So as you can tell we are into Subaru’s. We try to take our own path and stand out by doing something different. So after watching videos on YouTube one day we came across some lifted Subaru’s videos and we were hooked. We knew of one person in our area that was building one/ talking about it. So we knew we had to built one just to be different rather then having a lifted jeep. So here are some pictures of the 1989 Subaru DL Wagon. It was around a 4″ lift and it also had a newer EJ 2.2L in it. Free feel to click the pictures to make them bigger.
A few of it in action.. I will have to see if I have any real good pictures or any videos..
After years of daily driving it in New England the salt and other road treatments began to take there toll so we decided to sell it and move on. So we thought we wanted to go newer to get some modern features. So we came across a 2000 Subaru Limited Outback that had 210,xxx miles so we got a good deal on it so we decided to lift that. So we ended up building a 4″ lift for it and moving the rear end 2″ back lengthening the drive shaft and taking a stock WRX turbo and making it work on the stock 2.5L that came in the outback. To try to give it some more power to turn the 235/75/15 Cooper SST tires
So after a daily driving this for another 60,xxx miles and now currently having 27x,xxx and the New England road treatments starting to catch up with it we decided to start looking for a replacement car to build/ lift. We knew we wanted to go way old school and find an older Subaru that had high/ low range so we could really use it off road rather then just at the beach or some muddy fields, or a light trail rig. We wanted something to out wheel the jeep guys.
So after searching for a few years, high and low in the northeast for a clean not rusted to sh*t older Subaru GL hatchback or wagon we finally found one. Amazingly we found this Barn Fresh gem only two towns over. The story is that the person that owed it originally had a deer run into the drivers side door then it was parked for a little while and then it was donated to a local church which in turn took it to a scarp yard for the money. So there was a guy that worked there that was a car guy and couldn’t see junking cars that weren’t really junk/ totaled. His name is Charlie, So what he would do was buy these cars that could be saved for there scrap valve and save them. So he rented this large barn for years and packed them all in there. So this barn fresh gem had been stored in there since the early 90’s. These pictures were taking after some cars were already moved outside. The cars were stored so close you couldn’t open the drivers or the passenger doors. Here are some pictures of the barn.
There were a bunch of older Subaru GL’s inside most were sedans. There were two hatchbacks and two wagons. We ended up buying two hatchbacks The clean white one with 78,911 original miles on it and the gray one as a donor car.
One wagon was already sold the green one in the picture. But we ended up buying the other wagon the yellow one in the picture as another donor car. The reason for buying the wagon was to take the power steering and the power windows/ mirrors and make them work on the white 1987 Subaru GL hatchback which has none of these.
So the first thing we did was strip the need parts off the wagon that were interchangeable or that we thought we could make work on the hatchback. We ended up taking the motor, transmission, power steering rack, power mirrors and switch and the power window tracks, motors and switches and also the roof rack. The wagon was way to rusty to save or use as our build car. So after all the parts were taking off the rest of the wagon was scraped. Next we moved the white hatchback into the garage to see if we could get it running to ensure that the transmission shifted smoothly and the high/ low worked properly. So after installing a good charged battery and cranking it a few times we noticed that we had no spark. Next we pulled the main coil wire going to the distributor off and shorted it out and cranked the car over to see that we had no spark going to the distributor. So at this point we knew there had to be a problem with the ignition module. What we did next was remove the ignition module from the grey donor hatch and install it in the white hatch and we had spark and it started right up even with the stale gas. So here is a quick video of when we first got it running and tested the 4 wheel drive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EyM0FOcZ38
** Read More ** ( Page Two Added 11-28-15. Just added page 3! )