279 replies to this topic

[Lukeoly]

Yes it's HVC prepped

I've put a few hundred km on it now so it was time for a UEC and some fresh oil.
The engine had been sitting for a while before the swap so it was a good chance to replace the first lot of oil early and flush out any cobwebs.

There's a bunch of stuff I ran out of time to get done but there's plenty of time after HVC.
I would have loved to have the GTB bumper and new guards fitted and then the whole front painted but I just ran out of time. I also wanted to have some fresh rubber on my other wheels but I think I'll hold off and give them a bit of a refurb; so its stock 16s until then.

[CRUISN]

Nice. I think everyone's run out of time to complete things. I know I have.

[Lukeoly]

A couple more things I forgot to add to my update:

 

I picked up a set of B4 silver trims to get rid of the brown.

 

It's definitely an improvement but I'm not sold 100%. They'll stay for now (there's so many other spots in the car that need more attention haha), but I think I'll end up refinishing my brown trims in a custom colour. I have this dark silver in my head that I want to use on the trims and my WRX 17s. I'm yet to see a shade that captures it but I haven't really done much research yet.

 

I was also able to put nearly all of sunday into compounding the paint. Most panels are dinted, scraped or both but I couldn't stand the thought of rocking up to HVC with a collective 15 years of crusty paint neglect haha. I was really slow going and it could probably use another whole day but it's so much better than before:

 

On the downside, it really highlights all of the dints haha.

[Matt]

Dents and scratches just add character

[Lukeoly]

Haha. 

I'd actually like to meet the previous "Character" that owned this before and give him a slap. The interior was absolutely disgusting when I bought it. plenty of human slime, old food, cigarette butts and a lifetime supply of beer bottle caps (I stopped counting at 35).

 

I bought the car from his mum who was dealing with the fact that he left an unregistered car with a blown engine parked on the side of the road for months when he decided to just leave the country.

[Robert]

Great progress!

[Matt]

Well you've given the old girl a new lease on life

[JDWhiteWRX]

nice work.

[Alex]

I'm somewhat impartial to the burgundy colour on the Subarus, even though I didn't like them at first.

 

Love the colour mate. Pity I can't make it to HVC, as this is one of the cars I'd love to check out.

[Lukeoly]

I'm somewhat impartial to the burgundy colour on the Subarus, even though I didn't like them at first.

 

Love the colour mate. Pity I can't make it to HVC, as this is one of the cars I'd love to check out.

 

Yeah mate I'm the same. The colour has really grown on me. It's got surprising depth in the sunlight

[duncanm]

I like the colour - have always lusted after red gen1 RS.. (is it the same colour code or darker?)

.. BUT .. I absolutely detest it when paired with the gold outback trims.

[Lukeoly]

I'm not sure if the colour is the same. This is almost orangey in the sun. And then Morgan's Forester is a different colour again.

[Morgan]

HAHAHAHAHAHA

 

Damn pink Foz.

[Lukeoly]

[Matt]

Yeah, KT's is more..... Pink.

Fixed

[Alex]

[Morgan]

Back in the day when I was black

 

...and wore baggy jeans.

[Lukeoly]

Update time!

 

I can't believe it's been over two months since my last update!

HVC was the car's first proper shakedown and definitely it's biggest drive since the conversion. Talk about baptism by fire LOL.

It's been running just about perfect since which is a relief. I've had a couple of small leaks but nothing major; and I've done a couple of oil changes and coolant flushes.

 

I'm yet to fit the GT-B front bar and have it and the bonnet painted; my neighbour's gardener dropped some branches on the car and dented the bonnet and front guards just before HVC and it's taking forever to get sorted. It's frustrating, but it means most of the front paint is being done for free.

 

Long live Whitekong!

With Josh parting out most of Whitekong I hit him up for some bits and pieces that he wasn't using on Hobokong/Whitekong II.

 

 

My brake vac hard line I hard fitted was from a GD WRX. It worked fine and almost looked factory but it wasn't as neat as it could be.

 

Out with the old:

 

In with the new:

 

The wiper assembly was a little flogged out so I just swapped the unit out:

 

Since I haven't been able to get the outside of the car sorted, I decided to focus on the interior.

The standard interior actually came up pretty good after many cleans but I knew I just wasn't going to be happy until it was all replaced.

 

I really want the interior of this car to be a nice place. After all, it's the part of the car you spend the most amount of time looking at so it may as well be nice LOL (I feel like a lot of people miss this).

The standard RX interior isn't terrible but it isn't exactly inspiring either.

 

The first item on the list was to swap out the carpet!

The carpet I picked up from Josh was in pretty decent shape but I knew that with a proper clean it would come up just about perfect.

I found conflicting information online about whether the sedan and wagon carpet is the same and I can confirm that it is!

The only difference I found between the two was the lack of rear seat base holes on the sedan carpet but these were easily cut out. I guess putting wagon carpet in a sedan would mean that these holes were visible (as the sedan seat base mounts differently) but with there being no shortage of sedans around I'm guessing most people would be swapping sedan carpet into wagons as I have.

 

 

 

 

I hit the dirtier spots with upholstery cleaner first and let it soak

 

I then soaked it with soapy water from my foam gun and went to town with a scrub brush

 

 

Being winter it took a week to fully dry out but I'm really happy with the results!

It looks fresh but more importantly, it smells fresh :-)

 

What leftovers lie beneath!?

 

 

I guess plenty:

 

 

 

 

I also grabbed the darker B4 door sill and B pillar trims to replace the drab grey ones (these pics are before the carpet swap. I didn't realise I hadn't taken an after pic with them together).

 

Old:

 

Much better:

 

 

 

The next item on the interior hit list was the steering wheel. The original one had worn through the leather on the top so bad I pulled it off back when I was mid conversion. A replacement was well overdue:

 

I picked up a Momo 4 spoke in great condition from fellow club member Tittysprinkles.

 

The airbag plugs looked similar on both my original and the Momo one (I didn't even try to fit the Momo one) but to be safe as possible I swapped the Liberty wheel airbag charge into the Momo:

 

Done

 

And Done

 

I ran out of time to stuff around mounting the cruise stalk in the new wheel so it's not installed yet (I think the wheel is from a JDM GC8 so no factory cruise). I was under the impression that the only issue with this was that the cover simply didn't have to hole cut; but the new wheel doesn't seem to have the mounting tabs to even mount the stalk. Has anyone had any luck mounting the cruise stalk in a GC8 wheel?

 

The last few things (for now) on my list of interior bits were centre console and lower dash panels. I snapped these up from the same local B4 I sourced the silver trims from. They're all in great condition :-)

 

I had some helpful tips from BOSSKONG about removing the glovebox surround panel (cheers mate!) which made the swap heaps easier. I couldn't find pics of the other side of the panel anywhere!

Removing the airbag module also makes access a whole lot easier too.

 

Before:

 

Glovebox removed:

 

Airbag removed:

 

Trim piece removed:

 

And the new piece on:

 

And the matching centre console:

 

 

 

And done (for now):

 

 

The last few interior pieces I need to do are:

- Headliner

- Blackout cluster

- E Tune seats and door cards