little but, but it's not loud enough

I’m getting more convinced that the roof insulation and soundproofing makes a big difference to exhaust drone.

[Timmah]

Swapped steering wheeling for one that is a lot nicer:

 

 

[Gripless]

1 hour ago, Timmah said:

Swapped steering wheeling for one that is a lot nicer:

 

 

That is a big improvement.

Have you thought about “flocking” the dash to hide the cracks?

Used to be popular option to fill cracks with flexible gap filler like “no more gaps” that is white, then flock over it so it’s all black again.

 

But since it just static mesh tool that modellers use to do grass they are cheap and you could attempt it yourself.

Many rally cars still do it as the idea is to reduce glare so places can do it for you.

 

[boon]

I've kinda always wanted a flocked/alcantara dash, I think they are cool as hell. Only place I could find in NZ that does it is in Hamilton though, and last time I shipped a dash the courier completely f***ed it.

[Gripless]

I had my last one done in south Auckland.

Before that I used felt on dash and the A pillars.

 

 

But after watching how it was done, and realising the tool is around $25 next time I’ll give it a go myself.