timhortons '99 Legacy 2.5 GT

[timhortons]

So, the story on my acquisition is that it's a fairly standard Legacy, a young guy must have owned it before me, and it has had audio butchering done. It's got about 212,000km(132,000mi) on it, and I have absolutely no idea how it's been maintained, although I have some suspicions based on what I know is wrong.

This car is a BD9 frame with the EJ25D engine, and just my luck... I'm 99% sure the head gasket(s) have blown, the exhaust is like a sauna and it idles pretty badly, in addition to that it is over-heating and the radiator is leaking. Despite it's issues though, it seems to run very well at higher RPM's (I didn't try that for very long, just wanted to check throttle response). It stumbles a bit on it's way up but maintains higher RPM's without a lot of vibration and weird noises, a good sign at least. I'll be reading more of the mechanical oriented posts and contributing there soon I'm sure.

So, now you see why I'm calling it "Project Legacy", not exactly original, but for lack of other ideas it'll do! I have a millions things planned for this car, starting with getting the engine sorted out and the cooling system, then brakes, drive-line, suspension, etc. Oh, and body work, the rust that's starting will be manageable if I get to it now.

I feel that one way to get intimate with a car (if there is such a thing) is to wash and wax it by hand. When you get up close and cover every square inch of it, you notice things you might not normally notice, so it's a good way to spot rust spots, paint chips, loose trim pieces, and whatnot. And that finally leads me into the few pictures I was able to capture after a bit of work spending some time waxing it:

Thanks for looking, I'll update with some better pictures soon, it would be nice to get the whole car into the picture, unfortunately the garage is kind of cramped, but it wont be free to roam until it's running right! Please feel free to let me know what you think!

[httrdd]

Welcome from another 99 LGT owner! If you have any questions on repairs be sure to ask or just search "headgaskets".

[JunkerXL]

that sucker is shiny, welcome aboard :smt023 ! looks like it has had the drivers quarter repainted, im guessing to repair rust :smt017 . anywho, when you fix the head gasket issue remember the important subaru rules :

check the heads.
don't replace the head gasket, upgrade it. stock ones are junk :smt010

you have a gorgeous leg there. :smt007




:smt020

[timhortons]

Thanks for the comments TJ and JunkerXL, I appreciate the advice! I'll be looking at that all in the coming days.

In regards to the quarter panel being painted, the car has actually been resprayed to some degree. Unfortunately it looks like it was done on the cheap, so it's not holding up well. Also, I think it spent some time uncovered in a body shop, it's speckled with white paint in a fine mist, it's all over everything, the windows, the body... it might buff out, but looking at the state of the current layers of paint I think I'll try to repaint some parts.

Again, thanks for taking the time to look :D

[httrdd]

A buffer and a good buffing compound will removed all those spatters. I was a member of Meguires forum and I have seen all sorts of things removed form paint. dont forget before you buff to clay bar. In the begining of my rides thread (my sig below) there are pics of my after detail.

[timhortons]

A buffer and a good buffing compound will removed all those spatters. I was a member of Meguires forum and I have seen all sorts of things removed form paint. dont forget before you buff to clay bar. In the begining of my rides thread (my sig below) there are pics of my after detail.

Ah, good advice, much more feasible than a respray, especially considering the paint isnt all that bad, the rear passenger door has a trouble spot though, the original paint peeled off in the middle of it, and rather than fix it properly they just sprayed over it, so it's already lifting and flaking again. That would be nice to fix, but other than that yeah buffing the specks out would be fantastic, I'll definitely give that a good try!

[JunkerXL]

really with enough elbow grease and enough care, even spray paint will look good, i think you got a great looking leggo (my eggo) :grin: i knew i saw some respray goin on there. but what ever, it prolly needed the paint anyway. :lol:




:smt020

[SOREN]

Sweet car, with a bit of work, it'll be as good as new! And I see another albertan on here! Yayyy!

[BG5guy]

steller ride man, looks nice. lookin forward to see where u go with this, instead of replacing the headgaskets, just throw a WRX or STI swap in there since ur pulling it regardless lol :)

[timhortons]

Thanks for the comments, I'm looking forward to where it'll go too!

SOREN: Hey hey, Alberta is a great habitat for Subaru's! Nice to see another Albertan as well :D

BG5guy: I think I'd like to keep its modest little engine, a little porting and polishing, some nice clean and seated valves, new sparky's, it would be nice to go deeper into the engine and spruce up the bearings and pistons too. It'll never reach the performance levels of the turbo's, but you know, I've got this weird thing for wanting to keep it a "certain way". If it's good after the rebuild then I might trade up though, lol.

I took a crappy pic with my cellphone earlier after I reassembled the radio/dash and got it going... had quite a scare with it, thought i fried the ECU for a while, because of how stange it started acting, but it turned out to be a low battery *whew*. One thing you might notice is the trim on the right hand side of the cover piece around the radio is "lifted", the plastic tab broke off (not my doing, it was like that already). I bent a little piece of metal and riveted it on as a makeshift bracket, it holds in place now, but as you can see it still juts out a little bit, I'll have to have another go at that when I take it off to do the cig lighter, still, better than no bracket. I'm not really an electrical person, or a radio person, but I know whoever had the car put work into the sound system, it is absolutely fantastic as-is. The deck is a Clarion, forget the model number, the only thing I don't like about it is that it has a fan inside of it that spins up and gets a little loud, but I suppose you're meant to be playing music over that sound :P

[chuckthefuk]

congrats on the excellent body. I hope the evil quarter panel rust isn't eating your car from the inside...

Anyways.. nice "project"
-Chuck

[timhortons]

congrats on the excellent body. I hope the evil quarter panel rust isn't eating your car from the inside...

Anyways.. nice "project"
-Chuck

I hope not, I'll have to check into that.

I've got a little update though, I spent the morning prepping the engine to come out, everything is disconnected now except for the transmission and engine bolts.

It's pretty clear how bad it is though, half of what came out of the oil pan was water. The intake was moist. The exhaust was moist. Water is *everywhere*. So at this point I will probably be rebuilding the engine from the crank out, because I don't want bearing problems. Assuming it's still in good shape to be rebuilt. We'll see later on, not sure if I'll be pulling it sooner than the weekend or not.

[JunkerXL]

ooh fun, check out grafton's hi comp build, might be educational/entertaining for you. it has been for me :smt023 . staying stock i presume? :smt017




:smt020

[timhortons]

ooh fun, check out grafton's hi comp build, might be educational/entertaining for you. it has been for me :smt023 . staying stock i presume? :smt017




:smt020

Definitely educational, started following up on it this morning. As far as staying stock, well, I'd like to keep most of it stock for now at least, but I want to upgrade some key components, like the water pump, oil pump, piston rings, etc. I do a lot of highway driving, and to me, making it a little racer isn't as practical, but it would be fun. It's a debate even for myself! I see aggressive cams and start wanting them, but then you have to put in the time to make sure the engine as whole can take these various changes, so it gets expensive, which isn't something I'm really ready for until next year.

Some porting and polishing would be great, anything to optimize what is there should help the engine produce it's peak power, which i'm hoping to get back up to what the spec for it says, 160-ish... we'll see though! i know for sure i wont put it back together until everything has a reflection, well, *almost* everything ;)

more :smt020 time! hah

[timhortons]

Got hold of an engine block from a 1998 Subaru Legacy Outback, crank spins nicely, no cracks found (yet)... so it's what I'll be going with for now on my engine rebuild since my block is cracked.

The block I got off the 98 though has four bolts, my transmission has eight, so my starter needs a tweak to work, I was thinking of just threading the hole in the transmission where the missing bolt/stud is and putting in a bolt to keep the starter in place, that should work dandy I think, and then it will still work in the future if I find another eight bolt engine, everything else looks like it's in the same spot... and it better be!

Hopefully the next update will be a re-built motor... :cool:

[timhortons]

Well here it is some weeks later and my engine is still in bits and pieces! I'm anxious to get going and get it reassembled, but unfortunately I have to wait for parts, so I've just been doing some cleaning and prepping.

She's all covered up while I rebuild the engine... otherwise I would have shown her off a little more, especially with the paint tweaks, seeing only part of it kind of diminishes the effect.

So just a tiny little update, the paint work, just can't do much else right now, everything else I want to do requires it to move under its own power! One minor aesthetic thing I want to do after its running again is to tint the windows, I'm totally going for the whole "mafia" thing or maybe this is more "gangster", although I'd prefer just badass, i don't wanna be hood damnit! :lol:

[daddywagon]

That is a beautiful car. Can't wait to see it running.

[timhortons]

That is a beautiful car. Can't wait to see it running.

You and be both, lol... whenever it is going again I'm hoping to get some video of it, it wont be anything special necessarily, since it will still be "all stock" but if it lives after this, then that's reason enough in itself to record it breathing again, lol.

[rougeben83]

I like your donuts :lol:

[timhortons]

Haha, yeah me too :lol:

[SOREN]

Lookin' good Josh! I am interested to see this all back together again! :)

[JunkerXL]

me 2, keep the progress train a-movin' :grin:




:smt020

[timhortons]

I'm ready to keep on going like a freight train, unfortunately US Mail seems to be quite slow, ordering from the US in Canada isn't what it used to be, following my stuff with tracker numbers, one of my packages is coming from Washington and was sent to San Fransisco first!

The other package I'm waiting for just cleared customs though so it should show up soon... taking their sweet ass time though :shock:

Of course my budget is a lot tighter than my imagination, so I have to reel myself in and ration out my crazy ideas, that's a bummer too.

[JunkerXL]

lol i know the feeling. hang in there :smt023




:smt020

[timhortons]

I ordered new piston rings, an oil pump, water pump and gasket set at the beginning of November, they arrived the other day so I could reassemble the entire engine, and that's what I did! I'm still waiting for a new timing belt and the idlers though, that should arrive Monday (hopefully). Other than that it'll be almost ready to go, but I still need to order a new radiator and some other small items, things like thermostat, spark plugs, oil filter, etc.

It's nice to have back in one piece, compression feels great although I didn't measure it, but it feels tight and smooth, so as long as I get the timing right I think she'll be just fine.

I wasn't able to do everything I wanted to do but it has had all the important things replaced, so I'm happy. Still nervous about how it'll run... but time will tell... lol.

[JunkerXL]

nice! cant wait to see how she runs, good work

[timhortons]

Hey hey, so for everyone who's been following this suby story, you should know that I had to rebuild its poor little engine, that took forever, but it's back in one piece and is in the car again!

[timhortons]

Been tweaking and poking with my car, put insurance on it

[bulldozer24]

Looks good. Was it very hard to install the remote start cause I've been thinking about doing it myself.

[timhortons]

Looks good. Was it very hard to install the remote start cause I've been thinking about doing it myself.

I wish I could tell you, mine was installed when I got the car, the reason it was such a concern to me is because I didn't want to end up with a bag full of wiring problems, the remote didn't have a battery in it when I got the car, and since the engine was running so bad before my rebuild I never bothered trying it until afterward. It all works for the most part, but I don't even know how it was setup because I got the car from an auction, no owner to talk to about it, I downloaded a manual that was close enough and have just been "playing with it". Although it's siren was snipped and I just took it out, probably because it kept going off, I don't know.

The one I have was branded "Arctic Start" from http://www.arcticstart.com/index.htm but I think they were acquired by another company, they've improved the remote since mine was put in, you can now check your temperature and voltages remotely, and they work up to 3000 feet away from the car, which is sweet.

There's no way I would install something like this myself though! It ties into a lot of the cars sensors and stuff so it can work properly, and the "remote start" activation sequence is different between an automatic transmission or manual transmission, at least with this brand.

[timhortons]

Well here it is some months later. I haven't been as active here as I'd like, but you know, things get to happening!

When I was last here I had just reassembled my engine and was kind of unsure about how the build was holding up

Since the rebuild I've taken the car to Vancouver Island and back and have been crawling through the mountains; in winter for the first time in years! It's been a lot of fun so far. Skidding around in snowy parking lots is amazing fun. I also learned that for next year I will be playing it safe and equipping it with proper snow tires. The all seasons on it held up, but they're pretty useless in certain types of snow, they really "pull" into snow and they have no bite in snow drifts. Despite that though I didn't get stuck... drove by lots of other abandoned cars through the winter and just kind of plowed on by them (they were already empty, I'm not a jerk I stop for distress!)

Thought I'd just drop a little update on how things are going, I haven't taken any new pictures mostly cause I haven't done anything to it so it looks the same so far, although whenever I can I want to tint the windows :smt004

[httrdd]

My water pump leaked occasionally and never really noticed it unil it was too late. I made it home on a bottle or more of coolant that day. Lol. Good to hear thing are looking up though.

[timhortons]

I'll check out the water pump, thanks for the heads up on that. I'm not really looking forward to pulling the engine again, but because its still leaking oil... I dunno, I want to replace the back plate on the engine with the newer metal type, and the oil pan is pretty dreary to do if there's not enough clearance... blah... we'll see.

[chuckthefuk]

Check engine light? Time for a code reader

[SOREN]

Looking good man! A tip for us Albertans on tires. Tiretrends.ca. I bought 2 sets this year. I tried the Hankook iPike, which I purchased for about 700 in vancouver, installed on 16's I believe they were 195/55/16 (which was a slight bit too big :( ) and also bought General Altimax's off tire trends (also in the Vancouver area) but had them shipped here. 418.00 shipped for 15's. Tire trends seems pretty cheap, seeing as those tires are virtually the same tread etc.

For the record, the Hankooks are not that good for turning - no bite, lots of slide. I'd say worse than I usually get. The Altimax are incredible. Both are running on VerII STi's. Altimax on a wagon, hankooks on sedan. *wagon/sedan could be the issue too - I don't know for sure, but my wagons in the past have been great on blizzak's

[timhortons]

Looking good man! A tip for us Albertans on tires. Tiretrends.ca. I bought 2 sets this year. I tried the Hankook iPike, which I purchased for about 700 in vancouver, installed on 16's I believe they were 195/55/16 (which was a slight bit too big :( ) and also bought General Altimax's off tire trends (also in the Vancouver area) but had them shipped here. 418.00 shipped for 15's. Tire trends seems pretty cheap, seeing as those tires are virtually the same tread etc.

For the record, the Hankooks are not that good for turning - no bite, lots of slide. I'd say worse than I usually get. The Altimax are incredible. Both are running on VerII STi's. Altimax on a wagon, hankooks on sedan. *wagon/sedan could be the issue too - I don't know for sure, but my wagons in the past have been great on blizzak's

Thanks for the info on that, I appreciate it. I think I was looking at the iPike's... I'd love to get a set of studded tires, maybe overkill but I want to do more mountain driving next year, suppose if they don't bite well though I may keep looking for alternatives.