488 replies to this topic

[duncanm]

Thanks Suby, that gives me a little more confidence on the wiring.

 

an exciting day.  Picked up a cut from Ben at Ichiban.  They removed the box and gave me a decent discount to keep it, also dug up a  bonnet without dings.

 

Managed to make it home with no dramas, including the reverse down my steep drive. I had to get that right in one go, as I don't think the outback would've pulled the load back up the hill for a second go, even in low range.

 

  Remove the bonnet, make a rats nest of slings and chains to various strong points for the lift off the trailer.

 

 

  What could possibly go wrong here?  I'll just pump her up and drive the trailer out, right

 

And she's landed safely. Heart/lung transplant victim in the background

 

 

Plugged in a battery and tested a few electrics out (oooh... HIDS) . Turned off the key and she stayed on ?  Wha'sat strange buzzing noise?

 

aha.. .previous owner had a turbo timer (Bro!)

 

 

he was also a smoker, by the looks of things (explains the brown gunge in some of the corners of the dash)

 

 

 

I even popped my vac-line / pill cherry.  Was fiddling with a line and it snapped on me; just about to chuck it when I remembered the warnings of lost pills.  Lucky - there was one snuggled an inch up one end of the line.

 

Fortunately, I went and bought 10m of 4mm silicone vac line the other day just for this occasion. I'll be replacing all of them as part of the spruce up when the engine's out.

 

On order: 

 - timing belt kit (incl. idlers and tensioner) + water pump 

 - DW 65c fuel pump (I'm debating whether I need to worry about a pump controller - seems its only there to put the pump into low-flow modes to minimise in-tank heating for evap. emissions purposes)

 - $7 chinese VAG-COM cable

 

Tonight I'm going to see if the FSM I have matches the ECU.

[93tzlegacy]

good start mate  

few tips for the conversion  to try to make it easier:

 

-take as many pics as you can, 

 

-dont throw out ANYTHING until the conversion is done ( learnt this the hard way in the early days) 

 

-use as much of the cut as you can, more times than not , jdm stuff is different, and will result in re working, dashes out, pulling thins apart ( pulling hair out) and crying in the corner, ( ive done all of these things incl crying in the corner before) 

 

- the cut and your car are pretty close in year model so there should be minimal or no rear wiring harness issues. 

 

-use your current airbag module NOT the halfcut one as the JDM car may have run different airbag options such as pre tensioned seatbelts and side airbags.

 

-use the cross member and rack from the cut but use your current arms, the outback  control arms have different mounting bushes on the rear of the arms due to the lifted cross member, also retain your current steering column and knuckle but swap all the halfcut column switch gear over, the adm and jdm ones are different and not directly compatible

 

-pull the dash loom from the halfcut dash pad and fit it into your dash board, the jdm dash harness is different and will need to be used to keep the defi style cluster , also retain the heater , blower and AC boxes, for some reason tthere are variations in the JDM fan speed resistor configurations adm heater boxes rarely work with jdm dash looms and usually loose one of the 4 fan speeds. 

 

-if you are unsure or need any advise, give us a call mate, we are happy to help. 

 

best of luck,

thanks, Ben.

[duncanm]

Cheers Ben,

 

thanks for all those little hints - they're extremely handy and I can already see they will avoid much grief.

 

While I've got the brains trust engaged -- is my clutch likely to be SMF or DMF?  Can't find anything definitive regarding the era.

 

.. maybe it doesn't matter --  if I source a similar SMF from a wreckers and put a new clutch in to match...

 

or can anyone confirm if exedy's DMF to SMF conversion (FJK-7374SMF) will work.. pricing seems reasonable for clutch + flywheel.

[duncanm]

aha.... should have referred back to previous threads:

 

Joel's swap had the answer: FJK-7374SMF sounds like the go.  Best part is, I won't need to even look at those torx bolts on the old block.

 

http://www.subyclub....e-3#entry381248

[duncanm]

Thanks SubyDr -- that would save a couple of hundred bucks.

 

.. I'll give a stealership a ring in the morning to confirm with my VIN.

 

 

btw - I like your idea of an old-school kill switch -- I'm sure there's an ECU signal I can intercept to do the job.

 

  duncan

[duncanm]

Solid progress last night:

• Dash harness tagged and dash out
• Crash bar out

 

Steering column out, inner right of bulkhead harness mostly identified and all tagged.

 

 

 

I have a Liberty '98-03 FSM which is helping identify everything and found a handy way of working. Lots of snaps with the phone (hence the crappy images), auto-magically upload da interwebs via the home wireless then tag them with comments after a session of work when everything is still fresh in the mind.

 

 

[Adam]

AWESOME!!!!!

[Barbbachello]

I bet Simon is watching this thread like a hawk.

He had a read through on wednesday and I had to link it to him so he didnt loose it haha

[duncanm]

Some goodies arrived at work today

 

 

Local stealership couldn't shed any more light on the SMF/DMF question. 'pull the box and see' was the response.

[JDWhiteWRX]

If you do end up needing the dual mass to solid flywheel conversion clutch kit then I can highly recommend the one I am using as linked above. The pedal is nice and soft for daily driving and it has no trouble with the added power of the turbo motor.

 

Joel.

[duncanm]

SubyDr,

 

thanks for your confidence .. the Subaru parts guy did say it was likely that even if it was DMF, that it would have been converted by now, and if not, then I should convert anyway (I only asked for NA 2.5 parts, didn't mention the swap)..  so it seems Subaru has no confidence in the early DMF, either !

 

 

 

 I'll take a punt on a clutch kit for the solid and source a flywheel if it turns out wrong.  I don't want to be trying to chase down too many big parts once the victim's engine is out.

 

 

Pump is GMB 3091 if the box is labelled right...

[Beckers]

Ben's post.......
The best & most helpful post in regards to JDM conversions I've seen....
Anywhere!
I bet Simon is watching this thread like a hawk.

You bet your arse I am Mr J Kong.

These 2 outback's will be just like brothers @ HVC 2015.

He had a read through on wednesday and I had to link it to him so he didnt loose it haha

Thanks for that Nicko, you do know that old people lose things all the time......

[duncanm]

Bit more progress this morning and arvo.. I'm sneaking an hour or so in here and there between family and usual household stuff.

 

Have been working around the engine bay disconnecting everything so the donk can come out.  It was all going smoothly till I got to the relay box:

 

 

I couldn't work out why the front, bulkhead and engine harnesses all seemed to be intertwined at this point.  Sat down with the FSM wiring for a couple of minutes and then it was clear that its just the front harness wiring for the AC pump and alternator which need to be disconnected at the end (AC & Alt) and pulled off the engine.  Then its all good!.

 

Gave the cross-pipe heat shield bolts a good soaking in WD40 so I can get the front O2 sensor off. It looks pretty exposed and I don't want to bash it when I pull the motor.

 

Radiator looks mint, and is a very shallow depth - about 20mm - I wonder if its a recent replacement. The cooling system also looks very clean (no obvious corrosion in the inlets and outlets), and all the hoses are good as is, which is nice.

 

 

[Barbbachello]

This is becoming a great thread to read. Nice work

[duncanm]

Another couple of hours knocked off tonight:

 

The  bulkhead harness hydra is out:

 

where'd all that wiring go?

 

 

heads:

 

tail (?!)

 

 

It wasn't so bad getting the whole thing out. I'm sure putting it back in the outback will be a piece of piss. "Installation in a reversal of the removal procedure" .. not.

 

 

Still poking around the engine bay checking and cleaning vac lines, testing and cleaning solenoids by powering them and blowing carb cleaner through and blowing air through the little filter thingies (no cleaning fluids).

 

All the vac lines running across the front of the engine / under the intake manifolds have gone very hard.  Stuffed up taking one off and pulled a nipple off the solenoid behind the alternator . bugger.  For the rest of these lines, I will be cutting them in the middle, then carefully slicing lengthways at the ends with a sharp blade before removing and replacing with silicone.

 

 

Have bodged it with epoxy for now - lets see if it sticks to the plastic. I'll drill out the skewer if it gets glued in.

 

 

I will say - its definitely worth doing all these lines now, as many of them are nearing their end of life and many of them are a pr*ck to get to.

[Samwise]

Going well mate!

[Beckers]

I will say - its definitely worth doing all these lines now, as many of them are nearing their end of life and many of them are a pr*ck to get to.

 

 

 

 

Thanks 4 that Duncan, it has been noted, on the to do list.

[duncanm]

Suby,

Thanks for the heat gun trick - I'll give that a go next time.

I'm not to worried about the smf question any more. Cut has no gearbox and flywheel removed. I checked exedy's part numbers and their conversion kit uses the same pressure plate and clutch as the smf clutch kit. So the only remaining question is whether I can use the Outback flywheel (most likely) or I need to source one from a wrecker. I'll leave that for when I pull the Outback engine.