353 replies to this topic

[applegeek897]

Awesome stuff man. I think the car looks heaps better without the stickers too. I'll be taking mine off the next time I give it a wash but I cannot let go of the SubyClub.com one; although I wouldn't mind it in grey to make it less loud I guess?

 

Gotta love having spare push screws. They always find a way to mangle themselves.

 

Thanks man, was certainly long overdue.

 

August 2017: I finally had some time aside today to fix the steering wheel. I seemed to have been around 2 splines off being perfectly centre, not a huge deal but I did want to fix it.

 

This was basically what true straight looked like.

 

 

Having done this before it was a quick and easy affair, airbag off and out.

 

 

Corrected

 

 

And back together, I took the car for a drive, besides the fact that the car could barely keep itself running, something that is normal for me when putting the battery back on, it actually felt strange having the wheel straight and it going straight. I just got so used to it.

 

 

Also gave the old girl a quick wash. I really need to raise the car a bit too.

 

 

[Adictions]

Those 2 splines would annoy the crap out of me haha. Do you know why  it runs bad with batteries reconnected, alot of long term fuel trim?

[Liberty]

Haha, I know how you feel man. Mine is a touch out of whack too but I'm pretty sure it comes down to the wheel alignment and not the steering wheel itself. I'll see how it sits next time I go in.

 

I like the ride height though; is it a bit too much of a rough ride?

[CRUISN]

Adjust alignment, not steering wheel.

[applegeek897]

Those 2 splines would annoy the crap out of me haha. Do you know why  it runs bad with batteries reconnected, alot of long term fuel trim?

 

I imagine it's something like that, driving to work this morning seemed to help it get better, I imagine it's 'learning' again. Last night though I could even be driving and if I put the clutch in even at like 50kph, it would stall. Like I said it's what it does, my car does strange shit like that, but usually sorts itself out after some driving.

 

Haha, I know how you feel man. Mine is a touch out of whack too but I'm pretty sure it comes down to the wheel alignment and not the steering wheel itself. I'll see how it sits next time I go in.

 

I like the ride height though; is it a bit too much of a rough ride?

 

It's just been a touch impractical man and even on smaller bumps in the road it's scraping the guards on the inside of the drivers side. It really doesn't have to be as low as it is. 

 

The ride is actually alot nicer then it was with the Billies

 

Adjust alignment, not steering wheel.

 

Alignment had recently been done, it wasn't the issue, the wheel was always off since installing the new one, I've only just fixed it now. 

[Liberty]

The Bilsteins are amazing, and with the STi springs it's the perfect ride for me. Definitely have them adjusted slightly if they're scraping. No one likes changing their tyres too often.

[applegeek897]

The Bilsteins are amazing, and with the STi springs it's the perfect ride for me. Definitely have them adjusted slightly if they're scraping. No one likes changing their tyres too often.

 

Or destroying guards or guard liner

[Liberty]

Haha, yeah true. My passenger side guard liner has been ripped off completely somehow on the highway. I stopped to pick it up but there is no way to salvage it so I had to chuck it out. Did some research and along with other bits and pieces I was after, it looks like PartSouq will be my saviour (and they're brand new too).

[applegeek897]

Haha, yeah true. My passenger side guard liner has been ripped off completely somehow on the highway. I stopped to pick it up but there is no way to salvage it so I had to chuck it out. Did some research and along with other bits and pieces I was after, it looks like PartSouq will be my saviour (and they're brand new too).

 

Interesting, let me know how you go, even though I got some from a wreck they aren't new and I'd be interested in that.

[Liberty]

I'll let you know when I get home. I've got all the bits and bobs saved with all their prices, stock levels, etc. If I remember correctly it wasn't that much of a hit to the wallet either.

[applegeek897]

August 2017: Time to hopefully sort the front of the car out a-bit, basically the entire front end was held on with two zip-ties on either end of the car, bad show.

 

 

Lots of this.

 

 

While I did get a whole heap of plastic clips from Pick n' Payless it was fairly rushed and I didn't know what I really needed. So the front end came off and the digging began.

 

 

 

The drivers side was the main culprit, as that was the side that took the hit while in the hands of the previous owner.

 

Zip-ties or nothing...

 

 

 

Then we got to this. The previous owner had rigged the fog-lights to only come on when the high beams were activated. This was done because high-beam HID's were installed and they would be too bright anyway, but one, I don't use fog-lights at all, as rare as that might be for a Subaru driver and they didn't work with that setup anymore anyway, plus I thought they screwed up the rest of the headlights but more on this in a moment.

 

 

 

All the unnecessary stuff was removed and I returned the wire to the way it was, mostly, I couldn’t find my soldering iron so crimps and tape will have to do for now.

 

 

Yay for single foglight, the other side doesn’t have a connector at all so that will have to be obtained from a wreckers.

 

 

Moving on to fixing the headlights, they have been like this for some time now, the high beams on low, drivers side on low and passengers side on normal.

 

 

Then it hit me, fuse?

 

Yep there is was, drivers side headlight fuse blown.

 

 

Quick pop down to Supercheap and a new fuse was acquired.

 

 

What do you know, perfect now.

 

 

Lastly the suspension. After finally getting the car into the air with my shitty jack, I straight away saw the problem.

 

 

For what ever reason, despite being setup and alignment by pros, it seemed like the shaft was ‘self lowering’ if you will.

 

 

It ended up being a good 25mm lower then the other side, which was so strange because everything actually felt really tight. Regardless I raised it back up to level we shall see how that goes, I will certainly being going back to Heasman to at least get it setup again, they are welcome to have the car for longer then they had it last time if that means the job will be done better. Hey maybe there is something wrong with the coilover, we shall see.

 

 

Inside of the guard was not happy…

 

 

Sitting better now.

 

[Liberty]

I love the pics and detail here in this build man. Definitely giving me some more motivation to get mine updated...

[applegeek897]

I love the pics and detail here in this build man. Definitely giving me some more motivation to get mine updated...

 

Thanks man! We've been hearing this for some time Gaz...

 

August 2017: Tax came in today and I didn't want to waste anytime, so I went straight from work to Ryda to get the bulk of everything I needed to do my entire Audio overhaul.

 

 

The main bulk of the stuff includes,

 

Headunit: Sony XAV-AX100

Front Speakers: Morel Hybrid 6.5" Two-Way Component 

Rear Speakers: Morel Tempo Ultra Integra 602 6.5” Two-way

Amplifier: JL Audio HD900/5 HD 5-Channel Amplifier

Sound Insulation: DS18 sound deadener bulk pack (2x)

 

The fronts are on order but should be here on Thursday to make for a weekend install. More on the components another time though.

 

Something I do want to get started on is the headunit, I truely hate the current one. This is such a nice little unit and very reasonable priced all things considering, plus most importantly CarPlay!

 

 

 

Comes with everything I need except a reverse camera which is fine as I can use the current one.

 

 

 

 

 

It's such a nice little unit, should fit nicely in the car.

 

 

 

Kinda strange it being a double din with single guts, but I suppose considering it doesn't have a CD player and being modern it doesn't need the extra space.

 

 

 

Goodbye.

 

 

 

With no surprise they was quite the wiring job inside. The previous owner had hooked all the extra bits up to work like the parking brake and reverse camera, both a good and bad thing I suppose.

 

 

 

The kicker amp that was in the car doesn't use RCA cables and instead uses this block thing, it'll stay for now so that I can use the current setup until the new front speakers arrive and I replace everything.

 

 

I was hoping the connector was the same considering they were both Sony but no, so chopped it got. Colours were the same though so that was a bonus.

 

 

Quick bit of wiring and everything is good. At least most of this will be replaced and significantly neatened up with the new install, considering it will only be in for a week of so it'll do fine.

 

 

In she goes.

 

 

With the fascia back on it was way to deep and needed to come out a bit.

 

 

 

After redoing it and bringing it out as far as possible it looked good but due to the design on the unit the actual fascia won't go all the way in, damn.

 

 

 

Because of this the trim doesn't go back on correctly so I will have to either go halfway in-between with the unit sitting a touch further in, which could effect the nob, or trim the fascia. Tomorrow I will attack this but for now, the drive to work will be like this.

 

[Liberty]

Thanks man! We've been hearing this for some time Gaz...

 

You're not wrong. It's been so long I'm still drafting the post.

[applegeek897]

August 2017: So something really shit happened, but I'm extremely lucky it happened while reversing into my car spot rather then happening driving on the highway, because then things could have been much worse.

So while entering my garage and turning to reverse in I heard a large clunk and the steering felt super weird. I straight away got out and could see something was clearly wrong with the drivers side wheel. After jacking it up I quickly saw that I had broken a endlink.





But then I noticed this.

Yeah completely rooted control arm.



Again I am extremely lucky this happened the way it did and not at any speed, because it's very likely the car would have been written off. Anyway after hours of completely blocking my garage a tow truck driver came so I could use their go-jacks, because it was Sunday evening and everyone was closed, I could push the car into my spot so I could fix it.



While it isn't great that they broke, the car is just about at 350,000km and something like that was bound to break, rest assured I will be having a very good look around the car to see if there is anything else like this that could fail in that way.



Thanks to the CorgiWerx team I was able to sort out a replacement set of lower control arms.



They might have looked pretty dirty but after a clean they are looking decent.





I've ordered both Whiteline W0506 lower inner front bushes, KCA334 lower inner rear bushes. Plus I thought hey, while I'm there lets get a KCA313 Front Roll centre/bump steer correction kit, apparently 'essential for lowered cars' but it also means fresh ball joints and tie rod ends and the car will be going in for an alignment anyway.

[CRUISN]

Very lucky it happened at such a low speed and not on the highway at 100!

[El_Freddo]

Holy !

I've never seen anything like this before!! The subi gods were looking down on you favourably, even as painful as this problem is you're very lucky as stated.

Now to get a lotto ticket!

Cheers

Bennie

[applegeek897]

August 2017: So time to fix this thing, after a couple of days of running around to find parts it’s time to get started.

 

I started with a quick trip to Pick N Payless to grab some end-links.

 

 

 

Once I got home it was time to start on the work.

 

 

After it was up on stands I could get a proper look with how bad things were.

 

 

And to no surprise, things were truely munted.

 

 

 

Time to fix it all, starting with the end-links a 14mm socket and some WD40 helps crack the nut.

 

 

While a 14mm ratchet and a hex-key did the main work.

 

 

Out they came, not looking good.

 

 

 

Then the ball joint comes out, this was surprisingly quick and painless.

 

 

 

Followed by the lower inner rear bushing, interestingly it does seem to have a aftermarket poly unit, likely Whiteline but not the KCA334.

 

 

 

Lastly the star of the show, these also seemed to have a whiteline unit in it.

 

 

 

Certainly wasn’t in good shape.

 

 

 

Once everything was out it was a rinse and repeat affair for the other side.

 

 

 

While I could blame the end-link breaking on the other side, the passenger one was extremely loose.

 

 

 

With the old arms out it is time to get into the good stuff.

 

 

The KCA313 looks great, hopefully we should be seeing a nice change with these, even if for just a fresh set of ball joints and tie-rod ends.

 

 

Ball joints

 

 

Tie-rod ends

 

 

One of the very strange things I noticed is that for what ever reason one of the bushes was missing the metal thing in the middle… Who knows, I imagine it didn’t help things. *I actually found it later.

 

 

 

New stuff certainly looking better then the old.

 

 

 

 

 

Getting everything back in the car took way longer then I originally thought, which was very frustrating but oh well. With the help of a shit tone of the 'high performance' lube the arm ended up in.

 

 

 

Once that was done it was time to get the ball joints in, after a quick sand on the inside to clean any debris they slotted in nicely.

 

 

 

The tie-rod end was a bit of a bitch to get off but eventually it came loose.

 

 

 

Goodbye old and rubbish.

 

 

In goes the new one.

 

 

Once that was done it was another case of rinse and repeat for the other side.

 

 

 

After all the components were in it was time to time to torque everything done.

 

 

 

Pins in.

 

 

 

Then to finish everything up, end-links.

 

 

 

Wheels back on and done.

 

 

 

While this was certainly an unexpected event it gave me a chance to do some upgrades and I can't say how lucky I was that this didn't happen at speed.

[Liberty]

Great stuff mate. How does it drive now? I'd imagine it to be a hell of a difference with all the new bits and pieces before the arm shat itself.

 

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it before but you've got a very nice part of the car park; column on one side and a wall on the other. Happy days with little risk for people that like flinging their doors open.

[duncanm]

wow - that munted control arm is a worry - I wonder if the PO damaged it when removing the stock bushes (eg: hacksawed through the arm a bit when cutting out the bush), or it was rust or previous accident damage (eg: ran a wheel into a kerb and bent the arm).

btw red bushes are usually Nolathane brand.

EDIT - looks like maybe rust along the welds -- I wonder if poly bushes have a habit of trapping water in them where the OEM rubber wouldn't