Zach's 1998 Legacy L - OEM

[z-a-c-h]

I'm new here, so hi

I lucked into a really sweet deal on this babied one owner Legacy a few days ago.

Backstory

I had a Subaru Sambar for sale on Marketplace that I imported last year, and a guy asked if I would trade for a low mileage Legacy he had. He sent two pics:



It looked decent; I asked him to bring it over so I could check it out. He ends up bringing over this 50k mile time capsule that is pretty much the dream scenario for any enthusiast: older guy bought it new with most of the bells and whistles, garaged / babied it, drove it just enough to let it not get stale (averaged like 1,900 miles/ year), and then his wife sold it to the guy I got it from after the original owner passed away. I knew I had to have it: the guy wanted my truck and was offering $2,500 cash in addition to the Legacy in trade. I went over to his place and swapped with him the next day.

Since getting the car

I've spent the past few days beginning the process of giving everything on it a thorough inspection, deep cleaning the interior and figuring out what I need to do first. Here's what it looks like today (took off gas cap to deep clean):







I removed the rub rails / cross bars from the roof rack. Wanted to make sure there wasn't any rust and see what else was going on underneath. No rust, but 26 years of grime:



Cleaned that up:



Immediate Plans

For now, I basically just want to get it back to OEM status. I'll detail the exterior in the next few days, and I've ordered some parts...here's what I've got on order so far:

1. Front and rear shifter bushings
2. Front u joint for shifter
3. Bushings for rear shifter u joint
4. Delrin shift knob from Blox Racing
5. Alcantara shift boot from Redline Goods
6. Hella Supertone horn

The shifter is super sloppy, so most of the above is just meant to help improve that. Had a few bucks left over so went ahead and sprung for the tried and true Hella horn.

Future Plans

Phase one will mostly focus on improving the appearance of the car. New wheels, some JDM stuff (want the spoiler!), touch up the paint, etc.

After that, I'd like to work on the ride quality: coilovers, steering upgrades, etc.

Finally I'll move on to power improvements. I'm saving that because I do love driving a high performance car, but with such low mileage on this thing part of me would feel wrong ripping out anything engine related so soon.

I'm excited to see how the paint cleans up after a wash / polish / wax!

[Reason]

Any updates on how the paint turned out?