Michael Crawford and I picked up the parts car today. We went in halfsies, so I'm getting an engine, transmission, ECU, wiring harnesses, immobilizer, differential, OEM Snowflake wheels and some other parts for $225. Michael is getting whet's left.
You can see he'd reduced the price $50 prior to selling.
Edit: removed phone number.
It's worth noting that the seller of the Legacy parts car is pretty much one of us. He runs a motorcycle repair shop loaded with interesting things, and was driving a lowered and modified Forester XT.
Alright. Dusterbd13 and I stripped out the parts car. Stampie and some others kept texting while we were working, so they got this:
I wound up with the engine, trans, differential, wiring, ECM, PCU and some other miscellaneous junk.
The surplus parts may not be helping, as having a spare transmission and differential has me looking for other Subarus with a dead transmission.
Just put a V8 in it and go RWD only. Its old enough that classic tags make it emissions exempt.
In reply to porschenut :
The only V8 I have at the moment is propelling my 4Runner and myself into very poor off-road decisions, and I can't really give that up.
The weather and a few hours of free time lined up this afternoon. I got the fluids drained out of the engine and transmission. I then fought with the OEM exhaust, which apparently hadn't been touched at all since the car was built. I managed to get it apart without using a saw, so that was good.
I'm hoping I get another few hours to work on it tomorrow.
I've almost got everything ready to pull the engine out of the car.
My plan involves removing the intake manifold. I've got that all done, except the connector for the coolant temp sensor that's under there.
That thing is being a PITA.
This seems like an insane amount of work to still have a very slow car. I love it.
In reply to ProDarwin :
Oh, yeah. It'll be sloooow. The goal is to have a running car for $400 or so. I'm $325 into it so far, but the only things I should have to buy are new gaskets at this point in time. I can probably sell some of the things off of the parts car (like the transmission) for recoup if I wind up not using them. Then, I'll consider something to make it faster.
Though something interesting happened just recently. A friend of mine got into a wreck with is 2012 Corolla, and it's pretty much totaled- damage to every panel down the passenger side. I'm debating picking that up if he decides to sell it and making a Corolla-Kart out of it for the challenge. It'll weigh less and probably do better than this will.
I'm still trying to figure out when the bad decisions start entering the picture.
New Year's Eve: out with the bad.
Since the engine doesn't spin, the torque converter is coming out with the engine.
Luckily, a crow's foot and some stubbornness let me get it off. Getting it back in will be aggravating and fiddly.
On the stand, then into the garage.
The thin film of oil on the engine gives an idea what the inside of the engine bay looks like. All of the leaves and debris under the intake manifold are fairly soaked with oil. I've gathered them up into a waxed paper cup to use as a fire starter.
I'd possibly get worse overall coverage if I just stood there and misted everything with 10w30.
I had a few minutes of free time today, and it wasn't raining. I got the cover off of the engine. The timing belt looks pretty good.
I'm still impressed at how dirty everything is.
Still planning a Frankenstein motor?
I have a pile of parts to bring you when the baja is done. It'll be a good test of it!
In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :
Frankenstein motor FTW and minimal budget.
Like ProDarwin said, it's going to be a slow car.
Total carnage in there! It looks like one of the rod caps just worked apart- I did not remove any fasteners. This may explain why the engine went from healthy to locked on the previous owner.
Even the block is completely kaput.
I really wasn't surprised at this after seeing all of the hunks when I dropped the oil pan.
If an engine Bedazzles itself to that extent, it's a good bet that it's pretty much garage art from that point on.
Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:Even the block is completely kaput.
Positive crankcase ventilation guaranteed.
Edit: as a former owner of a 1997 Legacy wagon this thread brings a smile to my face. The body on yours looks surprisingly rust free!
Odds are good that after I get this finished, I'll sell it. Some acquaintances of mine are looking for a cheap, A to B car and they are not well off.
That might also accelerate me putting it back together again. I'm going to get the engine up on the stand and start getting parts on the way.
So, I had a line on a car that interested me much more than this does. I was saving my pennies to work on that, but the seller seems to have flaked.
I'll be moving this forward, most likely with the intent to sell it.
Ok, progress in... progress.
Ugh. I messed up.
So, the EJ25 engine from the Legacy GT above isn't an EJ25. It is an EJ20. I *swear* I checked the block before we loaded it in the car, but apparently the dirt was just right on the engine casting to make that 0 look like a 5. I'm hoping the seller didn't do it on purpose and somehow gave me what is probably a WRX block instead of the EJ25. I can only guess if this was intentional or a mistake.
When I discovered all of this, I had just put the 2.2 heads on the block and squished my nice, new gaskets into place and started cleaning some of the grime off of the engine block. The gaskets haven't been heat cycled, so I can probably still use them. This does put me into a position of having parts I can't use.
Getting a much nicer and newer Subaru in (mostly) operational condition spurred me to try to finish up this thing and send it down the road, and now I'm even wondering if it's worth it. I might just cut and run at this point. I've got to go through the rest of the parts that came with the engine and try to figure out exactly what it is before I make a final decision.
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