100 replies to this topic

[duncanm]

Lifted gen 2 with H6??

     

http://offroadsubaru...read.php?t=1940

[Barbbachello]

     

http://offroadsubaru...read.php?t=1940

yes

[acres]

What a wicked build, look's like you have a tonne of fun with it too.

 

Cabin doesn't leak when crossing water? Some of those crossing's looked pretty deep.

[simon]

Such an epic build!!! Congrats mate.

[El_Freddo]

Thanks guys.

Yes the Gen II is a H6 conversion. It's got some crazy serious balls on it for an offroading Subaru! Same for the forester. Both are driven just as hard and both Are very stable when sideways at speed (like all Subarus if you know what you're doing!).

With water crossings it's generally pretty good unless you stop - then it comes in just about every where. Sometimes it does come in through the door seals up front. Driving on dirt roads is the worst as I usually have the windows down which then sucks the dust in. Not good.

But it's an offroader so I'm not particularly bothered until it's hard to breathe, which can happen with the right type of dust...

Shed time coming up this weekend so I'm hoping to be a step or two further along come Monday.

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

After reading Scott's "back in black" thread with a youtube clip posted it reminded me that I've got a couple stashed away: If you're not up for all the vids (there are a few!), at the very least check out the last one

"the build video" up to the point that I had the lift and tyres, but before the scorpion 5 spokes:




The "new" (now "old") exhaust, run up Mt Hotham in fwd as was still PT4wd at this stage:



Trophy videos:





My best trophy video to date:



There are others but I think I've definitely put up quite a list for now

If you watch any of the other videos, yes that was me jumping out of the window - you'll know what I mean when you see the video it's in

That's all for now. I'm still trying to put the gearbox together, work and lack of time are my current enemies plus a couple of little hurdles that need to be tackled along the way :/

I hope there are many more good times like the above to come in Ruby Scoo!

Cheers

Bennie

[FR34KO]

This is very, very cool

[Matt]

Such a cool car! Very capable by the looks of it aswell

[El_Freddo]

Shed time ahoy!

Yesterday I got the front diff settings sorted. This was a really big thing for me to get right. The first gearbox I ran with on the EJ conversion I did by feel and it was running really well when it came out to put this box in.

Leaving out the input shaft allowed me to only bolt up the cases once which made things LOADS easier:



I've also spent some time installing the low range oil feeders into the SG cases:





And had to shave some casing to make the L series low range selector fork fit properly. I was privileged to use a mate's air belt sander that created a VERY neat and smooth surface once completed:



The finished product with enough clearance to make it work without losing the dedent ball:



Got a lot to do tomorrow but I feel that I've finally got the momentum I've been longing for since Term One!

I'm hoping tomorrow will see an almost complete gearbox if not a gearbox in one piece. I'm looking forward to fitting this back in to Ruby Scoo. I still have to fit the new rear main seal, then the flywheel/clutch etc.

Lastly, this is Ruby Scoo and how she's been "living" for the last 8 months, slowly collecting more and more crap on top of her because it's easy that way



Barbbachello, you're welcome to come up and clean/organise my shed if you're not busy

Last night I also got stuck into some rust I've been putting off. Now I wish I got onto it earlier:

Before a wire wheel:



After wire wheeling:



This is all under a coat of rust buster and is awaiting further treatment to seal it all up. I might have to go a bit further in areas under the paint due to the rust making "in roads":



At least this is easily accessible. I'll also have to do the inside of the guard as this is where I think the rust started.

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

Ok, so I left you off with the building of the oil feeders. During install and shaping in the gearbox one of them broke - which was a good thing as frustrating as it was at the time!

To fit the front one I had to do some shaving as you can see here:



Shaved so that the barb's thread can mate neatly with the tapped thread in the gearbox case:



Next time I'd flatten the area I tapped so that the barb is fitted in a more vertical position - but I'm hoping there's not a text time too

L series Low Range side or transfer gears:



Oil feeders installed and shaped to clear the spinning gears while still pointing oil in the direction it's needed (double checked with the input and top shaft installed):



I had to swap the L series Low Range Input Shaft into the bearing and housing of the SG gearbox. I followed Phizinza's guide from his forum here.

Here are the input shafts for the low range, on the left the SG 1.19:1, on the right the L series 1.59:1:



On the top the SG, bottom is the L:



I had to swap the selector rods and forks back into the SG cases, more annoying than anything, at least I didn't have to nut it out again:



Then the rest of the good gear could go in:



When putting the input shaft in, you have to make sure you've got the synchro hub setup on the upper shaft (input gearsets) with the three little tabs inside the hub held in place properly by two circlip like springs. Once you've got these in you have to install the synchro ring.

Here you can see the gold synchro ring and one of the little tabs in the hub (difficult to see in this pic as you can only see the end of it):



In this pic you should be able to make out the little tab better, the bottom edge of the selector fork is in line with the end of the tab:



It's very important that these little tabs are lined up with their slot in the gold synchro ring, otherwise it either won't work or one or more of the tabs could fall out:



This is a mock up of the gearbox together after I snapped the soldering on one of the low range oil feeders - I'm glad I did this as I learnt a few things about putting it together and I also realised over night that I forgot to fit the little arm piece on the selector arm that keeps the arm in the selector fork pieces (if that makes sense) to select gears. Anyway, gearbox:



Once I actually got the box back together properly with silicone and bolts etc it was time to put it back under Ruby Scoo. I did this with some jack stands and the aid of a motorcycle jack:



This took a bit of effort to get it in the right spot and on the right angle on the jack, but once it worked all went well. I also found that I had two dowels on one side - one in the engine and one in the gearbox... So I fixed that. I also made sure I had the clutch fork and throw out bearing fitted!

Gearbox going in on the motorcycle jack:



All went relatively well after this. I've still got a couple of things to do but she runs and did a ~160km "shake down" run two days after the gearbox was installed, and making friends already:



The day after the pic above she made even more new friends with some younger siblings:



A couple of things about the new box:

- the ratios seem closer together than the last box (I believe it ran the RX turbo ratios)
- speedo reading is about 4km/h UNDER your actual speed, going to see if I can mess around with the cluster to make it more accurate or show a little bit over actual speed
- the 5th ratio I've chosen rev's higher than I calculated, will see what happens there, I *might* swap it back, but it's a lot of work!
- I forgot to add a stud for the lower starter motor mounting bolt, so I've just got one bolt holding it in - I'm not fussed on this as I've run like this before without issue

I forgot how tall Ruby Scoo is! It's awesome to be back in her but she seems to lack that bark I remember her to have. Will have to check out the induction noise through the snorkel as I haven't checked that out yet - too cold to run with the window down!

I've also lost that annoying vibration I had at about the 3000rpm mark - I think it was due to one of those little tabs in the synchro hub falling out in the old box (found it after an oil change!).

Overall I'm pretty happy with it. Ruby Scoo rolled over to 492,000km on the shake down too.

Now to hook up the low range lever and hit some tracks

Cheers

Bennie

[Matt]

So much effort gone in to this old girl . So good to see!!

Keep the posts coming as i love the info

[El_Freddo]

Thanks mate!

And I certainly will do regardless of discussion

Things should slow down for a while now - it's basic stuff, new bushes in some places, tidying up of the paint, further painting under the vehicle to help seal up for the next beach adventure (whenever that happens).

I'm thinking of looking into my choice of 5th gear though, revs I was expecting at 100kmph was 2850-2900. What I got was ~3000rpm or a little above. So I don't know what I did wrong there but I'm seriously thinking of messing around with this if I can find the ratio that would be best suited, or I'll probably wait for a trip when I'm loaded up and make my judgement from that.

I also think that the snorkel effects the operation of the AFM at speed - that little bit of "ram air" effect would push air past the AFM rather than having it sucked past. I need to play around with this and have been thinking of putting a shield in front of the snorkel's intake about 1cm off the plastic grill. I can't bring myself to twisting the snorkel sideways or backwards unless it's raining hard - it just doesn't look right!

Anyway, things to do!

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

Ok so I've put about 1000k's on the box.  And it's back on the bench again

Today I was meant to be leaving for a 5 day desert trip through the Murray Sunset NP, Big Desert SP and the Wyperfeld NP.  Last weekend I was meant to head bush near M&D's place for a day of offroading bliss and a shake down.  After hooking up my low range lever (finally!) it turned out the gearbox was jammed in high range.

No good for offroading!  So I was a passenger for the day, then started pulling the gearbox out when I got home.

Today has seen a few mods to the low range selector arm with a mechanical stopper.  The issue seems to be the ability to "select beyond" high range which then allows one or more of three little tabs to move from where they should be, thus locking the motion of the selector hub.  This is yet to be tested, tomorrow will be the big day.

All going well I'll have the box back together tomorrow after noon, most of the install work completed tomorrow night, then the touch ups Monday before heading off to camp

 

"Educational pics" to follow

 

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

So the long awaited update is here! I didn't get the box sorted by the time I wanted and thus no trip

So after modifying the L series low range selector fork with new dedent ball locations and a mechanical lock out, the selector hub now can't go too far when in high range

Old dedent ball slot positions:



New dedent ball positions:



Mechanical lock out - this is only used if the selector hub tries to go further than it should:



One of the reasons for this mod was because (as previously stated above) I thought the tabs trying to come out was why the gearbox was stuck in high range, the other, after pulling the gearbox apart was because I didn't think the dedent ball and spring could hold the selector hub where it needed to be and could go further due to the input shaft having a larger gap between the synchro hub and the low range synchro:



^ note the gap between the synchro (gold) and synchro hub (grey) on the RHS of the selctor hub (centre of pic), compare this to the other side. The gap on the right is larger than the left. This is AFTER the shim on the input shaft bearing's housing was removed. It was WAAAAYYY too big for my liking with the shim.
I don't know how I didn't notice that when I first put the gearbox back together.

The other thing was that none of this was actually the issue in the end - I found out that the cause of the whole locked issue was a little washer. The rest of the work can therefore be put down to refinement

You can see the little washer in this pic, just out of focus in the top right (from the previous post):



With that sucker removed and the cases together it all works smooth as silk!

I also threw in some new front diff bearings and seals too:





So shiny! The old ones had a definite track in them and a good mate told me he'd be replacing those (last May), throw in a whirring noise at speed and I thought it best to swap them. For the ~$90 it was worth it even though I've still got the whirring noise - probably due to either the tyres being misaligned or the new Nolathane radius rod bushes I've installed.

I also really wanted to do something about my speedo being out by 4km/h, over from what was indicated - easiest way to get a ticket in Vic. My mini collection of speedo drive gears was in Shepp and I was doing the build in Cobaw at M&D's. I managed to find one gear - a 27 tooth unit on an old box build I originally did with the EJ conversion. I counted what I had (stock SG 4.11:1 speedo drive gear) and found this unit had 28 teeth.

From what I can remember the 27 toothed unit came from a 3.7 gen 1 or gen 2 liberty - it was so long ago I don't really remember. The 28 tooth and fitted 27 tooth drive gear:



So it was time for the finally assembly:



I also found a cardboard template of the bolting sequence helpful in assembly:



"Shim holders/case guides" - used cable tie tails:



Such a good sight to see - especially after dropping a little retainer bolt back into the gearbox. That was a frightening moment!



Overnight I started self doubting about the choice of speedo drive - it could be 10 or 20km/h OVER actual speed, which would've been pretty annoying and I'd still have to rely solely on the GPS.

Loaded onto the motorcycle jack for fitment. I made a shaped block of wood to raise the gearbox further for the mating to the engine as Ruby Scoo was up on ramps.



From here it all came together rather quickly including interruptions - gearbox on shed floor in the morning, 10am start (warmer!), driving by 7pm - I was happy with that effort anyway:



I managed to get the drive shafts fitted without having to drop the ball joints and swing the hub out - you just have to get them on before you start to line up the box with the engine Worked a treat and saved some time and some dodgy operations!



You can see the block of wood in this pic above.

Aaaannndddd DONE! Low range works and is very smooth in shifting, as is the rest of the box once it's warm:



The best bit? Well, the first drive and the test of the low range was great, but what made me really stoked was that the choice of speedo drive gear was SPOT ON!!

So in my application with 27 inch tyres and 4.111:1 diff ratio the 27 tooth speedo drive gear is spot on with indicated to actual speed. Very happy with this!

Now time to use this offroad weapon!

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

Awesome, got offroad over the cup long weekend - even scored some night 4wd'n for the first time!

This was also my first solo trip - it doesn't sound like a big deal, but when in the middle of the bush even 30km from the closest town it's definitely something not to be taken lightly! We had a blast anyway.

Just a quick post with some pics before I manage to get a better set of pics sorted. The "venue" was the Strathbogie Ranges south of Benalla, East of Strathbogie (township).

This was one of the larger boulders on the Lighting Ridge Track:

 DSC_2496_Strathbogie_Ruby_Scoo_boulder.jpg   293.84KB   2 downloads

We cruised around, found many "highway" tracks - basically old logging tracks that were pretty smooth driving, not what we were really looking for. We saw some interesting things along the way, this was one of them:

 DSC_2506_Ruby_Scoo_Crystal_Creek_Rd.jpg   275.57KB   2 downloads

Sunday afternoon, camp setup for the expected storms - it was a great time to be out camping! Got a fire going in the rain too, quite an effort:

 DSC_2527_Strathbogie_camping.jpg   215.25KB   2 downloads

On our way out of the area we stopped by Mt Bugaree for a pic on a rock:

 DSC_2642_Ruby_Scoo_Mt_Bugaree.jpg   100.31KB   2 downloads

More to come later on the pics, no action shots since I didn't kick Mrs El_Freddo out to play with the camera...

Very happy with the performance of Ruby Scoo, got a short list of things to change mechanically and a slightly longer list to add to the next trip for the kit.

Cheers

Bennie

[Barbbachello]

Love these posts. So different to everything else on this forum. When is your turbo swap happening haha 😜.

[El_Freddo]

When is your turbo swap happening haha .

Hahahaha! Yeah right. I'd probably go supercharger over turbo, but that said if the bits came up cheap enough who know's what might happen.

Back in the day I was all for one, now I'm pretty happy with the EJ22 and my setup. If anything I'd sink that turbo conversion money into a diff swap to 4.44:1 ratio. Then you'd watch this thing crawl up stuff all over the place! My only limitation then is height and open rear diff - I'm waiting on a manual locker for the rear or a "cheap az" clutch LSD to drop in my lap in the mean time.

Otherwise I'm pretty happy with the L series low range, front LSD, AWD locking centre diff and 4.111:1s.

Cheers

Bennie

[andrew_k]

This is fantastic. The effort you've put into that gearbox build, and the action in the Cobaw... Bravo sir!
Next time you head to the Cobaw shoot me a message and I'll tag along in my crusty oiler hilux

[El_Freddo]

Will do Andrew! It could be a while yet with the recent fires and the severe lack of spare time!

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

I thought it best to drop Trip Reports in my build thread to keep it all together - so it's about time I got around to posting about my last (and first for 2015) offroad trip, this one being my first solo trip in "unknown territory" that's longer than just a day trip.

It started out with packing at home and getting Ruby Scoo sorted for the trip - new gear such a Uniden CB given to me by a good mate Venom (ausubaru forum). Packing the gear in a different manner took a little longer than expected, plus there were expected storms, this is what we saw from our backyard:



I decided after our later than expected departure time that we would head off after dark and have a bit of a solo night 4wd session - which was totally awesome. We fuelled up at Elmore Shell servo enroute to the Stratbogie Ranges. Start point was the northern end of Lightening Ridge. A few hundred metres up we aired down to about 20psi. There was one particularly challenging section of eroded granitic rock that was a decent amount of fun at that time of night before making camp at 2am - this pic is prior to making camp for the night:



The next day was a bit of exploring - not knowing what sort of tracks to expect, was hoping for some challenging stuff but the maoity of it could've been done in 2wd

Impressive boulder covered in moss on Lightening Ridge Tk:





We checked out a lookout on this track but it wasn't as spectacular as anticipated

Following some "old" logging tracks that were very tame (and disappointing) we came across this impressive gum over the road:



In this area we noted quite a number of trees that had been burnt out in two or more directions, creating a large number of tree like this one:



I can't remember the location off the top of my head, but there was an awesome lookout that was occupied by a bunch of motorcyclists that we weren't waiting for them to leave, so we headed to the top of the peak of this place:



An interesting seasonally closed track caught our attention - and from the DSE signs about closing the track it made sense after curiosity got the better of us - there's no way we would have passed this, or the next section that would've been impassable unless you ran a full blown tonka toy anyway:



It was quite a shock to come across the pine plantation that had been cut down for production:



And more after trying to navigate our way through the continually changing maze of the common pine plantation:



After working it out we found ourselves at camp after having a sneak peek of what was to come tomorrow - the climb up Lincoln Ridge Tk (from memory). We setup camp before a thunderstorm ran in:

Before camp:



Mid setup:



Final setup - rear bar swing arms got in the way since adding the rear lights not allowing me to remove them:



It rained heavily that night, we managed to get a fire going amongst it



Once we got a fire going it was time to chill out - a bit of mucking around due to boredom and his is the end result:

]

The next camp from us sent two 4wd's up later that night - they both got stuck so we decided to give it a miss the next morning and opted for the easy way up in the same direction since we were a one vehicle show.

Mt Bugaree was our aim - a particular rock that was vehicle accessible, here are the results:













On our way down from the rock we stumbled across this local - not every day you get to see a little fella like this:



On our way out we stopped by some good friends then headed home. For a double over nighter it was a great trip that marked one year offroad since second gear was lost on the Dedick Tk - one that's on the list

Upon arrival home this is how Ruby Scoo presented:



I'm looking forward to the next offroad adventure - hopefully a few more challenges next time. Strathbogies was still very enjoyable with plenty of tracks to check out next time!

Cheers

Bennie