1987 Subaru GL Turbo beater/wheeler

[newrider3]

I finally came into a little cash from selling my 250r motor, and decided to look for a beater car to try and save a little gas money and wear on my F100. Decided to look for a 4wd Subaru because of their reliability, and the fact 4x4 is nice to have where I go to school.
Found this car on craigslist with no asking price. Dude said "a piece of the water pump broke off and tore up the block" and that it needed a new engine. This was stuff a stealership told him so I wasn't too keen on believing all of it. Called him up and offered $300 cash, he accepted. Drove out and hauled it up onto the trailer Monday evening.

Got it torn down today, and just as I suspected, it's repairable. What actually happened is the water pump shaft seal gave out, leading to the bearings giving out. So the shaft was moving all over the place for a while, and at some point the impeller hit the block inside the water pump cavity. The score is maybe 1/32" at it's deepest, so I'm not concerned. Going to throw a water pump on it, and a cam belt kit while I'm down there.

Overall plan for the car is a little 2" lift, to fit 27" A/T's (215/75/R15) on redrilled chev 6 lug wheels, custom bumpers, OD Green rustoleum job, maybe some work to the peashooter exhaust system and an intercooler to keep the engine happy. Other than that I'm just going to keep up on the maintenance and drive the wheels off.

Before:

lol

A little teardown:

Some scrap I scored to build the bumpers out of:

Getting ready to order some parts from Rock Auto right now. Any comments?

 

[Bluethunder3320]

good deal you got it for pretty much scrap price. how many parts are still available for them?

 

[newrider3]

You can get pretty much anything you'd want from a local parts store or Rock Auto, and there are plenty of them in the junkyard to pick apart.
I think the guy was just glad I was going to do something with it, he was willing to pay to have it sit in the dealership parking lot indefinitely just to keep it from going to scrap.

 

[Bluethunder3320]

You can get pretty much anything you'd want from a local parts store or Rock Auto, and there are plenty of them in the junkyard to pick apart.
I think the guy was just glad I was going to do something with it, he was willing to pay to have it sit in the dealership parking lot indefinitely just to keep it from going to scrap.

thats a good sign, he loved his car, he took care of it

for an 87 it looks in great shape, very minimal rust

 

[OzFab]

It's great (for the buyer) when things like this pop up. What's hailed as a massive, expensive job turns out to be next to nothing.

Great score

 

[newrider3]

Checked the brake pads today (4 wheel disc option!) and they all seem pretty recent, great life left. Checked the air cleaner and it's nearly new also.
Built my lift kit out of some scrap material tonight. 2" square tube makes six front strut spacers, 15 degree hole separation sets the correct camber. The angle iron becomes four drop mounts for the rear struts.

We'll see if I can't get all the pieces cut out with the horizontal bandsaw at my buddy's house and get it installed tomorrow after work. Which brings up another point, tomorrow is my last day of work for the summer, so I have two more weeks before I go back to school, with this car done so I can drive it...

 

[newrider3]

Got the lift installed. Going to the junkyard tomorrow morning to look for different wheels and tires and other assorted parts...

 

[cumminsbayou4x4]

lift it higher

 

[souperman000]

how did you go about making your own lift kit?

 

[newrider3]

lift it higher

No.

how did you go about making your own lift kit?

See post #6.

 

[exenos]

lift it higher

This isn't twitter, you can post sentences without worrying about running into a character limit. Your posts might be more well received if you elaborate.

 

[Doc Sprocket]

With the lift, I think you've built the original Outback! One question though- what's that done to the CV joint angles?

Tonight or tomorrow, I'm cracking into my own Subie- I need to put a new rad in the '93 Legacy sedan that I use as a beater to get me to work.

For curiosity's sake, can you get into more detail on the front lift blocks? I assume they go above the struts... And what's that about 15* separation of the holes?

 

[OzFab]

how did you go about making your own lift kit?

See post #6.

I see post #6 but it doesn't say or show very much; can you elaborate a bit, maybe some pics of the kit fitted (if possible)

 

[newrider3]

I found the specs for the lift on the ultimatesubaru.org forums, many people run this 2" lift with no camber or CV issues. Once you go bigger you need to start dropping the subframe and diff to compensate. The 15 degree angle of the front blocks is to push the struts in towards the engine as you drop them, to keep the camber somewhat stock.

Some helpful reading:
http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showpost.php?p=847683&postcount=13
http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showpost.php?p=850274&postcount=6
http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showpost.php?p=984148&postcount=6

 

[newrider3]

No luck today at the junkyard, somehow they only had one or two 15" six lug steelies, and only one of this generation GL, only got one of the lights I needed. Have to try my other local spot on Monday.

 

[newrider3]

Picked up some chrome Nissan wagon wheels with 235/75/15 Wranglers today for $150. Got them mocked up on the car, here's some pics. :arf:

 

[souperman000]

the lift looks a lot better with those bigger tires.

 

[exenos]

That thing looks awesome. Props if you can figure out how to put stacks on that

 

[newrider3]

That's probably the only thing that could possibly make it more redneck, besides a camo paint job haha...

 

[Bluethunder3320]

nice job, looks great. went from dinky little wheels to monster subaru