Michelle's 1999 Legacy Postal Wagon

[Michelle]

https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2015/06/10JAhPMh-1.jpg

Engine/Exhaust:
- EJ222 (Phase 2)
- Drop-in K&N panel filter

Wheels and Tires:
- ‘02-‘03 Impreza wheels painted white
- Michelin HydroEdge 205/55/16

Brakes:
- Stock

Suspension:
- OEM WRX shocks and springs

Exterior:
- ’89-’94 metal rear roof spoiler

Interior:
- ’95-‘99 Outback seats (heat not wired up)

Electronics:
- Rockford Fosgate 6.5” speakers in front doors
- Pioneer 6.5” speakers in rear doors


Welp, here goes-- my first member’s ride thread ever! I guess I should begin by saying that this is going to be a learning experience for me. I grew up with my dad buying salvage-title vehicles and fixing them up, but it was never something I really had any interest in. My driving history consists of two Priuses (Prii?), a Scion xB, and a very short-lived, bright yellow Cobalt-- nothing that I ever really cared too much about.

Chapter 2: The Rise of the Subaru. A couple of years ago, I met my now-boyfriend, who is a CB7 (’90-’93 Accord) enthusiast. A lot of our time together has been spent underneath his Accord(s) and in junkyards. I found myself wanting my own car to work on, but couldn’t find anything I was too crazy about. I think that it was Moog’s Forester that inspired me to look into Subarus. I wanted a wagon, so I began searching for a second generation, 5MT Forester XT. After a few months of searching and a Craigslist heartbreak, I began looking at other options and fell in love with the BP Outback. This search went on for a while, but after paying tuition, getting a late-model Outback was no longer in the cards. Commence more heartbreak and disillusionment with even getting a new car. My boyfriend and I had been entertaining the idea of getting a BG/BK Legacy, since that was much more economically viable at the time, so every couple of days or so I’d do a quick run through of a Craigslist search engine. It was early February in Waco, TX at a Cajun restaurant while waiting for the rain to die down one night that I found a ’99 postal Legacy for sale in Spokane, Washington. The owner had pretty much rebuilt the entire engine about 1,000 miles prior, so it seemed to be at a perfect starting point for someone looking to learn a thing or two about modifying cars. We exchanged a few e-mails with him, and within a week, the Legacy was sitting pretty in Houston (it only took two days for it to ship from Washington to Texas). I’m about two hours away in College Station, so my boyfriend got to play with it before I did, which was probably for the best, despite my jealousy. Here are the pictures he sent me:

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I guess there’s no hiding the fact that this was a car used on rural postal routes—to say it was dirty would be a massive understatement. Dirt still hasn’t stopped coming out from behind the side moldings when hosing it off.

So anyway, my boyfriend got to drive the car around Houston for a couple of weeks before we finally brought it to College Station. There were a few issues with it, most noticeably were ill-fitting wheels and tires (it was a very cringe-filled drive) and a hole in the rear tire well. Other than that and a bit of surface rust on the underside, the car was great.

When we finally got the car to College Station, we pulled the interior to clean. Cue “Psycho” theme:

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And so, armed with a bottle of Simple Green and an arsenal of rags, we went to work.

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I’d driven it like this for a while in hopes of dying my carpet, which as you can see from above, was stained beyond repair with only-God-knows-what. Sometimes life gets in the way of dying carpets, though, so that didn’t happen for a little while and the interior wasn’t as clean when we finally ended up putting the interior back in. Such is life.

I know that up to this point this has been more of a narrative than a build thread, but some goodies that are actually worth writing about finally came in:

https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2015/06/KmeRcyhh-1.jpg

This is the Koni Sport kit that includes Koni Yellow (Sport) strut inserts and H&R Sport springs. I’m pretty excited to get these on eventually.

Not as exciting, but I also convinced myself to buy my first nice camera, a Nikon D5000, which should explain the drastic change in image quality from the initial photos in the thread to these. Here’s a bonus picture of a cute dog named Rory:

https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2015/06/be4f72f2e6234450b9aa987668ef65c6_zpsbbbf-1.jpg

[KNaph]

Lookin pretty good! I was wondering where this build was going. Definitely looks cleaner than it did before, and it's nice to have a nice camera to take progress pictures.

Too bad you stole a postal from Washington, one less for me to buy in the future haha.

[Michelle]

Fast forward a couple of months to May. An unfortunate accident left me with a damaged front end. Sorry in advance for the graphic pictures and any instances of my tears that you may see in them.

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When life gives you lemons...

I needed:

Front bumper cover
Hood
Upper radiator support
Headlights
Grille
Driver’s side fender
Radiator
Radiator and A/C fans
RHD condenser & lines
A hug

This happened close enough to Memorial Day that we were able to take advantage of the half-off sales one of the large junkyards in Houston was having. Despite never having much luck with Subarus in Houston junkyards before, we were able to find most of the body panels that we needed. Since the car was a 1999, it already had the GT bumper cover. We found another one replace it, as well as the GT/Outback hood with a scoop. We tried to cut the front end of an Outback off, but the reciprocating saw ran out of juice 80% of the way through. We got the condenser and lines, too, only for my boyfriend, who I will now refer to as Jarrett, to realize later that the ones on my car are RHD-specific.

Everything else was taken as an opportunity to upgrade. We purchased JDM projector headlights, a JDM grille with the blue “L7” emblem, a dual-core aluminum radiator and 2 Mishimoto 12” slim fans. We also bought a new upper radiator support, but no one cares about that. I’m hoping that we can repair the damage to the support behind the headlight once I get the upper portion off, so I didn’t purchase that. Just yesterday I went at the front end with a spot weld bit. I didn’t get the ones beneath the fenders as I don’t want to dismantle the car in front of the neighbors just yet. I’ll do that once I get the undersides of the fender and hood painted and the new support in the mail so I can mount those on the car immediately afterward.

This past weekend I went to Dallas, where Jarrett now lives. As is custom, we went to go check out the junkyards in the area. We went to a smaller self-service yard in Fort Worth, where we were able to snag an 18mm rear sway bar from an Outback that I read about on this forum. We also ordered Audi A4 front links and Whiteline mounting bushings to complete the install. If past experience is any indication, this will be installed around the time my first kid goes off to college, and he doesn't exist yet.

[Michelle]

Lookin pretty good! I was wondering where this build was going. Definitely looks cleaner than it did before, and it's nice to have a nice camera to take progress pictures.

Too bad you stole a postal from Washington, one less for me to buy in the future haha.

You may have spoken too soon about the cleanliness, haha. It'll be better than ever soon, though. And hey, it's just a matter of time before you'll be able to snag something even cooler from Canada!

[foohfooh]

Wow. Nice thread. I thoroughly enjoyed reading that. A little different than the typical "i did this" insert image. Stoked on the progress. Thats a lot of hard work youve done so far.

[KNaph]

Ouch, could be worse though. Kinda sucks about the A/C since you're in Tx, might be a little more difficult to source parts for that.

The OB sway bar and Audi links are great though, they don't flex like the stock plastic ones so the sway bar can actually do its job and it helps a lot. I'd recommend the Hardrace front endlinks too. Those combined with the Audi endlinks I have made my OB so much more fun to drive when I still had the stock struts/springs on so I'm sure it'll be even more fun with your new struts/spring setup.

And I agree with foohfooh, your posts have more personality in them compared to most. Mine just come out as a wall of text from my ramblings, keep it up!

[meepers]

Nice car. Looks like you are going in a great direction. I feel your pain with getting things done then have the car wrecked. The Koni setup will make a WORLD of difference in how the car drives for the better. I 1000000% agree that you will want to take the time to upgrade and check out the Swaybar end links, bushings, Check out the CV boots, rear trailing arm bushings and heck, I would even throw a new set of steering rack bushings while you are in there.

My favorite to date car mods are as follows:

#1 Short Shifter and bushings mated to my 04 WRX 5 speed.
#2 04 WRX transmission/diff
#3 06 STI struts with FEAL street valve and RCE Black struts
#4 EJ255 bottom end. VF48 Turbo, and all the motor work for approx 300 Wheel HP.

I was rear ended by some jerk talking on his cellphone the day before going through the DMV for emissions. 9 months of work killed by some idiot. But Ruby will live again!

[Michelle]

Thanks, guys. I get pretty good at rambling about things when I'm excited, so I'm glad that you all enjoy it. I'm hoping that I'll have a lot more to write about in the coming weeks, but you all know how that goes, I'm sure. I wish that I had all of the time in the world to work on it-- I miss it so much and am pretty tired of driving a toaster around.

This week has been like Christmas:

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I had to go pick the headlights and grille up from the post office on my lunch break, and couldn't resist opening the box up in the parking lot. The headlights are slightly yellowed, but other than that, they are immaculate.

The radiator and fans were another opportunity for upgrade so I went with a dual-core aluminum radiator and two 12" Mishimoto fans. They are reversible direction fans and if I decide to use them as "push" fans later on, I can.

I also got some rear disc brake goodies in the mail, but I think I jumped the gun too soon. The day after placing the order for WRX rear discs I discovered that many have done the '00-'04 Outback discs and caliper brackets for a larger 11.4"-diameter rear disc. So, I'll probably be ordering reman Outback calipers with the correct brackets for the larger rotors when I get closer to tackling the rear disc conversion.

--

This weekend was productive. Jarrett made the trip down to College Station and that always means getting down to business with car stuff. He worked on his Accord while I got the bumper cover, both fenders, and the hood off. We made a quick trip down to Houston to return one fender and the hood to the junkyard for core charges and hang out with my family for an early Father's Day dinner.

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The right fender did not need to be replaced, but it had to come off to get to the spot welds on the upper radiator support. Even had that not been the case, it was still good to get back there and do some cleaning:

https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2015/06/8croNklh-1.jpg

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I'm pretty sure that we took away some of the structural integrity of the car by getting all of that dirt out of there. I guess that all that means is that it'll fly down roads whenever it's back up and running.

All clean now! I'll do a bit of fine-tuning throughout this week, but I think that it looks a lot better already.

https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2015/06/UO93I33h-1.jpg

https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2015/06/U71QCBBh-1.jpg

I also started sanding the fender and scuffing the hood and bumper in preparation for paint. I'm going to get a temporary paint job for now while I decide what I'd like, color-wise, for the long-term. More prep work will go into that paint job.

https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2015/06/2RSUG08h-1.jpg

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I am hesitant to say that this whole incident has been a blessing as all of the work I'm doing now could have been done anyway. But the damage to the front did cause me to notice rust, dirt and wiring in need of repair that I likely wouldn't have known to address otherwise. For that, I'm thankful. Once this has been finished I think that I'll have an even greater appreciation for the car-- rather than it be just a car that I have a strong attraction to, it's fast becoming one I am sharing a bond with.

[Michelle]

So the 2005 Outback XT was purchased so that I could have a driver while this one was being worked on. That car has turned out to have 10 times the issues that this one ever did, so I've been unable to find time or the desire to work on this one for a while. The car went to the body shop to get the upper radiator support replaced and they told me that the headlight buckets were bad too. So, I ordered some genuine Subaru sheetmetal and sent it over to them. I now have the car back and in desperate need of primer and paint. Before that, I want to get the JDM headlight wiring done. So that's what I worked on tonight.

My headlights are JDM 1-piece projector headlights with Morimoto FX-R 2.0 3" projectors installed. I used the bracket from the group buy here to get them to fit. The bracket needed quite a bit of modification, but I got them installed. This may be because I have 3" projectors vs. the 2.5", or something. These were supposed to go in my boyfriend's car before he gave them to me, so it's what I had anyway. I'm installing them with an HID kit and plan to keep the original high-beam functional as well. This has involved quite a bit of wiring, but I think it will be worth it eventually. I'll update the process once I get more 9007 connector parts in the mail this week to build the adapters.


Here is what I came up with initially. Then I realized that the bucket wasn't going to fit with these wires hanging out. So, I used some parts from the retrofit parts bin that we have.

http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u440/Jarrett_Lauderdale/1999%20Subaru%20Legacy/IMG_06971_zpstvyrskcl.jpg

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Solenoid wiring done!

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As a bonus, here are the H1 bulbs with the 9006 adapters. This will make all of the conversion parts pretty straightforward.

http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u440/Jarrett_Lauderdale/1999%20Subaru%20Legacy/IMG_0698_zpsvovnxjuq.jpg


Let me know what you think!

[Dead91silvia]

Looks like it's coming back together!

[Tylerhartman]

Lookin good :) she's coming back together better then you started and that's what counts ;) What Radiator is that? Looks amazing

[Michelle]

Honestly, it's just a generic dual-core aluminum radiator that was on eBay. I can't find one from Koyorad or Mishimoto for this car and didn't discover until recently that some of the Impreza radiators fit.

I may be putting the fans up for sale soon. I think I'd prefer to have the ability to securely attach the coolant overflow tank.

[Michelle]

2039


2040


I got something off of a delivery truck today! It's a front crossmember from a 2006 JDM STi so it has the RHD quick rack! Here's the catch! I got everything you see in that picture for $190! The guy sold everything to me for $50 and Jarrett arranged for a Uship.com driver to go pick it up and drop it off here which was an extra $140. So now I have a turbo crossmember, a quick ratio steering rack with the newer mounting design and scrap metal in the shape of a sway bar. It's only 20mm, so it's not really an upgrade at all.

[Reuben]

Mmmmmmmm glorious STi subframes. Those things are tight as fck. You will need a custom joint between your colum and rack though, they have different splines.

[Michelle]

This is the method I'm going to try first. Either way I'll probably get a spare Legacy linkage to modify. I'd prefer to have one I know will work before I have the subframe pulled apart.

http://aussiedan.com/blog/2008/07/02/steering-linkage-swap/

[PBfrEAk]

This is a super cool build!!! Always thought the postal wagon would be a cool project but I haven't had time yet for such a project. Can't wait to see it back on the road! :)

[Grimmrican]

Nice start on the build.

[Michelle]

Santa came a bit late this year, but it was well worth the wait!

http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u440/Jarrett_Lauderdale/1999%20Subaru%20Legacy/IMG_20170107_154658_zpsj1ybsdn9.jpg


We missed out on the center taillight garnish, but were able to get a pretty mint pair of taillights and some BE5 stainless door sill plates. We also bought some new headlights because the pictures made them look like the clearest ones I’d ever seen, but they are only about an 8.5/10—only a slight improvement over what I already have and plan to polish. So, I’ll be selling these soon. The coolest things in the box were aluminum rear trailing arms and control arms from a Legacy Spec.B, which I’d planned on putting on my ’05 Outback. Unfortunately, that was recently lost to a failed turbo oil feed line, so I don’t have a reason to hang onto those either.
My past year has been consumed by graduate school, but I’m hoping that with the more routine schedule of a big girl job, we’ll have more time (and disposable income) for this project. I have to say that I miss this car quite a bit and am encouraged to see it close to being on the road again. There were other car issues that presented themselves this past year that has made working on this one next to impossible. The clutch failed on the Outback this summer at 175,000 miles, followed by the clutch in the 3.2CL soon after. Then, after nearly overhauling the Outback, a turbo oil feed line busted on the highway and I threw a rod from oil starvation. I couldn’t slow down quite as fast as I wanted to because it was the day after Thanksgiving on a 2-lane highway with traffic that was actually going the speed limit. 20 seconds after the light came on was about all it took.
That car is gone, and we needed to fix the Acura to get me back on the road. Now that we’ve done that, and things have gotten a little less stressful, I’ll be able to focus on this car. I’m up in the DFW area now with my boyfriend, so I’ll have more help at my disposal, too!
Hope everyone is well and rested from the holiday season!

[Reuben]

Man, that certainly is a string of bad luck!!! Hope all goes well with this project, sounds like you need some good luck.

Life can be a right turd sometimes eh...

[Tylerhartman]

Congrats on the goodies, if you need the Center Garnish I know a guy in Russia that sells them cheap. if your interested hit me on FB. Them rear Trailing arms are sexy, shame about your OBXT :(