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Old 06-10-2022, 08:09 AM   #51
DrTrae
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2004 WRX Wagon
Java Black Pearl

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Amazing work, as usual. Love what you're doing with this car man.
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Old 06-13-2022, 12:21 PM   #52
BlueSTI4Me
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WRB IG @got2boostit2

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Quite the restoration project. Thanks for sharing all the detail and images.
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Old 06-14-2022, 06:48 AM   #53
500_19B
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2002 WRX, 2023 Crosstrek

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After a productive weekend, this past weekend was less so… Mainly because an issue cropped up on my wife’s VW DD that I needed to diagnose and fix. All that worked out though.

In between, one small bit of progress was finishing up the rear drive axles. These were actually in great functional shape, just looked very used on the outside. The boots were all intact, and the rubber did not have cracks, but they did seem to have stiffened with age compared to the new ones. Anyway, they are back together now with fresh grease and new boots, as well as all the little hardware bits (circlips, anti oil slinging shields etc.…)

This is how they looked coming off he car:



And this is how they look now:



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Old 06-16-2022, 07:06 AM   #54
500_19B
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So, I’m STILL painting… Eventually I must finish, I guess…

I had recently taken another batch of parts for zinc plating, including some of the odds & ends from the underbody. This stuff was not zinc plated originally, but rather painted. But since the plating is priced by batch, I just threw in these parts.

Probably a coat of cosmoline in addition to the zinc plating would suffice for good long-term protection, I decided to also paint these with the usual combination of 2K primer, base and 2K satin clear. Yeah, I will still also coat these items with cosmoline when I reinstall them, so the paint is the backup for the cosmoline and the zinc plating is the back up for the paint, so all this stuff should be very well protected.

The zinc plating always looks great when fresh:



The paint looks more discrete, but it is all parts that you generally don’t see, so I am much more interested in long-term protection:



The drive shaft looks to be in very good shape. I would love to upgrade to a carbon fiber shaft, but for now, I have higher priority items to spend money on, so I will keep the original shaft but still might upgrade to carbon further down the road. Swapping drive shafts is pretty easy. I cleaned up the drive shaft and treated it to the same painting regimen, so it looks good too…

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Old 06-21-2022, 08:41 AM   #55
500_19B
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Another weekend of not much progress… I spent time fixing locks and the lawnmower for my brother-in-law on Saturday, which was interesting in its own way, and then on Sunday, I helped my nephew swap turbos in his nice 2007 Legacy Spec B. This is good practice, as I took the turbo out of the bugeye and will be rebuilding it, and already I know that oil drain connection at the underside of the turbo will be a PITA. The Legacy was laid out in a very similar way and that oil hose was tough, but I got some experience in how to get them to align (ideally a two-person affair, one person underneath the car, the other assisting from up top).

The situation with my nephew is that he had a new turbo installed, but the tuning shop identified that it was defective. So, the supplier needs the new one for examination and repair or replacement. Instead of having the shop take it out, and keep the car for the week or two it will take, we instead took it out in his garage and put the old (still serviceable) turbo back in. Should save a lot of $$. When the new turbo comes back, we will do it again. By the time I have rebuild the bugeye’s turbo, I will be familiar with the process!

Did manage to tinker with a few small items though…

My nephew also owned a 2004 WRX when he was living in China for a few years and one item he had purchased, but did not get installed before he sold the car to come back to Canada was a new DeatschWerks DW200 fuel pump, which he kindly gave to me:



I don’t really need a higher flow pump as I am not intending to mod for more power, but it certainly is not a bad idea, and maybe down the road I change my mind and want to do a mod or two that would benefit from enhanced fuel delivery.

I had already purchased a stock pump and hanger:



And it was a simple task to change out to the new pump:



Now, I can begin reassembly of the fuel tank. I started just by putting the pump, sender and blocking valves back on:

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Old 06-27-2022, 11:56 AM   #56
500_19B
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I have had some more distractions doing things on the weekend for family people etc., so the progress on the Subie continues to be sub-par!

Right now, it is a case of doing many small things quasi-simultaneously as I keep running into mini roadblocks. For instance, I was trying to finish the front drive axles when I realized two of the four clamping bands that came with the boots were the wrong size, so I had to set those aside while I order some proper-size bands from McMaster Carr (grr...)

With the fuel tank, I have a few very small items on backorder at the Subaru dealership which I am waiting on. It seems like supply chain and/or inflation issues are affecting everything.

So, in between, I have gotten busy on the turbo. I am staying with the stock TD-04 but decided to do a re-build for long-term reliability. This is the turbo right after removal:



I ordered the “upgrade” rebuild kit from G-Pop Shop and based on the info I provided them, they said I definitely needed the “superback” version as opposed to the flat back. I have not gotten far enough in the disassembly to verify this, but I expect they are right!

In researching turbo rebuilding, it seems there are several critical-to-get-right items:

1) Marking the relationship between the turbine housing, CHRA (center housing rotating assembly) and compressor housing all with respect to each other. This is so that when the turbo goes back in the car, the intake, compressor outlet, up pipe, downpipe, oil and coolant lines all end up in the right position.

2) Marking the relative relationship of the compressor wheel to the turbine wheel. This is critical to maintain the balance of the rotating assembly.

3) Separating the housings without damaging the wheels, which are very light.

4) The compressor housing is held on with a heavy internal circlip which really needs the right tool.

Aside from that, it is just the usual kinds of things like getting everything spotless etc.

Here is the turbo after removing the clamp that keeps the turbine and CHRA together.



After the clamp was out of the way, the turbine housing can be “tapped” evenly from all sides with a hammer to gradually walk it off. The key is to not get things so wonky that the turbine wheel gets damaged. I held the turbo with the turbine pointing straight down and started tapping. Well, if you have a twenty-year old turbo, tapping needs to be pretty firm. However, after soaking with penetrant over a few days, I was able to get the housing to start moving off the CHRA. Here you can see it as the gap is appearing. You can also see the alignment mark I added in.



Next up is the compressor housing, but first I need to get the right tool!

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Old 06-28-2022, 10:28 AM   #57
Gixhost
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I would like to one day send you my car, all of my monies and watch the magic unfold.
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Old 06-29-2022, 07:11 AM   #58
500_19B
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2002 WRX, 2023 Crosstrek

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Ha ha!

Nice thought, but I think the reality would be that whatever “magic” eventually unfolded, it would have taken much too long!

I mentioned the tool I needed to get for the turbo compressor housing circlip. I managed to get it the other day, a Knipex 4821J31 internal retaining ring plier that is for circlips 40 to 100 mm. I had first tried dealing with the retaining ring with the various, lighter-duty circlip pliers I had on hand, and I was nowhere close to getting the ring out, or even moving it really…

When I got this puppy, I took it out of the box and immediately removed the ring, no issues at all, first try. I sort of see Knipex as the Porsche of the plier world… Great tool… Aside from the obvious quality of material and fabrication, I also like how the pins are mounted with a slight “outwards” splay which makes the retaining ring naturally seat onto the tool.



And this is the CHRA…





Obviously can use some cosmetic freshening along with the rebuild. Here is the rebuild kit itself:



The only thing bothering me with the turbo is balance. When I separated the turbine housing, I am 99% sure there was no contact between the housing and blades, but when the housing finally let go (as I was tapping) it did so suddenly and dropped onto the bench. I could not see any telltale contact marks on the edges of the compressor wheel, but I decided I would like to have the balance double checked just to be certain. Also, I seem to recall reading once that the factory balance on TD04s was always good enough, but maybe not perfect, meaning there may be a slight (probably irrelevant) improvement in any case… So, I contacted G-Pop Shop about balancing, which they do. They stated that they would be happy to do the work, but they also suggested a Canadian-based turbo expert (Cherry Turbos) because the cost of the back-and-forth shipping to Arkansas form near Toronto, Canada would be more than the cost of balancing. That was very generous of G-Pop Shop. So, I contacted Cherry and the gentleman there (Herman) is very helpful and now the plan is once I get the unit all cleaned and partially rebuild, I will deliver it to Herman who will balance it as well as clean the wheels better than what I can do (I presume he has an ultrasonic cleaner). The wheels are very delicate. Herman said no matter how clean I make everything; he will still go through his normal cleaning routine before he takes any pieces into his clean room. So, one of the lessons here is that turbos demand a very high level of cleanliness. As an aside, it turns out the Cherry is in the country about an hour from where I work, so quite close!

At the end of the day, this will stretch out the whole turbo rebuild over a longer time frame, but I have so much other stuff still to do, that it really doesn’t matter.

One of the other things I was finally able to do was finish the front drive axles, after receiving the correct band clamps from McMaster Carr. It’s just new boots, grease and little bits of peripheral hardware, but I really like how they turned out.





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Old 07-04-2022, 07:46 AM   #59
500_19B
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2002 WRX, 2023 Crosstrek

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Been chipping away at many small things simultaneously. Mainly cleaning EVAP hoses, removing the remaining exhaust and the turbo rebuild.

In the turbo rebuild department, I have another entry for the "I do dumb things" file: I removed the turbine wheel/shaft assembly and the compressor wheel without issue (the impeller nut is reverse threaded).



Then, while looking at the center housing, I saw this (the dumb thing):



I must have hit this part of the housing with the hammer (I guess it bounced) while trying to remove the turbine housing, which ended up being very stuck on. The lesson here is I should have wrapped all this area in layers of duct tape or some other measure to provide protection, as looking back, it was obvious that this could happen based on the level of persuasion required.

This is where the banjo bolts for the coolant inlet and outlet attach. For sure this would be a nasty leak, so I was more unimpressed with myself than normal.

After thinking through options, I decided to go though this regimen: First, I added steel via welding:



Next up, I used a wheel on a Dremel to start to hog off the excess weld. I used a Sharpie to mark the surrounding flat surface to give me a visual cue as to how far I had to go. Needless to say, I went very slowly and carefully here:



Once I was close to level (but still a little high), I started wet sanding using an oil stone as the backing and trying very hard to keep the stone flat as I moved it fore and aft. I started with P180 emery cloth, then went P220, P320, P400, P600, P800 and finished with the stone itself. This is how it was looking part way through, already very flat and smooth (the stone is also in the picture), so I am happy with the "save", but I spent a good few hours fixing this one mistake:



Although I am very happy with the smoothness and flatness now, I still plan to connect the coolant feed lines with crush washers and then pressurize with compressed air to test for any leakage.

Aside from that testament to my boneheaded-ness, the rest of the turbo disassembly went well. Actually the turbo inners were in good shape. Even the O-rings still look good (looking at videos, it seems these often come out in pieces).

Now it is down to super-cleaning everything, putting it back together with the new parts from the rebuild kit and then sending it out for balancing.

Also managed to finish getting the remaining exhaust parts out:



The headers and cross pipe looks good. I am considering ceramic coating, but have to decide if I will sub out or do myself.

The metal heat shields were mostly in poor shape, so I expect to replace those.

One thing that continues to amaze me are the M10 flange hex nuts that Subaru uses throughout the exhaust (all connections for header, cross, up and downpipes: The are surprisingly clean and close to rust free even after all these years. The small M8 nuts on the heat shields on the other hand were significantly rusted, as would be expected after all this time in Canada.

Last edited by 500_19B; 07-04-2022 at 07:57 AM.
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Old 07-18-2022, 08:13 AM   #60
500_19B
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2021 STI
2002 WRX, 2023 Crosstrek

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In keeping with the generally backwards way I do things, I have been working on the front-end rad support area. This is the last part of the body that is kind of ratty. At first, I did not have any real plans for it, other than just a thorough clean and touch up of a few issues. However, three was some slight damage from the accident to deal with. At the time, I was under pressure to get the car to the paint shop as they had a window. So, although it would have been more sensible to do this work first, I figured I would take care of it later.

Here is a pic just before going to the paint shop. Not much to see here… does not look so bad…



But once I really go going, I realized just how much worse than the rest of the car it was going to look, so this has become the current “job that I hate but must be done before I can put crap together”.

I have made a decent amount of progress and am around 80% done the repair and prep work. I should be able to paint it next weekend:



In between, I am chipping away on various small items to give me a bit of a break. The latest of these was installing the new lateral link bushings. After considering the pros and cons of stock, polyurethane etc., I decided to go with the STI bushings. Visually they look like the stock units, but the rubber is obviously firmer. I purchased these from Rallispec and the pricing is really great compared to all other options. There are three different bushing types for the eight locations. There is a common type that is used in all the outer locations, and a unique inner for each of the more forward and rearward inner locations. They all look similar, so I worked really slow, and quadruple checked everything to make sure I pressed in the right bushings in the right locations.





It turned out to be a pretty easy job. I began with pressing each bushing (with silicone lubricant to help) with the backside of the lateral link end flat on the steel block in the press bed. This made getting the alignment dialed in easy.



After I had the bushing mostly in, I switched up the press bed arrangement to now have a socket that was the diameter of the lateral link end and continued pressing.



To get the lip on the bushing into position, it was necessary to push the entire bushing a little past the final position, and then flip things around and push it back to center. Actually, may times I had to go back and forth a few times with smaller and smaller adjustments until I was happy.

So now the lateral links are ready to go:



I have continued to slowly accumulate items. The latest is the ubiquitous Killer-B oil pick up:



I went with the pickup designed for the standard 2.0 WRX pan. I would have loved to get the aluminum pan too but needed to keep the budget in line (well, less out of line). This won’t be a super-aggressively driven car, so the aluminum pan and baffle are a “nice-to-have” in my view, but the pick up feels more like an important upgrade.
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Old 07-18-2022, 02:26 PM   #61
NateHornblower
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Impressive! Can't wait to see it all together again.
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Old 07-20-2022, 03:49 AM   #62
TRinityMtrSprts
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 500_19B View Post
One of the other things I was finally able to do was finish the front drive axles, after receiving the correct band clamps from McMaster Carr. It’s just new boots, grease and little bits of peripheral hardware, but I really like how they turned out.





looks brand new!

how'd you get the outer facing cups off? I know theres a circlip holding it on there, but can't figure how to get it to release.
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Old 07-20-2022, 10:07 PM   #63
REX_WGN
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amazing work. Axles look fresher than new. nice job, keep up the great work. it'll get there eventually!
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Old 07-21-2022, 07:19 AM   #64
500_19B
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Thank you for the comments!

It is sort of embarrassing how slow I am, but I do eventually get through these projects...

Quote:
Originally Posted by TRinityMtrSprts View Post
looks brand new!

how'd you get the outer facing cups off? I know theres a circlip holding it on there, but can't figure how to get it to release.
Do you mean the outer joints (circled in red)?



In my case, I did not disassemble them. Instead I cleaned with a solvent parts washer and then used a small grease gun with a needle attachment to start introducing the new grease deep in the joint and then kept adding grease and working it in. Took a while but eventually it got there.

I was debating to completely disassemble those ends but the factory service manual stated that once the boot was off, that was as far as you could (should?) go with disassembly of the outer joint. However, I did see a video where someone took apart the outer joint using a slide hammer… apparently it is possible to force the end over the clip. It looked like he needed quite a bit of force, and I decided in the end to just heed the FSM based on the condition of the inners (excellent) and what I could see of the outers after cleaning.
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Old 07-22-2022, 04:45 PM   #65
TRinityMtrSprts
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ahhh copy that.

the boots look brand new, so I thought maybe you were able to remove and replace them. I'm attempting to do this on my old axel as a spare/back up, but am having a hell of a time getting that outer cup to release from the circlip.
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Old 08-02-2022, 08:25 AM   #66
500_19B
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2021 STI
2002 WRX, 2023 Crosstrek

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FINALLY finished the repair and refinish on the front-end radiator/condenser support structure area.

As is 100% the case with me, the job morphed into more than I originally planned. As I was taking bits and pieces off, I decided to replace the two hard lines that run from the ABS unit to each of the front wheels. Shortly after I purchased the car back in 2001, I did my first upgrade, stainless steel lines. In the process of doing them, I learned the hard way that I needed to get flare nut wrenches! I mucked up one of the nuts, not to the point of total destruction, but it was definitely something I worried about. I was able to get it off when I disassembled the brakes during the current job, but it was something that I knew would be a problem eventually. Since the routing of the hard lines is convoluted, I originally thought I would use a union and just add in a new section near where the connection to the hose is at the front wheel.

However, once I started taking stuff off to prep for the painting of the rad support area, I decided to replace the stock hard lines as I do prefer to not use brake line unions. The passenger side was pretty easy, but the driver’s side (which was the one with the goobered up nut) was quite a bit of fiddling as it went along the passenger side inner fender, back across the firewall behind the hard AC lines, down and around the master cylinder, heater hoses etc., overlapping the line to the clutch slave, with various clips along the way. Actually managed to carefully wind it out and get the new one in with all associated clips etc. replaced so I was pretty happy. At one point mid way through the job, I was thinking I may have to section the line into two parts and use a union anyway, but it turned out well.

After that was out of the way, I finished up the prep work on the support sheet metal, as well as the front areas of the inner fenders. This is the area after masking and before painting:



For the ABS unit, I suspended it a little above the surface of the inner fender to be able to paint more fully:



At the same time, I had a bit of painting to do around the fuel pump and sender access openings. Painting these small areas required an inordinate amount of masking to make sure overspray did not go anywhere it shouldn’t:



For painting I did the usual base of 2K epoxy primer, base coat and then 2K clear coats. Like with a lot of the underbody parts, I did a satin clear as I thought the more subdued effect would work well in this area as opposed to a high gloss sheen. I am pretty happy with the result. At least it looks a lot better:









I was tight on the WRB base, so I decided to only do the top of the fuel access panels in blue, and used a black base for the underside:





Another job (also not pictured) was welding up and painting a small crack in the inner door sheet metal where one of the four bolts for the window regulator attach. This was on the replacement door that I had bought, which was otherwise fine. I THINK this is the last welding required in this job…
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Old 08-02-2022, 09:34 AM   #67
DrTrae
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Java Black Pearl

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Beautiful work!!!
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Old 08-04-2022, 07:17 AM   #68
500_19B
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2002 WRX, 2023 Crosstrek

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Now that the paint work on the rad support etc. is done, I will be able to move forward on multiple other things this coming weekend. During the week, I can only get the odd slot of time to do a thing here or there.

The one thing I have managed is to put together the CHRA for the turbo. This Friday I will be coincidentally close to Cherry Turbos, and I plan to drop off the CHRA for balancing.

The rebuild kit from G-Pop Shop was comprehensive. As I disassembled everything, I matched up each original part with the corresponding new part in the kit to compare, and everything was as expected.

Putting it all together begins with the compressor-side thrust surfaces, which include the thrust collar, oil deflector, thrust plate and “piston ring” (they call the two sealing rings piston rings for some reason…)



Straightforward to put together, there is a little bit of a snap when you get the thrust collar/piston ring fully seated in the thrust plate.





Next is the compressor-side bearing, another thrust collar, thrust surface and assembly (from first step).



Basically, the bearing goes into the housing first (I used engine assembly lube), then the second thrust collar sits on the outboard edge of the bearing (flange side against bearing), then the weird shape thrust surface is placed on top. It is located via a spring pin the housing and there is only one way you can put in in so that is locks into the pin and has the opening match with the housing.

Then pop in the O-ring and then the thrust assembly, with the oil deflector poking into the opening on the thrust surface and lock it in place with the circlip (all these parts were in the rebuild kit).







Moving on to the turbine, the new “piston ring” is set into the groove closest to the wheel itself. In the photo below, the detail in the ring is shown. This kit came with a stepped-end ring, which seals better than the original ring (which had a plain end):



Then it is just a matter of slipping back plate on (the plate immediately behind the turbine wheel on the CHRA body) and then inserting the turbine wheel/shaft assembly (with the second bearing) into the housing and setting in until in clicks into place with the internal circlips in the housing (these were also included in the kit… the originals were very fiddly to remove, but the installation of the new ones was pretty easy).



Then the compressor wheel is simply slid on and secured with the reverse-threaded nut. Normally this would include Loctite and a small torque wrench, but I just finger-tightened the nut and left the threads bare, as Cherry Turbos will need to change this in the balancing operation I expect.

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Old 08-04-2022, 08:45 AM   #69
REX_WGN
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great updates
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Old 08-07-2022, 01:42 PM   #70
luvSubis
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I am impressed with the level of commitment you are putting into this car. It's what I've wanted to to to my car every time I put it up on a lift and see undercoating peeling back a rust starting to show. I wish my care was a project car rather than a daily driver that I need to keep using. Well done ! can't wait to see the end results.
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Old 08-09-2022, 08:21 AM   #71
500_19B
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2002 WRX, 2023 Crosstrek

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Had another small problem with the VW this weekend… The key was stuck in the “on” position… Could not shut the engine off… (we were out running errands at the time). No amount of fiddling seemed to work. My wife wanted to take it to the dealer (Saturday afternoon) but I insisted I’d prefer to get the car in our driveway. Once there I pulled the fuel pump fuse to stop the engine and then removed the steering column trim pieces to expose the lock cylinder body. Using a blunt point autobody hammer, I tapped on the housing from various angles & frequencies and finally was able to get the key to rotate to “off” and removed it. I cleaned the key and lock housing, blew it out with compressed air and then put in graphited lock lubricant, blew it through the housing with more compressed air, and repeated that several more times. It all works fine now, but I think I will have to replace the lock eventually. Apparently, it is a bit of a known issue on these years (it’s a 2015 Jetta). In between this I installed a laundry sink & plumbing at my brother-in-law’s… All of this is my way of saying I did not make as much progress this past weekend as I had hoped.

Did manage a few small things though… On Friday evening, we made the trip to Cherry Turbos to drop off the rebuilt CHRA for balancing. Herman was one of those guys that you like instantly. His shop is beautiful with some great machine tools. He looked over our unit and thought it looked good and should be a straightforward re-balance. Will likely pick it up this coming Friday.

On Sunday I started coating some of the underbody parts with Cosmoline. I had been sort of putting this step off, because the parts look nice after painting and the Cosmoline kills that buzz. But as I have been going on and on about, it is incredible and keeping stuff protected.

Cosmoline is available both as an aerosol and as a straight liquid. I use it both ways depending. Here are the three parts that support the transmission mount, as painted, looking good in satin black:



For this type of situation, I paint on the Cosmoline with a brush.



Shortly after brushing on, it will self-level and it looks decent at this stage.



When brushing on, the coating ends up being thick, and it will take hours to dry. When it does so, it has a matte sheen and is quite dry to the touch, but it is a slightly soft, waxy substance which will, over time, have dust & dirt stick to it, not to the same degree as a wet oily type coating though.
I thought I had taken a photo of the dried result, but apparently not. I will add one soon!

I looked up how much the various sheet metal covers for the exhaust headers and cross pipe cost and was surprised at how expensive they were. I ended up finding a used set of headers and heat shield that were in pretty good condition (I already had removed the driver’s side shield and passenger side lower shield). There is some corrosion on the shields, which I will remove and then I will paint these with a header paint.



Although the headers and cross pipe I have are in good shape, these ones look even a little better, so I will use them as well.



In other Subaru news, we are getting a new DD to share duty with the VW. It will be a Crosstrek “Outdoor” which is the Canadian version of the U.S. “Sport” (i.e., gunmetal wheels & trim, slightly different cladding, unique seat material, yellow stitching and, importantly, the more powerful 2.5 L). The car we are getting is visually identical to this one, but ours is still in Japan (we have a VIN, and delivery estimate of ~2 months). It has a CVT (I know…) but my wife is not interested in a manual and this will finally be a Subaru that she can drive too.

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Old 08-09-2022, 08:56 AM   #72
Alexn103
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What a cool project. It's bringing back so many memories of middle school and early high school for me. Looks great!
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Old 08-17-2022, 07:43 AM   #73
500_19B
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2002 WRX, 2023 Crosstrek

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Still crawling along…

A lot of little things done on multiple fronts. The good news is that in the next couple of weeks, I should finally get some reassembly done (instead of perpetually taking things apart). The first few items will be transmission mounting, fuel tank and new oil pan/pickup (not necessarily in that order). I also must squeeze a new water pump and timing belt job for the VW somewhere in between that though.

Last week I picked up my turbo, which I had balanced by Herman at Cherry Turbos. He said the rebuild looked good and the unit balanced up nicely. Aside from balancing, Herman also has equipment for delicate media blasting ad did a nice job taking the hard deposit off the turbine.

While that was going on, I subjected the turbine housing to a million cycles of naval jelly to take away all the corrosion. The unit came out very clean eventually:



I then used a VHT high heat combo (their primer, a color coat and a clear) to give it some bling and protection. Also cleaned up and freshened the wastegate actuator.







Most of the major parts of the turbo are ready for final assembly. I still need to get a new stud for the housing though, as I removed one of the originals that had some damage…

While doing the turbine housing, I have been working on other exhaust parts in a similar way. I have the crossover pipe and some of the shields ready, but still must finish the passenger side heat shields and both headers.



In the last post I was showing the way Cosmoline looks and here (finally) is a picture of those same parts, after the thick coating has dried. Does not look too bad, but definitely not as good as the fresh paint underneath. Once it is on the road, it will inevitably pick up a layer of dust (but not to the same extent as a wet coating). Although it pains me to cover up all the really nice finishes, the nice thing is knowing that years down the road I will be able to take any of these parts, and with the help of a good dose of mineral spirits, remove the coating and expose the well-preserved fresh paint and rejoice in no rust!

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Old 08-17-2022, 09:17 AM   #74
REX_WGN
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it honestly looks like semi-bed liner on subframe parts which is a look most go for anyway. You've convinced me to use cosmoline now. I have a rear subframe that I was going to clean and spray with POR-15 on certain surface rust spots. I'm going to add a layer of Cosmoline on top of that before I install. This is probably a project for next year but Cosmoline spray will be going on the list now.
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Old 08-18-2022, 08:30 AM   #75
DrTrae
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Very nice work! Everything is looking great.
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