meethraps money pit!!!!!!!

hello all, bare with me on this as i tend to go off on a tangent and get giddy with the camera:|, will get as much info in as possible, and reason behind the pics taken, might just help some of you out one day :shock:eek:r you may just help me out by pointing out the mistakes i make:oops:. everything that i post is basically what im learning as i go as i have never worked on or been inside a subaru in my life until i bought this one. so illl do the best i can.:???:, ill get the pics up in between working, doing a bit on the car( with the little daylight i have left each day after work), researching modification options:mrgreen: and being dad to my kids:shock:.
 
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sorry TN, didnt wanna bore you guys to death with photos of the tedious jobs ive done as most of you guys know the procedures, but if you want them then ill post em. i thought i had previously mentioned all the jobs i needed to do on the front end but i just browsed through and it looks like i didnt( old age creeping up on me) i replaced both steering gators as one of them was split so i done both while i had the wheels off, replaced the drivers side CV boot as it was split, the passenger one looks relatively new so i didnt bother with it, and i must say, dont bother trying to knock the cv joint off with it still connected to the car, just whip the whole drive shaft off its easier to do in the vice, just one roll pin held it on, so that was an easy job once the shaft was off, i dropped the suspension struts aswell so i could get in proper with the wirebrush and gave all the arches and backsides of the wings a good lashing with schultz( i do love mi schultz), rear brakes were in good condition, just rusted up a bit with being stood so long, so they got stripped, cleaned up, copper greased and adjusted up, took the back bumper off as it was only held on with 2 x techbolts as all the clips along the rear bumper stiffner are missing, so just waiting for weekend as i need to nip out and find a walk in breakers yard for all the little bits and bobs that are missing, bumper clips, some interior trims, drivers side roof trim, original air box( i wanna get rid of the cone filter on it as its pointless havin an intercooler if its sucking hot air from the engine bay) and a full set of wheel arch liners.
i also need to nip to local motorspares to get hold of a couple of exhaust mounting rubbers as i got one missing and another split.
may have to do some plastic welding on the back lights so that i can get bigger bulbs in the fog light as the lights that i converted into fog lights are not correct for fogs and they need to be brighter, shouldnt be too much of a problem as ive still got the old front side lights that i can amputate the holders out of.

there are other jobs that ill be doing on it over time but at the mo i got a bit of a race on to get it on the road a.s.a.p. otherwise im gonna be stranded without a car.
 
just had an eventfull full morning at the local breakers yard in standish, got complete airbox setup plus what i can only think of as the MAF still bolted to it, front wheelarch liners, drivers rear wheel arch trim, drivers door card bracket and release handle surround, drivers side passenger door release surround, 2 x subaru centre caps for wheels and boot carpet liner for slam panel, all for the grand total of..........£60. fine morning if i do say so myself.
 
guess things were to good to be true, just discovered that the 99 model i got the airbox off has a different maf and intake bore than my 98 model, my maf has 3pins and the 99 has got a 5pin type(only 4 pins used), the bore isnt a problem, now in need of a lot of researching to try and find out if a 5pin can be adapted to a 3pin harness.

everday is a school day.
 
oh dear, problems, problems, it seems that everytime i fix something on this car, something else goes sadly wrong, my own stupid fault though, i de-sealed the plastic lid on top of the MAF to re-solder the contacts back on after i noticed they was soldered when it was sat in my hand, i re-soldered them just fine, fired up beautifully as always, but i forgot to re-seal the plastic lid back on, it rained hard the otherday and afterwards i was outside working on it again when i decided to fire it up to give battery a bit of charge when it started to smoke its gonads off and a bad smell of over fueling, did a bit of head scratching and a bit of tinkering only to find out that the MAF was full of water and shorting the circuit board out, so i dried it out and it fired up without any smells or smoke and now it either wont tick over or it ticks over on the brink of stalling then stalls and the engine check light is on permanently, think i may have knackered the MAF or is it in need of a reset to clear any problems from the ECU, any suggestions would definately be much appreciated.

cheers M
 
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Check the contacts for rust and corrosion. It may just need a reset but it does sound a little more serious than that!
 
thats what i thought, ran perfectly the day before it got water in it, so my own conclusion is that ive knackered it, ive got the battery off for a day or 2 while i charge it, so will see what it runs like after that. the upside to today is that ive finally finished putting the interior back together, only things i got left to do before MOT now is the MAF(grrrrrrr), full roof trim that goes from bottom of front window to bottom of back window on drivers side(proving to be somewhat difficult to get hold of one), cold air intake pipe for the original airbox( only noticed this after fitting it) and to make sure the headlamp adjustment is working fine cos i know they will be out of alignment, apart from the jobs ive mentioned its good for go, the other work i wanna do can be done whilst using it.
 
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heres the back end, all work finished apart from a re-spray.

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did one of them code reading tricks i read on another post and its telling me the MAF is at fault( code 23), so its off to MAF shop we go, its the 3pin type if any of you have one lying around;);)
 
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lol, i didnt mean just any MAF, i think my brain cells can stretch as far as to know that much........at least i think they can.
 
sorted it, just stuck another IMPREZA maf on it and she's sweet again, down side, bloody rocker cover oil leak has returned, dripping straight onto the manifold and belowing smoke out through the bonnet scoops, quite funny to see actually, looks like dragon breath, lmao.
 
the problems just keep coming, just found the source of a slight sucking sound, when it had the cone filter on i thought it was that, but it turns out my inlet manifold gasket is leaking, quite a severe leak in my opinion, surprised it even ticks over as nice as it does, just ordered some new ones for a grand total of £12( cheap as chips ), should be here sometime next week, then its MOT time, fingers crossed.
 
hello all, fitted the new inlet manifold gaskets over the weekend, didnt too bad actually only took me 2hrs 30mins from start to finish, heres the little bleeders i took off.

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as you can see they were pretty bad, judging by the dark spots on them they were leaking in several places aswell as the missing section.

just a few pics of the strip down.

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judging by the missing bolts and various pipe clips i would say someone very inexperienced as been tampering with it, lol.
with the new gaskets fitted it purrs like a kitten now, much better than i thought it would. once warm it drops back to 700rpm tickover almost instantly without any hesitation after a few hard blips on the throttle.
 
my other issue that reared its ugly head again was the led back lights, 4 of the 16 that make up each light decided to pack up on me just as i was doing the final checks before ringing the garage to book it in,they are wired in a series of 4 per resistor to a total of 16 leds and 4 resistors, i did quite a bit of messing about with it to try and pin point the exact problem and i think ive got it down to either 1 or 4 leds themselves knackered as i was swapping resistors and re-wiring the PCB to see if that was the problem i even took one of the good back lights apart just to try it on its power supply just incase it was the controller module and it wasnt that either. just ordered a pack of 10 superflux 3mm 2500mcd single chip superbright leds ( the very kind man in maplin told me what they was just after he told me they dont sell them ) had to find them on fleebay, not bad for £2.98 all in, so fingers crossed that they sort the problem. knowing my luck they will be dimmer than the existing ones or the guy in maplin is useless.:blink:

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the ones i ordered look exactly the same.
 
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sorted the backlights, soldered in the new led's and hey presto, perfect:bigsmile:, started my final checks again and noticed no water in washer bottle so i went to top it up and water lashed out everywhere:shock:, i thought ffs not more problems, whipped the washer bottle off and noticed i had not capped off the headlights washer motor:embarrest:, what an idiot, sorted that and rang the MOT place and booked it in for today, spent most of this morning with my stomach in knots thinking its gonna fail, garage phoned me up and said its passed but we cant issue a certificate until you put your locking nuts back on:embarrest:, pmsfl, had to remove them cos i had no lock key, so rang missus and got her to get me some new ones for the grand total of £15, went down with them and showed the guy and now the money pit has a full MOT:mrgreen:, no advisories on it either which impressed me greatly:cool:.
 
im in the process of sorting that TN, was good to drive it again even if it was only a 1/4mile but im gonna have to get the intellistart finished on it cos i didnt like driving it cold, i managed to find the neutral sensor and get a wire through the bulk head when i had the intercooler off, thats what was holding me up in wiring the intellistart, yes PG it was because it only had 4 wheel nuts instead of 5, the lock nuts are on now. even though its on the road and gonna be used daily im still not finished with it yet, so even though the updates will be few and far between there is still quite a bit of work i want to do on it, i dont like the piston slap so at some point in the near future its either an engine strip or a replacement, will see what frame of mind im in when its time to sort it, there are allsorts of bits and bobs to do yet, e.g. boost gauge, something nice not obtrusive, a mate of mine once gave me a super afr meter which he didnt know the value of at the time so thats something i might look into wiring in, but what ever i put in the interior i want it all to blend in like its meant to be there and not some after thought, sound system needs finishing off, got the vibe components in the front doors and some jbl's in the rear shelf which was already in, they will do for now but im wanting a full vibe system in it, i would ideally like to spray it matt black if possible or satin if not, plus a nice set of chrome rims, i wanna de-lock the boot before respray but that means buying another module for the alarm for remote boot release, also need to repair a small tear in the back seat or find a another one, a few switch blanks are needed here and there inside, i also wanna repair the halo's on the front lights so i can do away with the front corner side lights, well disconnect them and get them sprayed to look like another panel, i also forgot to mention the mods i did with the rear lights regarding the fogs as they didnt have any fogs in them when i got them, i will post some pics up of what i did and how i did it, the alarm and all its features are gonna be the time consuming job, i bought the cliffnet wizard software and lead so i can get the most out of it by utilizing the low voltage start up and the anti-freezing start up, so should have a bit of fun with that, has you can pretty much figure out by now im nowhere near fully happy with it but it needs to be on the road and the rest i can do whilst using it.
 
almost forgot, i bought some m3 style mirrors with the mercedes type lights in them for it last year and the little bleeders wouldnt fit with the base plate they had, so i got them to sort out, ill make some new base plates at some point, but heres a few pics of them.


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hello again folks, heres the rear light mods i promised, may prove usefull to someone one day.

the lights before i started grinding them, as you can see the white wire with the spade connector on it is the first attempt at rear fog lights, but i felt that they were not adequate, nowhere near bright enough.

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the small light hanging out is the one i have modified.

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after stripping the lights down and using a die grinder with a rotary file tip on it i managed to grind a hole 2mm bigger all round than a standard 21watt indicator bulb.

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i used the old indicators as donors for the bulb housing, i just cut them off flush to the back of them.

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so heres what your left with after a bit of cleaning up, a nice bit of a bulb holder and a bulb fitting i just happened to have left over from another job.

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this is the back of the light casing, the piece that bolts to the car when everything is re-built, i had to cut this out to an oval to allow the plastic holder to sit through at an angle.

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i cleaned the lights off, re-built them and cleaned up the area i was gonna stick the new holder to with some MEK cleaner( its a cleaning solution that plumbers use when they are about to bond plastic pipes together), i used some pvc cement(what plumbers use again for bonding plastic pipes), and bonded the holder in place.

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once the pvc cement had set i stripped them down again and put a band of self adhesive foam rubber(draught excluder)around the new holder to create a weather proof seal when they are back together as i ground the old one out, you will also notice the brown coloured seal around the lights, this is P-profile exterior draught excluder which in my opinion created a better seal than the original foam seal you normally get on back lights. all in all it took me about 30mins a light to modify with all the tools at hand and they do look the part, a bit better than having a seperate fog light on. but at least now they are fully UK compliant.:bigsmile:
 
please excuse the drawing as i only know how to use ms paint for this sort of thing, but you get the idea, this is what i had to do to get my quad headlights working the way i wanted them to, that is all on when high beam is switched. i still have the standard 15amp fuses in and they havent blown yet, if they blow i will be putting in a ignition switched live to the relays to accomodate the extra load.

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if the drawing seems incorrect just bare with me as it confuses the hell out of me just remembering what i actually did, but let me know and ill nip out and look what i did in more detail and re-correct if needed.
 
question for all you scooby owners or tech heads, i went away to newquay last week( kids holiday) car got within 90miles of destination and broke down, did a code read and it told me the dreaded MAF was the fault, which backed up my thoughts anyway, so i clipped the connector on and off a couple of times and let it cool down and it started fine and i continued the journey keepin it under 2k revs( thought if i could lessen the load on the engine it might just get me there) it did fine, even did the 320mile home trip aswell, have any of you ever had a similar experience and what was your problem if any, im putting my down to one of three things, either maf is on its way out(if they break down slowly) , just a bad connection or it needs the maf cleaning, all input is most welcome.

cheers M
 
Well try carefully cleaning the MAF first, being as it's an intermittent or even one-time issue. They just tend to go rather than break down slowly, as the tiny wires in them get damaged.
 
will do fella, thanks for your input, very much appreciated, the scoob does have a few teething problems especially when cold, if left ticking over from cold eventually it will cut out when it tries to drop the tick over down to warm running rpm, or if im driving it when it hasnt fully warmed up and i just happen to be decelerating at low rpm and then try to accelerate it sometimes dies almost cutting out, i think this may be down to what ever controls the tickover when cold, this is random and not always the case, if im sat in the car and gently blip the throttle when i hear it dropping the rpm from cold then its fine with no problems and if i let the car get upto normal working temp before driving doing the blip throttle procedure i dont get any problems at all, thus backing up my thoughts on a problem with whatever controls the cold tickover.

cheers M
 
hello all, its been a while since my last post and will probably be a while before i post again, life sure does throw some curve balls at ya, lol, i have since sold the the scoob and bought a transit van, my sons have taken up dirtbiking and the wife wasnt prepared to give up her car, LOL, so the scoob had to go, sold it to some enthusiast at a reasonable price in the hope he will continue restoring it and threw every spare i had laying around in with the deal, but before i log off again i thought i would post up a couple of the final pics of it before i sold it.

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anyhow guys/gals, its been a pleasure and who knows what i might end up with in the future.

take care all, speak soon

meethrap
 
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