The Ballad of Simon The Squeaking Subaru- A 2004 BH Outback Build Thread.

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Hey folks!
This little misadventure began in July of 2023- well, before then.

I've been into wheeling all of my life. When I was a kid, I would go with my Dad and Grandad hunting and exploring old backroads in my Dad's S-10 pickup or the family Silverado. We mostly stuck to logging roads and BLM tracks and never really did anything "hardcore" but it was enough to get me hooked on being outdoors and seeing the world one backroad at a time.
The bug really hit me hard at 19 when I got a beater FJ40 and later went to the Dark Side and ended up with a 1983 Toyota 4x4 SB pickup that was my daily and my adventuring truck. Drove it a couple of years before the 22R finally died on it, and decided to make it more of a project truck and began daily driving a 1996 Toyota T100 RWD Ex-Cab truck.
I had grand plans for it, and ended up doing a driveway rebuild and repaint on it before the California Wildfires hit my parents' property outside of Calistoga and burned down the wood shed where all of my tools, parts, and interior things were stored. The cab/chassis survived, but I lost everything else, so I gave what remained to Larry at Yodaman and focused my attention on the T100.
This is one of the few photos that I have of the '83 before it moved on. I was deep into the reassembly phase of the build before Mother Nature decided elsewise for me.
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Anyway, I focused my attention and money on the T100. She was a solid rig: good fuel economy, spacious, reliable, and able to handle pretty rough terrain even as a one-legger. The camper shell gave me a nice place to sleep while in the woods.

 

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Years go by. Lots of adventures, lots of mods, amazing memories. I end up becoming a father and a Home Inspector. The Plague hits, and there's suddenly no room in my life for my beloved T100. I let her go and sped a few years car-less, driving company cars and inspecting houses.
The real estate market in my area's been pretty volatile and I end up back in the automotive industry and need a reasonable daily, and it required being frank about my options:

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- I don't want a modern truck, because they're all just too big and too stupid and too expensive.​

- I can't afford a first-gen Tundra, and my credit isn't where it needs to be to buy a decent used truck.​

- I also intend to keep inspecting on the side in the hope that it can take off into a stable small business, so I need something economical and spacious so I can haul tools and ladders or take my daughters camping.​

- I like to go off-roading, but I'm not super hardcore so I can probably get by with AWD.​

- I refuse to own a vehicle that I can't sleep in the back of.​

- Most AWD cars are really just FWD cars that kick a little bit of power to the rear when the car feels up to it.​

- The car must be cheap to work on and driveway-maintainable.​

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This basically means that my ideal car is some kind of Subaru Outback.​

Meet Simon The Squeaking Subaru:​

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Simon has had a long life, but his prior owners had done all of the important maintenance and repairs and kept him in good standing so their daughter could go to school and work.
When she went off to college, they sold him and the proceeds would help her pursue her education. They even gave him his name, because his rear upper control arm bushings are dry and squeaky.
$2,800 for four wheels and a pretty solid starting point for a badass Dadwagon.

To illustrate where I want to take Simon, this has been my mood board for how I want him to look:

 

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First thing's first, his brakes were... not so good. He was in dire need of a fluid flush, his front calipers were pretty stiff, and his pads were low.
My first weekend with this car was just nonstop wrenching. I also found a hashed front bearing and swapped it out.





Of course, I managed to bust my 14" hex-to-3/4" impact adapter


That was just an excuse to upgrade my Makita impact to a commercial version of the LXT impact. That way I have one that asks nicely, and one that demands results.

 

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Of course, what Subaru isn't just a rolling wall to plaster in bumper stickers?

 

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This is from mocking up my homebrew sound system on the car.
It's pretty simple: an audio in, a Pac Audio volume knob, an amp and a toggle switch.
My first attempt was with a 100-wat amp that I'd had kicking around my parts pile. It wasn't enough. I stepped up to a Boss 400w amp, and it's nice. Does exactly what I need.

 

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Moving along, I sourced a 3" spacer lift kit for Simon.

It did not go smoothly. I accidentally dropped my bottle jack too fast, and the inner CV on the DS axle popped loose. I was able to rekerjigger it back together, but I'd been so thoroughly whipped by that failure that I chose to tuck tail and put him back together as-is.
The good news is that, apparently, those cheap 3" lifts aren't very good for a Subi. They strain the rear suspension bushings, stress the CV joints, they cause massive alignment issues and push the rear wheels out of center in the wheel housing.
Gotta love a lucky screwup.

 

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Following that debacle I turned my attention to something that I knew that I could only moderately screw up: wiring.

Simon is an automatic, and you can trick the TCM into locking up the center diff on a 4EAT slushbox into full-time AWD for off-road use.


It's basically just a bank of resistors on a relay that acts a s a dummy load to trick the TCM into thinking that the AWD solenoid is closed when it's open. Similar to tricking the torque converter lockup solenoid on early electronically controlled slushboxes.

 

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Cruising along, Simon got upfitted with some Toyo Open Country 215/70R16s ATs which are really impressive tires. I've been a BFG A/T guy my entire car nut life, and these suckers stick to the road like a fly on the wall. Grippy, fairly quiet, reasonably priced. I also did new outer TREs, and alignment, and general maintenance.
The next big issue was his headlamps.
The stock lamps are so dim, it's genuinely terrifying to drive at night. So I dug into my pile o' parts, and got my hands on some LED projector pods.
Since the High Beams are controlled by a mechanical shutter on the pod itself, I reappropriated the stock high beam mounts as fog lamps with amber spray inside the lenses and amber-tinted 9011 LED bulbs.



I'm happier with these lamps, but not happy-happy. I'd like to attempt a redesign at some point. I'll probably try scoring a second set of lamps, and clearancing the entire reflector assembly to accommodate not only the 2" LED pods, but a 3" unit as well. That way Low Beam will be the 3" unit, and High Beam would be Four Eyes of Fire all the way down.

 

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Finished product while testing the signals and parking lights:


Of course, then the alternator decided to check out, so I spent Christmas afternoon swapping it out with one from an 6-cylinder BH. It's definitely and easy way to get extra juice without springing for a custom alternator.

 

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I got home from work on my birthday in December and found that my wife and in-laws all chipped in to get me a set of King overload springs.

 

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Then in February, the inner CV joint that I screwed up finally failed, and the oscillation of it in its death throes roached the corresponding wheel bearing, so I had to tear the front end apart. AGAIN
I figured that while I was in there, I'd go ahead and swap in coil springs and an ADF 1" spacer lift with the 3/8" rear shim to cure Simon's saggy ass.

 

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I had my first chance to properly shake Simon down. I took our pitty to the Mendocino National Forest and had a blast.
My biggest takeaway is that even though he's on a 1" spacer lift with 1/4" coil lift and about an inch of additional clearance from the larger A/Ts, I still need more lift. I dragged that poor exhaust system over a few obstacles.
I'll probably up it to a 2" lift in the near future. I don't see the point in going all-in on a 4" lift because it's just a 2" suspension drop and a 2" subframe drop. That doesn't resolve my issues with dragging the subframe and exhaust on the twisty bits. I'll just have to add a belly pan and go to a Magna-Flow for a lower profile muffler. Oh darn.
He's really fun to wheel, though. Having been a SFA Toyota guy forever and knowing that their combo of clearance and gearing made just about everything wheeling with the Easy Button, having to pick a line and genuinely plan my way though the terrain was a ton of fun. I was really impressed with the decent amount of low-rev grunt I could get out of this little four-pot in first, and the traction from locking the center diff was pretty solid.