My Notchback.... One for the haters

[Kai]

Well the beamer is broken again. Which coincidentally meant I had to stay at home today as I can't work without the car. Does mean commuting by train tomorrow morning very early but it's worth it if I get a day at home to spend on the Notch.




And what a productive days it's been.




I started off by swapping out the clutch master cylinder. With the Porsche box I had fitted a .700" master cylinder from a .750" master cylinder in attempt to lighten the pedal. Can't say I ever noticed any difference with it when I did it before. I'd like a nice soft silky pedal. So most people recommend the .750" for the clutch, I've now fitted this to the Subaru box..... hmmm, honestly I can't say it's made much difference. It's definitely more springy now and the biting point is higher but I'm yet to find the silky sweet pedal.



But in the name of sticking to a rolling project I'm going to stop messing with it. Got to MOT it for next month. Needs a stop and tail bulb and that's it.




Went out for a short cruise earlier. Swapped the throttle snails back over as my modified one was a bit wild and racey. Having swapped out to the stock subaru one I can't say it's made much difference, out for a test drive and the throttle wouldn't shut properly so kept the revs up. I was just happy to be rolling done the road. Pulled over and adjusted the cable and sorted that little problem out. Didn't have any problems with it and the shifter and clutch are working a charm at the moment.




Decided to stick bomb the toyota chargecooler. Quite pleased with the result. felt very strange to be doing something recreational to the car and not mechanical in the name of getting it back on the road.



Finished sticker bombing and decided to have a measure up for the big wheels. Looks chavy but I'm going for it as the diff ratio with the 17's makes for a twitchy drive as is.

[Kai]

These are the wheels I have left over from my campervan. Just wanted to see what the where like.








After the excitement of the wheels I still had an hour left before I had to put the car away.



A mate of mine works at a factory where he makes prosthetic legs. He's got a mill and a lathe available to him so we decided between us that the car could benefit from having a strut brace for the front shock towers. Out comes the cardboard for a template.







Template for my front radiator cover.




It's been in the top of my tool box for almost a decade it feels like. Tonight it went back on the car signifying the cars road worthiness lol









Well, After putting the car away in the garage I found an oil mark on the driveway. I'm going to assume this is transmission fluid from the dipstick tube. I can see myself just blocking this off soon as I'm not up for another rebuild of this gearbox. Currently it's got the subarugears yellow tampon plug fitted which has a odd looking breather filter attached to it.

[Editor]

I can't see that overhang of the tyres getting through an MoT! Won't you need wheel arch work, or some sort of extension?

[Kai]

I can't see that overhang of the tyres getting through an MoT! Won't you need wheel arch work, or some sort of extension?

My understanding and in my own experience, this should lead to 4 advisories. Apparently although illegal which would require enforcement by the police, this should not contribute to a "Failure".

However yes you are indeed correct that some sort of extension should be fitted. Just not got round to that yet as I'm still adjusting to the idea of massive boots and awaiting to acquire the correct spacers.

[Kai]

Since the front end was modified, I've always had a problem with the steering UJ's giving me the sensation that they're out of sync. They had a tight spot every 180 degrees of steering input. The particular UJ's are connected with a HEX bar made no difference regardless of how I rotated them.

£110 later bought me this lot.




Measured, cut and tapered







Welded




Sleeved




Welded




No idea how I got away with this.




Finished




The end result, the binding is must less noticeable. It's much easier to adjust now and I spent ages playing around with it. However I've not driven it much as no had MOT. Booked in tomorrow for a test.

[Kai]

Red lenses....






Amber indicators

[Kai]

Well it appears nowadays there isn't much to do to the car apart from hunt down annoying rattles. Happy days.


Found this, the exhaust hanger was slightly rubbing against the rear bumper resulting in a terrible squeaking noise.


Shortened

[Kai]

Since my MOT, I've been apprehensive to admit it to myself ( and everybody else) but the cars been down on power. If I think back I'm sure I felt something pop as it came on boost but could just be in my head. So since then I've been searching on subaru sights for my symptoms which are, drives fun off boost, as approaching boost car would make a jet engine whooshing noise, power would instantly cut out. I know it's not ECU fuel cut as the stopping of power is different plus the engine light isn't coming on. Knowing my engine very well I diagnosed it being either A. Buggared dump valve stuck open leaking boost pressure or B. Stuck open waste gate, everything pointed due to the whooshing sound of losing boost pressure. Pulled off all the pre turbo pipe work, nothing. Pulled out the boost control solenoid and cleaned it, nothing to report, found a small split which I'm not sure I would say could cause an issue ( certainly not to the degree I was experienceing) which is pre turbo but post air flow meter. Checked the dump valve, all looked good. , check intercooler pipe work which looked ok. Then, looking at my engine, behind absolutely EVERYTHING on the engine lies the turbo outlet feeding the chargecooler inlet. It's literally behind everything. Found this sucker.




Took me longer to get the pipe back on then it did to investigate this problem and repair the rest of the things. Total swine. All sorted now, reset the ECU and its back boosting properly. Been out and done 15 miles before I made myself pull over and adjust my headlights. I love my LED headlights but have always found the full beam to be pants. Well it makes a big difference after adjusting them. Can see so much better and the full beam is actually very good. Very pleased with my results. Annoying rattle number two also fixed tonight, emptied the ash tray.... and found £4.50

[937carrera]

Get rid of those Jubilee clips and put some Mikalor fastners on...... They not only look better, they are much more secure with far more clamping force



You know you want to

[broady_6]

Just sat and read the last 2 pages to refresh and catch up. Love it!

[Kai]

Stanford hall,

I never made it in the Notch.









I have a OE screen up in the loft but managed to bag a laminated screen from a mate for £40 notes. It's installed now be it this happened months ago. Plenty to update you on.


The eagle eyed may notice I'm up loading picture via the samba. Been searching for an alternative to photobucket. Not as convenient up loading from my phone but means I can up date this thread.

[Kai]

Screen came out, glass everywhere








Worse still, the glass went into the fresh air vent, meant I've had to remove my smith's mini heater matrix to get into the area to remove the glass pieces.

Took this opportunity to flip the matrix over placing the outlets on the other side. This means I have freed the area above the clutch pedal from my coolant pipes.








Had to remake some pipes









Windscreen installed




It's a good fit but the rubber still requires adjusting in one corner. I installed this alone but could definitely need another pair of hands when I eventually get round to another attempt at getting this right.

[Kai]

New rims

[Kai]

After 6 years I've finally made the radiator top



Still requires some adjusting I n places but overall
I'm very pleased with it.

[Kai]

Well, couple of months on since my last up date I've still not done much.

So back in June or July I sold the tyres from my cups 1's to my mate. The car was on axles stands for a couple of weeks waiting for the new wheels to go on not as simple as it would sound.

New rims are 16x9 and 16x7 or 8, can't remember. Anyway offsets were never going to fit under the arches. Out came the ..... jigsaw of all things. I read online it was the best tool for trimming the wheel arches back. I wanted to do this properly so out came the shocks and up went the new wheels correctly mounted and I removed all the metal in the way of the up traveling wheel. A daunting task but I'm more then happy with the results. I took two days off last week to finalise everything so all arches are chopped and over arch extension things are rivnutted on. Metal work is bent back at a right angle to retain some of the strength within the wing but the extensions provide a lot of support also. Extensions have a rubber u channel trim between the body and extension and then used countersunk machine washers and bolts. Well happy.

Marking the cut



Cut



Wheel poke



Tool for forming the bend


Front cut


Arch fitted


Front finished

[Kai]

Side view with of cuts



Rear cut


Front spacers


Finished arcticle








Wants a 15mm spacer on the rear.


Overall I'm well happy. Just because it's rolling again and driveable..... just at the end of the season haha.

[kaddy]

Looking good.

[Kai]

Looking good.

Cheers dude.


Oh and just for you Kaddy,



What I've found in the rear arch. I've started to patch it today. It's not too fiddly. Took me a while to get the welder into that sweet spot but think I'm there with it now. The seam sealer has all gone brittle on the other side. Scraped it all out and will reseals it once treated and painted. Think there is some on the other side also but this is the worst out of the two by miles.

[kaddy]

You're lucky, thats not a hole. This is what a hole is before I repaired the entire corner.
Before

All the repair panels for the entire area.





Your hole is just above and to the right of the clamp jaw here.

[kaddy]

This is more like what the area resembles now.

[kaddy]

But with a coat of primer on it.

[broady_6]

I do like the look of this! and packing the power to go with the look is a nice touch!

[sparkywig]

Nice

[Kai]

Small up date,

Managed to finish off my tiny rust patch. I got bored of grinding the welds done so just painted over what I had done. Apart from the paint you wouldnt notice the repair. I did forget to get a picture when the wheel was off so just a terrible one to show.

Lady, I haven’t got the patience you have but I’m still over the moon with the repair hehe.





The inner part of the air vent area was particularly pleasent to finish either. Access is very difficult so it looks terrible but should hopefully lay another 40 odd years now. Certainly has enough paint brushes into the areas.






So having finished my rust repair, on the one side, I’m very much keen to the idea of doing smaller jobs to the car. Basically trying to keep it as a rolling project rather then tackling huge jobs which take me weeks. This was supposed to become my daily driver back in June which never happened. Anyhow so I finished the repair. Went to move the car and it’s bugged me ever since I had fitted them. The illumation on my gauges just wasn’t cutting it. The blue LED’s for the temp and fuel gauges never worked properly and I had fitted old bulbs just to get them working, the Rev counter bulbs worked but would flicker and the speedometer illumination on the new gauge is terrible and uses one bulb. Out comes the LED rope lights.





Took me perhaps a couple of hours to do all three gauges but the results are impressive. They look purple in the picture but it’s actually blue.



I’m now getting alot of glare on the windscreen so will make some caps for the gauges in the future.

Saturday morning I wanted to go out figured I would take the Notch. It was very cold, as I had washed the car the day before, with the cold weather the only lock that should work on the car was totally frozen and I couldn’t get in. How nostalgic I thought. Not had a frozen door lock in over a decade and I’m thinking how my kids will probably never know about car door locks freezing keeping you out of them lol.




Went to the local Bums and Queers looking for Christmas lights for the house. Failed to get the lights and door locks had decided to freeze again. Hammered the key into the lock which got me back into the car.







Sunday I ended up at Bird world for the Santa’s grotto, was a good little adventure as I had no intention of going in the Notch but had an uneventful drive up there. It’s satisfyingly quick to drive.

[broady_6]

still like it! A refined fast, or my hairs on fire fast?