Brightons Money Pit

Life update time!

I haven't been messing with my car much, from a combination of reasons, most of which being that it was cold and I was saving for a house. Now that I have a house and a two bay garage (woo!) I also bought another car to replace the 2nd gen as a new daily.

This is the car in question, I saved it from being scraped, it runs but has air pockets in the cooling system. The story is, it was owned by an old man who just dumped $3k into it, he had most of the cooling system replaced, brand new tires put on and front brakes and rotors. But the shop didn't properly bleed the cooling system so the son of the now deceased owner gave up on it after it kept overheating and was going to scrap it. Gonna start collecting up parts so that I can pull and rebuild the motor

http://i1317.photobucket.com/albums/t637/96Brighton/New%204_zpslvccnzhf.jpg

http://i1317.photobucket.com/albums/t637/96Brighton/New%202_zpsjmxhf9x7.jpg

http://i1317.photobucket.com/albums/t637/96Brighton/New%203_zpszfyk95xw.jpg

That's a nice find for sure! Hanging on to your 2nd gen or are you going to part with it?

I'm absolutely keeping the 2nd gen. I want to more intensive mods to it that require it be off the road for more then a day, and if it's not my daily anymore, that'll be easy. So the plan right now is to just gather parts for the 3rd gen, pull the motor and rebuild it and then once it's road worthy, daily it.

The long weekend was well used, I got a lot of work done on friends cars but I also got my new EBC brakes installed. The whole install took way longer then it should have 5+ hours but I think that was because I got OCD with cleaning and painting stuff.

This was what the brakes looked like before, I had already upgrades to the 10.9in rotors and dual piston calipers. I did this upgrade 40-50k ago and even after all that time, the pads still had about 40% of the material left, but the rotor were warped and had heat cracks.

http://i1317.photobucket.com/albums/t637/96Brighton/Brakes%205_zpsv4d4ruj1.jpg

I removed the backing plates, mostly because one was damaged but also because I don't like them.

http://i1317.photobucket.com/albums/t637/96Brighton/Brakes%208_zps5wqzflcd.jpg

I chipped off all the flaking rust and metal and coated everything with high temp rust preventative paint

http://i1317.photobucket.com/albums/t637/96Brighton/Brakes%209_zpsn5kaxlos.jpg

And it's all done. I just wish the black coating would last longer then a trip around the block. I went with USR729 EBC rotors and redstuff pads. They feel nice and smooth but the car still has a lot of dead pedal since the master cylinder is getting weak. I also fully bled the system, I took about 4oz of fluid from each corner, so there's no air in the system and the fluid is fresh.

http://i1317.photobucket.com/albums/t637/96Brighton/Brakes%2015_zpsm3eby5cl.jpg

Re: way back there.

You forgot to mention that insulation "dynomat" is made out of recycled razorblades.

I have like 100 "6million dollar man" level paper cuts from it. You know, deeper, wider, more stingy than they were before.

Holy crap, wear some light leather gloves when doing this. One roll does the hatch floor.

Now out for a drive to see how much difference it made.

Re: way back there.

 

You forgot to mention that insulation "dynomat" is made out of recycled razorblades.

 

I have like 100 "6million dollar man" level paper cuts from it. You know, deeper, wider, more stingy than they were before.

 

Holy crap, wear some light leather gloves when doing this. One roll does the hatch floor.

 

Now out for a drive to see how much difference it made.

Oh um, yeah I forgot to mention that haha, it's thin aluminum so wear gloves and be careful.

Thin, but not thin enough to bend out of the way when it meets skin.

I'll be more careful when I do another roll. Results are good so far. Worth doing. Thanks for the link to the correct stuff.

I've only got one roll in so far in the hatch pan. The next roll goes under the back seat.

Even the one roll has helped, but I still have a good deal of drone. My current theory is that I'm getting resonance with the internal air volume and maybe the roof. So I'm afraid I can't come to a conclusion until I pull the head liner and do the roof. Yuck!

Chaz, does the Dynamat muffle some of the exhaust noise? You know how loud my car is with the deleted axleback. Just wondering if it makes a difference.

It won't eliminate it but it'll definitely help, my exhaust is pretty loud and it used to give me a headache on long drives, but after covering literally every panel, it's much more tolerable, but still not quiet enough to have a conversation with someone in the back seat. So I'd say a 40-50% reduction in cabin noise.

I got the rest under the back seat. I haven't tested that yet. Next is the roof, although I don't know when I'll get that done. I have to learn about taking out headliners without ruining them first, and get up the motivation to actually do it in spite of this heat.

Test drive shows that under the back seat helped a bunch. Much better under 75mph now. I think I'll try another layer under the seat and call it a win.

Teaser time!

I figured I'd give a sort of look into the future as to what's going to happen to my car in the next 6 months or so. To start off, I'll be getting a turbo mini which will become the new daily, which leaves the legacy to become a weekend car so I'll list out what I plan to do.

From mildest to wildest

• Plate steel skid plate/jack point
  
• Alcantara/ultra suede headliner and matching door cards and then finish building and upholster the rear center console to match
  
• Finish the stereo system which means installing speakers in the rear doors, tweeters in the trunk and at least one slim sub under the front seats
  
• Engineered board to line trunk floor with
  
• Rear disk conversion
  
• Street/track tires on painted/powder coated 4th gen rims
  
• Lower a little bit on coilovers
  
• Square tubing underchassis frame to act as support for the floor as well as more solid lift points
  
• 1-piece drive shaft
  
• 5MT manual conversion with hydraulic throwout bearing and RWD conversion
  
• Graft on metal fender flares from another car (going to cut them off a car at the junkyard)
  
• Have either the bumpers and spoiler repainted if they can match the old paint perfectly OR have the whole car painted in pearl white or satin white.
  

It's a sad day, I experienced true heart break haha. I finally found a car with a perfect condition match wood grain dash set, and I even managed to get them home from the junkyard without breaking them and upon washing the vent bezel, it literally exploded into a dozen pieces. Now I know why they are always broken when I find them at the junkyard, the brown plastic is absurdly brittle.

http://i1317.photobucket.com/albums/t637/96Brighton/Wood%20Dash%201_zpsblh9plbz.jpg

It's a sad day, I experienced true heart break haha. I finally found a car with a perfect condition match wood grain dash set, and I even managed to get them home from the junkyard without breaking them and upon washing the vent bezel, it literally exploded into a dozen pieces. Now I know why they are always broken when I find them at the junkyard, the brown plastic is absurdly brittle.

 

 

 

http://i1317.photobucket.com/albums/t637/96Brighton/Wood%20Dash%201_zpsblh9plbz.jpg

How did u wash it? with a hammer?

How did u wash it? with a hammer?

Haha no, I was really gentle with it, I just soaked it in soapy water and then while wiping it down it just broke apart, and trust me I'm very gentle with how I handle things, let alone something I know is fragile.

It's a sad day, I experienced true heart break haha. I finally found a car with a perfect condition match wood grain dash set, and I even managed to get them home from the junkyard without breaking them and upon washing the vent bezel, it literally exploded into a dozen pieces. Now I know why they are always broken when I find them at the junkyard, the brown plastic is absurdly brittle.

 

 

 

http://i1317.photobucket.com/albums/t637/96Brighton/Wood%20Dash%201_zpsblh9plbz.jpg

Every time I think I found a perfect one something happens, mine now has the screw tabs intact (Rare) but The hazard light screws busted when I took it apart. I went thru 3 to find one this good

That stinks!. I love the woodgrain center vent panel I got from Ebay ($27 not too bad). I didn't have to disassemble it or anything but it didn't seem brittle.

I have experienced the same thing on my old '88 Nissan truck when it was around 16- 147 years old. I removed the plastic around the center vents and it began to bust up like that.

It's a sad day, I experienced true heart break haha. I finally found a car with a perfect condition match wood grain dash set, and I even managed to get them home from the junkyard without breaking them and upon washing the vent bezel, it literally exploded into a dozen pieces. Now I know why they are always broken when I find them at the junkyard, the brown plastic is absurdly brittle.

 

 

 

http://i1317.photobucket.com/albums/t637/96Brighton/Wood%20Dash%201_zpsblh9plbz.jpg

I've broken at least two of those while trying to install:( I went a different route on my 2002 F150 and had some trim pieces hydrodipped in a black woodgrain. It came out pretty nice and I might use the same guy and design on my Outback.

Hydrodipping is definitely a good option, I love the wood grain look but I'm not sure if I want it now that I've seen what the plastic is like after 20 years. There's nothing to say it won't crack after it's installed either.

I’m talking about using the non wood grain radio surround as its way more durable than the wood grain version.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Oh yeah, I understood. I meant that I'd rather do a hydrodipped black set over a factory woodgrain set. I'll probably look into that at some point, may even do a DIY thread if I can be bothered to figure out how to do it.

Oh I see. I’d rather uses the regular gray parts because the material my guy used is clear where it’s not that black grain so it blends into the rest of the car better. He was only going to charge me $130 for all he did but he ended up doing it for free because it was his first time

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Overdue Update

So to summarize, I finally found a car to replace the Subaru as a daily so now I have time to catch up on all the new things I want to do to it as well as fix any problems.

I've been accumulating parts for a few months for my 3 cars as well as other projects and it's gotten to the point that I don't even bother explaining what came in the mail when people ask, now I just say groceries, but it's actually all this stuff.

http://i1317.photobucket.com/albums/t637/96Brighton/Nov%2016%206_zpsd8joyhsv.jpg

Today I replaced the master cylinder, got the entire brake system flushed and also found that one of the rear brake lines was clogged, so that was definitely not helping the poor braking situation.

http://i1317.photobucket.com/albums/t637/96Brighton/Nov%2016%2012_zpsdwrff4zb.jpg

While I had each wheel off I replaced all of the sway bar links with Whiteline ones

http://i1317.photobucket.com/albums/t637/96Brighton/Nov%2016%208_zpsg6ze3xlx.jpg

And I also made the awesome discovery of yet another blown axle, they obviously can't handle the sheer power of my stock 2.2 because this is the 3rd one in about 16 months.

http://i1317.photobucket.com/albums/t637/96Brighton/Nov%2016%2014_zps2zi0s2mp.jpg

Plans for the weekend are to work on the new daily (basic maintenance junk) Paint and install the new UELs and cat delete and also hopefully get the axle swapped and if I have time, also swap in the new Walboro 255.