Outback Sport - Driver Project

Last season I picked up a beater Outback Sport for my daughter and I to RallyCross.

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/outback-sport-rallycross/261900/page1/

I wasn't looking for anything in particular at the time - just wanted a car "right now" for an event that was two weeks later. The Subaru was a happy accident and I've come to really enjoy driving it. I've often said that if it was just a little bit less of a beater that I'd daily it. 
 

Fast forward to last week. I was checking Marketplace like the addict that I am and happened into an Outback Sport in the same color combo as mine at a "parts car" price. Messages were sent and a deal was made. It turns out that other than a fairly light hit to the driver side front, it's in really nice condition. It has 100k fewer miles than mine, almost no rust, nearly perfect interior, new clutch, timing belt, water pump, and a few other odd and end wins. My original plan to keep it for parts went away immediately. I'm going to see if I can whip it into shape as a daily on the cheap. 

The current plan is to find a "good enough" hood and LF fender for my RallyCross car and use the matching parts from my car on the driver. I can rattle can parts for the RX car and not give it a second thought. With that in mind, I pulled the bumper cover off today to have a look at the damage. It looks superficial and doesn't appear to have caused any frame tweak/alignment type issues. As it was explained to me, the PO hit a guardrail and the bumper went under the guardrail while the headlight and corner absorbed the hit.

I drove the car out to my frame machine (aka a tree) in the backyard and made a few quick pulls to get in the ballpark. I stopped early, wanting to have a fender and hood available to check my work as I get closer to "good enough." Having a good car on hand to compare to will be nice. I'm optimistic that I'll be able to get close enough to get the headlight aligned properly. 
 

I may even be able to get the hood good enough for the RallyCross car. Maybe. It'll be a lot easier if I can find one locally. 
 

Rolled the dice and ordered a cheap fender from CARiD. At $62 (edited my earlier mistake) delivered to my door my expectations were low. It arrived today and well, it meets my expectations. It has several small dings and tweaks. If I were using it for a nice car, I'd probably want to send it back. Given that I'm planning to use it on the beater RX car I'm probably not going to worry about it. 

I'm very curious to see how it lines up  

Scored a good hood today. The green hood will get rattle-canned black and go on the other car but I figured I'd work on getting things straight first. Gotta either finesse the driver side hood hinge into shape or source a replacement. 
 

In the "paint booth" today. 
 

The CARiD fender fits terribly. If you're looking for a fender for a decent car, this is not a viable source. For a beater - it works. Just don't look too close. 
 

I put the new CARiD fender on the RallyCross car so that it stays ready to go. I hung the OEM fender on the driver car and can see that I have a long way to go to get things to fit. I think it'll work out OK but it may take some creative pulling. And maybe a shim or two. 

Finally had some time to get back to the body tree today. Used the Jeep winch rather than the come-a-long. I'd say "work smarter, not harder," but it's a big stretch to call any of this smart. I think I'm done at the tree. After lunch I'll pull it into the garage where I can use my I-beam hoist to make a couple of vertical pulls. After that, it'll be time to swap the radiator and see about getting creative to align the driver side headlight. 
 

Trees are official GRM chassis alignment machines, well worth the investment.

Good to see this moving along :)

Making some progress. I found that putting it under tension and then "massaging" it with a hammer helped. It's neat being able to work out wrinkles and get it to move where I want. This reinforces my respect for body men and women. They are artists while I'm finger painting. 

I ultimately had to cut the outer headlight bolt flanges off of the body. Once I get everything lined up I'll make something to act as a brace for the front of the fender and the headlight. I'll have to tack the core support back in place on the outside as well. I managed to tear the upper spot welds pulling on it. Having it separated helped actually. I'm also still needing to move the core support up 1/4" at the inside headlight mount but I've about run out of time for today. I'll need to drain the coolant and remove the radiator before doing any more. 
 

Piguin said:

Trees are official GRM chassis alignment machines, well worth the investment.

 

True.

Indy - Guy said:

Piguin said:

Trees are official GRM chassis alignment machines, well worth the investment.

 

True.

BTW @ Indy - Guy, thank you. Your Malibu fix and flip post gave me the idea that it would be OK to cut and fix to get things to move where I needed. Had I not seen your thread, it wouldn't have occurred to me to make the couple of cuts that I needed. 

In reply to Motojunky :

Hey, glad I could help.  

Note, the second picture didn't move the Mustang metal  sideways enough with the come a long.  It just drug the nose of the car over (tires sliding).  We had to put it in reverse and "yank it" a bit 😉.

These are the things you learn when you have an account on the IAAI auction site.

Still need to tweak the bumper just a hair up on the driver's side. Otherwise, I'm calling it good enough. This isn't a restoration, it's a daily driver beater/commuter. I'm out of time for today, but next steps will be to repair the bumper and paint the hood. I also need to weld up a couple of spots on the core support.

Final assembly will include zip ties and washers/shims. 🤣

This evening I finished tweaking the bumper and then welded up the core support. The spot welds at the seam had gotten torn and I had to make a couple of cuts to get things to move. It was crunched up like a ball of aluminum foil. It's ugly, but mostly hidden by the fender. I also spent some time getting the hood latch to work properly. Hopefully this weekend I'll have some time to start putting it back together. 

I was able to wrap up the bulk of the project today. I installed the radiator - I made up some brackets from flat aluminum that I had laying around since the brackets got lost in the sale. I installed the fans and overflow bottle, but I really need to order a driver side fan. All of the tabs are broken off of the housing and there is just no clean way to secure the overflow tank. It's held in with several zip ties for now. To my surprise, the only other zip ties in use are for the grill as the mounting tabs are broken off of one side. My RallyCross car is the same way. 

That reminds me. When I bought the RallyCross car it came with boxes of spare parts. In my experience, those "spares" that come with projects are usually junk. In this case I got lucky and found headlights, corner lights, and a grill which saved me some coin. I spent a fair amount of time tweaking and adjusting to get things lined up and secured. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. It's good enough. I just stitched up the bumper with safety wire. If the car works out I may source a replacement but honestly, I kind of like the Frankenstein look. 

I also worked out a plan for mounting some old Bosch 6" round driving lights that I had on an A2 Jetta 20+ years ago. I think they'll look really good but I didn't have the metal on hand that I'll need to make a bracket. 

The car isn't tagged but I snuck out for a test drive. All is good, though I could smell a little clutch. A quick check showed zero free play so hopefully a quick adjustment will resolve that. The prior owner had just done a clutch before the crash. 

I still need to swap/paint the hood and throw on the good wheels & tires. This upcoming week will be very busy so it will probably have to wait until the holiday weekend. 
 

Any passersby will not give that car a second look, I offer that as a compliment.  Looks like once you've buttoned it up it will look just fine. How awesome that you have the Rally X car and all the spare parts to use!  Looking forward to seeing the final product.

Agree with Loweguy5.

Except for the color of the hood, you'd never know anything had happened to that corner.  

Well done 👍 

I bought this HF paint gun years ago and never used it. Tried it out today - practicing on the wrecked hood first. Had trouble getting the paint to come thin enough and probably should have explored a finer nozzle before painting the green hood. I didn't wait. It's drying now - pic tomorrow. It's good enough for the RX car. Headed out for dinner for Mom's BD. 

Good progress this afternoon. Hoods are swapped and the "good" wheels and tires are on. I am not displeased with the outcome. There's plenty of detail opportunity but that's not high on my priority list. 
 

I decided to try to cobble a light mount together using whatever I could find in the garage. Fortunately for me, I had some space-age materials on hand. Stuff that's only available to NASA (and a select few E36 M3box Subaru owners). Never mind that it looks suspiciously like bed frame angle iron and pieces from an old TV mount. The lights aren't connected or aimed yet, but I'm liking the look. 

In reply to Motojunky :

If you ran out and spent $175 on a mount to put a couple of lights up front it would have let the project down.  Making it out of what you had on hand is in the spirit of the project!

Loweguy5 said:

In reply to Motojunky :

If you ran out and spent $175 on a mount to put a couple of lights up front it would have let the project down.  Making it out of what you had on hand is in the spirit of the project!

Indeed. That would be ~20% of my total investment in the car. Part of the fun is keeping it in the "disposable" range.

Got the car tagged this evening and took it out for a test ride. Good news: that clutch I thought I smelled on the last drive was not clutch. Less good news: the RF caliper is sticking. I'll take that over a clutch job. Otherwise it ran and drove great. I think I'm going to ditch the noisy exhaust though - it's just not my thing. I'll swap it with the stock muffler on the RallyCross car one of these days. 
 

My FLAPS had a caliper in stock. After a quick swap this afternoon my wife and I tooled around in the car for ~60 miles. The exhaust (cheap can cobbled to the stock muffler pipe) has got to go. It drones at cruising speed in an unpleasant way. Otherwise, it runs and drives really nice - especially for what was originally planned to be a parts car.

There's a short in the driver side headlight that I have to address. I'm guessing either the plug itself or the harness where it routes through the crunched corner got pinched in the crash. 

I fixed the headlight (pinched wire) this afternoon and then took another nice shakedown cruise. This evening I wired up the PIAA/Bosch lights. I originally had these lights on a 1985 Toyota 4x4 in the mid 90s and later on an A2 Jetta. They've been on a shelf for ~20 years. I forgot that they're really not super bright. I also ordered a new muffler today. I had planned to switch with the RallyCross car but was reminded today that the exhaust on it is in rough shape.  I guess the "driver project" is done at this point. Anything further is just gravy.