rkrenicki's 2004 US "RS30" - The End.. 2019-12-20

[rkrenicki]

Well, there goes that idea.. I went to put the XV wheels back on the car, and there is no way that they will clear the 4 Pot brakes.. They are just shaped the wrong way. I did find out that the stock 16x6 wheels will clear the 4 Pots with no spacers. Since the XV wheels are a much larger investment on my part, I put the stock brakes back on and swapped the wheels on. Since the driver caliper was sticking and dragging, I grabbed the one off of the BH that Muse and I are parting out until I can get a replacement. I am very disappointed with this development.. it seems like everywhere I was reading that 17x7 rims would be fine, but I guess that does not take into account the spoke design.

It is hard to take a picture of the differences, but the Outback rims have a "dish" to the spokes, where the XV rims do not... they just protrude from the hub straight out to the edge.
Outback rim:


XV rim:

[Emsea]

Well, there goes that idea.. I went to put the XV wheels back on the car, and there is no way that they will clear the 4 Pot brakes.. They are just shaped the wrong way.

Very unfortunate, I know that feeling. I had Enkei wheels from my old Subaru WRX and was hoping to use them on my old Lancer and it turned out the center hub is too shallow aligned with the rest of the rim. That looks exactly like what you are suffering. I really liked the look of the XV wheels on your Legacy too.

[rkrenicki]

The offset is the same between the wheels, it is just the way that the spokes are shaped that is the problem. It all worked out in the end.. the XV wheels are indeed back on.. I just wish I could have had these and the 4 Pots on at the same time.

[rkrenicki]

Today, I re-cleared my headlights and my spare S-edition/S401 lights since my tube of Opti Lens showed up yesterday. My drivers side light was yellowing pretty badly, and the passenger side had some slight white haze on it. The S-edition lights also had some yellowing, but they each came from different cars and had different levels of damage too.

This is the drivers side light before I started:


After 500 grit sanding:


After 800 grit sanding:


After "2000" grit wetsanding:


After rubbing compound:


After Opti Lens application.. You can actually see the pictures on the adjacent wall reflecting on them:


I snapped a picture of both sets of lights just after I put on the Optilens, and it just happened to show the chrome really well on the S-edition/S401s. A great comparison shot:

[Grimmrican]

Wow huge difference. And I was gonna mention u could see ur wall photos in the reflection much better lol

[Hinyo]

Where did u buy opti lens from? what did you use with the rubbing compound? by hand? (I have to redo mine as well)

[rkrenicki]

I used the 3M Headlight Restoration kit that you can buy here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001AIZ5HY It attaches to a drill for all of the steps. The compound was also part of this kit. It is not a 100% perfect solution, as it does leave some very very minor circular scratches, but they are significantly better than they were before.

The Optilens I bought from Detailed Image here: http://www.detailedimage.com/Optimum-OP ... /10-cc-S1/ I used a coupon (which is no longer valid it seems) to get 25% off. Of the 10mL that I received, I only used about 2mLs. I intend on saving the rest for doing other sets of lights in the future, as long as it does not "go off" now that it has been exposed to air.

[rkrenicki]

Today, I decided to try to get my bumper back to one color. I pulled it off the car, stripped off the plastidip, and sanded down some of the damaged spots. I have never painted a car before, this is this a learning experience for me. I know I am not going to do a fantastic job, but I wanted a bumper that is largely one color for the meet. I will be having the bumper professionally resprayed in the summer to the same color as the rest of the car (19X).

I sanded down parts of the bumper with a 150 and 250 grit sanding block until I was somewhat satisfied with the smoothness, and hit it with two layers of primer.


Once it dried, I wetsanded the primer down with some 500 grit wet-dry, and put down two layers of 01G spraypaint from AutomotiveTouchup.com. I am using 01G because that is the color of the bumper.


I did not do every spot, there is some curbing along the bottom edge from the previous owner of this bumper.. the paint cracks there are bigger than I am willing to tackle for my first try. I will either try again in the summer, or let the shop do it for me. The end result is not great, especially since there is no clear on it, and my painting skills are very poor.. but at least the bumper is back to mostly one color.


For reference, this is what the damage was before I scraped off the loose paint:


While I had the bumper off, I decided to swap out the front tow hook. The tow hook on the Outback is a little over an inch lower than the Legacy, because of its increased ride height and taller bumper. The mounting is the same, the difference is in the way the hook itself is shaped. Because the Outback hook is lower, it was interfering with the JDM Legacy bumper. At the time, I just notched the bumper to make it fit, but this left me with no functional tow hook if I ever needed it. I took the one off of the BH that we are parting out, and I swapped it on. Here is a picture showing the difference between the two hooks, Legacy on the left, Outback on the right:

[rkrenicki]

Last night, I decided to tackle the dent on my hood and its cracked paint. I managed to get most of the dent out, and I sanded it down to repaint. I also black plastidipped the chipped chrome on my grill. This morning I repainted the dent and reattached the grill. Again, I suck at paint, but at least there is no more bare aluminium exposed to the elements and it is largely one color again. As for the grill, that came out great.. better than I expected.

[Dead91silvia]

Look's good! Nice work on the lights! Thom would be proud!

[rkrenicki]

Last night I sanded down some of the paint that I did yesterday morning, due to some streaks that developed from somebody touching it before it was dry.. >.> I will touch up that section this afternoon when it warms up a little more.

I also installed an LED strip in my trunk to improve on the lighting back there. I forgot to snap a picture after it got dark, but it is very nicely bright in there now.

[98legwag]

Reminds me of what R-Rev makes for the 4th gen.
http://www.rrevsports.com/p_pro_trunkled_ice.htm

[98legwag]

If you have time while you are down here next weekend there is a pick and pull in Mt Airy MD that has a hand full of BEs. Some Outbacks, a GT Limited and I think another GT. Not sure on the years but a few of them have black leather seats.

[rkrenicki]

Thanks! Lancaster6 just texted me about that. I will check them out when I am down there.

In other news, I went out and snapped a picture of the trunk illumination in the dark.

[98legwag]

Holy mother of brightness Batman! Yeah. I was able to snag the door car he needed. The car that it came from also have a factory under seat sub under the passenger seat.

[rkrenicki]

The factory sub goes either in the parcel shelf on the BE (like it was on mine), or on the passenger side of the truck on the BH (like it is in Lancaster6s). I think the only item that goes under the passenger seat from the factory is the Macintosh amplifier. If there was a sub there, then it did not come stock.

[MRLancaster]

Looks so much better with the bumper one colour!!!

[rkrenicki]

Picture day! It was nice and sunny, so I found an empty parking lot to update some pictures.

[Muse]

I was just looking at the pictures from the last Rhode Island meet, and it hit me. Your car was like... Almost Cleg-levels of sky-high back then. It looks so much better now, even on those monster truck tires.

[Yamazaki]

Ooh, you missed a spot.....wait a minute. No, that's dirt on my computer screen. Damn it! Why does your car have to be so perfect?!

[xSCARSx]

Saw this in Maryland! Very well put together vehicle!

[rkrenicki]

Thanks for the tip, yaya! The auto-up/down on both fronts is quite slick!

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[yaya]

Nice!

[Somthy]

Just spent a few hours reading through your thread. You sir have build one sweet legacy.

[rkrenicki]

I finally found a "matching" seat for the front passenger. I picked it up this morning after my daughters swimming lessons:


This seat came from an Outback, so it has the net "pocket" on the back of it, where my drivers seat came from a GT and does not have the net.. but at least from the front, it all matches.

I tried to change the exhaust doughnut, but the bolts were not cooperating with me today. I do not have my sawzall at home, so that idea was stalled out, but while I was sitting under the car looking up at the transmission, I decided to go ahead and do a little swap that I have been meaning to do for a bit now.

Now.. where did my shift selector go?


Ah.. there we go, much better now. The sportshift stuff obviously does not work yet, but the normal mode selections work perfectly. I also did not have to trim it for the Power/Hold switch either.

Just spent a few hours reading through your thread. You sir have build one sweet legacy.

Thank you very much, Yours is coming along very nicely.. I am excited to see the end result! I dont think I have commented over in that thread yet.

[rkrenicki]

I ran by the junkyard today and picked up a number of things. The only thing for this car is the wiper control stalk and the wiper timer from a SG Forester.


While installing it, I found out that the rear wiper hose was pinched and that is what was causing my rear wiper to not work properly. I nearly squirted myself in the face once I got it working.. and after a few minutes of readjusting the nozzle.. I have a fully working rear wiper now.

The other day, received a set of Rallyarmor Basic Mudflaps (The $15 ones) to use as front flaps for now until I can source some GT flaps. I am not really that thrilled with the look of them, but they will keep the rocks off the sides of the car.

[SpeedmanRC]

Just amazing. Love all the work, and just can't get over how the sharp the front end is now. I want the type D.

[2point5GT_Dan]

I definitely need to pick up a variable wiper stick for my wagon.

[rkrenicki]

Variable front, or On/Intermittent rear?

If you are looking for just the variable front, I have my old switch available which has that feature, but the rear is either off or intermittent only.

If you are looking for the On constant/intermittent rear, you would need the switch from a forester, the timer module from a forester, and to run an additional wire from the stalk to the timer. The timer also needs to be re-pinned, as it is not a plug-and-play deal.

[thesavo]

Does the switch from the Forester use the same potentiometer for front and rear? Setting it got long delay, sets it for both?