A very crunchy SF Forester

[Noll]

More parts cleaning/fixing today, probably the last of it for now though; back to working on the shell next.

the brake junction block cleaned up nicely:

 

Some various shots of bracket fixing:

 

 

 

 

 

Didn't take any pics of the gas tank straps in-progress, but they needed a decent amount of work and some brackets re-making. Everything painted and nice now:

[Noll]

Tank straps all done and back together, ready to put aside until i need them:

 

 

And took the plunge and ripped out one of the strut towers. Lots of rust, but nothing i can't sort 🙂 . Not sure what i'll do about the inner arches yet, might make them out of some trailer fenders, or may try to replicate stock as close as possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Noll]

Ok, been a bit behind on updates the last little while. Other side out too, and started the repairs:

 

 

 

 

 

[EDM620]

Yup, proof that is an Ontario car...

[Noll]

Quebec until now surprisingly, just in an area where they must have used salt.

 

---------------------------------

 

Cleaned up the drivers-side wheelarch area, and welded in a patch and a couple small repairs. Mostly just cutting stuff back to good and cleaning up, it already looks 10x better now it's not crusty 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Much patch-making and welding to come when i work on this are next, i may do the same cleanup to the other side before that though.

[Noll]

One quarter panel, fully welded on 🙂 . Made an inner arch from a trailer fender, as the pre-curved nature of it saved me a lot of work vs DIY from scratch.

All turned out pretty well, will need a bit of filler of course but for MIG on a big flat panel it has rather minimal warpage.

 

 

 

 

 

[Noll]

Ok time to update this again. Life got in the way for a bit, but i've done a lot recently.

New fuel tank all done, nice, undercoated, and wax sprayed:

 

 

 

 

 

Passenger rear frame rail mostly fixed:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rear driver's inner structure:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And got the strut towers tek-screwed back in to check fitment, and once I was happy made a positioning brace. Did a bunch of measuring and the distance between the outer bolt holes on the towers is about 1223mm, the factory repair manual says 1221 mm so good enough for me, especially considering how bad they were when i started (so far the rear folding seats didn't want to latch).

 

 

 

 

Next up will obviously be re-making most of the strut towers from scratch haha. Now that I know where the tops need to sit and have enough rusty metal left to use as a template for new sections (making sure the factory interior panels fit is important) it shouldn't be too bad of a job.

[EDM620]

On 6/12/2023 at 9:23 PM, Noll said:

strut towers tek-screwed back in to check fitment

Considering how much re-construction work you do, I'd suggest you get yourself some Cleko fasteners - KMS has them in different sizes - can make easier work of fitting/refitting/tacking bits in place.

[Noll]

4 hours ago, EDM620 said:

Considering how much re-construction work you do, I'd suggest you get yourself some Cleko fasteners - KMS has them in different sizes - can make easier work of fitting/refitting/tacking bits in place.

 

Oh yeah, i've been meaning to get some forever but there's always something a bit higher on the $$ priority list. one day...

(also i've been slacking on posting updates to the project here, i'll fix that soon haha)

[Noll]

Ok, finally getting around to dumping some pics from the last while. More has been done since then but i want to at least not be *super* far behind when i get around to that update.

 

Dug the rear bumper out of storage and mocked it up - the lines flow pretty much perfectly with the quarter replacement so that's nice

 

 

Peeled the outer layer off the rear strut towers. No wonder these cars rot, there is basically foam between the layers and *bare metal*, no primer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And started making new sections:

 

 

 

 

 

[slowlearner]

Ouch! There should be a punishment for such awful construction. Foam and bare metal? They could have primed that metal before welding it together. 

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

3 hours ago, slowlearner said:

Ouch! There should be a punishment for such awful construction. Foam and bare metal? They could have primed that metal before welding it together. 

I sent an email to Jeep a few years ago telling them that one major upgrade I would gladly pay extra for would be an entirely powder coated chassis. After one trip to the snow in our brand new (at the time) '03 Rubicon, the frame and axles were already showing surface rust. Because many of the chassis parts are not even painted from new.

 

You guys are brave, patching those small areas is scary. I'd rather replace the entire section than rely on the surrounding metal to be sound.

[Noll]

3 hours ago, slowlearner said:

Ouch! There should be a punishment for such awful construction. Foam and bare metal? They could have primed that metal before welding it together. 

 

right??? Of course it's going to rust, and doubly so because there's a 3rd reinforcing layer on the wheel side that has a lot of holes in it that aren't actually sealed or anything - once water gets past the paint and undercoating it just sits between the layers without ever being able to dry up, and voila, rust

 

56 minutes ago, Stoffregen Motorsports said:

I sent an email to Jeep a few years ago telling them that one major upgrade I would gladly pay extra for would be an entirely powder coated chassis. After one trip to the snow in our brand new (at the time) '03 Rubicon, the frame and axles were already showing surface rust. Because many of the chassis parts are not even painted from new.

 

You guys are brave, patching those small areas is scary. I'd rather replace the entire section than rely on the surrounding metal to be sound.

 

Yeah, it's kinda amazing the shortcuts OEMs take sometimes 😞 . relatedly, if I had the $$ for a reproduction galvanized chassis for my land rover that's 100% the route I'd be taking, but sadly don't have 7k lying around.

 

Also keep in mind for the strut towers this is only the beginning of the repairs to them; the res of the original metal is just still there for now for me to use as a shape/bend template when i make the next bits. When I'm done the only original bits will be the strut tops and some of the rear third/ "inner wheelwell" parts (single-walled so no rust can hide there!), so i'm plenty confident in the strength of them. Just have to make them in several sections because bending 1/8 plate to make them out of less larger sections is quite difficult haha.

 

I'll also be wax-spraying the hell out of the cavities of the rear boxed unibody frame rails once i've fixed all that too (that is, if i don't decide to replace them entirely). It's never going to be as much as i'd like unless I got the entire body of the car galvanized, but that's "very rich people stuff" and if i had that kind of money this entire build thread wouldn't be a thing lol

 

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been meaning to post more progress pics, will get around to that soon. Have a small backlog even though i haven't been working on the car much the last couple weeks - currently fixing a ford ranger for a friend (the cab/box are even worse than this car was lol, just hacking it back together to keep the weather out and make the truck last a few more years for him),  and the little bit of foz work i have done has been not-picture-worthy stuff like removing the driveshaft, and spending wayyyyy too many hours scraping all the old undercoating off the entire bottom of the car (nearly done though finally!)

 

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

I guess what I was getting at was the patching in lieu of replacing longer sections. You can't know what's behind the sections that look good from the outside, and so close to a badly rotted section means that the presence of rot is likely. The only way to stop rust in its tracks is to remove the oxygen from the equation, so if you can clean the back of it enough to get a good solid coating of paint on it, it may last a couple decades, but who knows?

[Noll]

Just now, Stoffregen Motorsports said:

I guess what I was getting at was the patching in lieu of replacing longer sections. You can't know what's behind the sections that look good from the outside, and so close to a badly rotted section means that the presence of rot is likely. The only way to stop rust in its tracks is to remove the oxygen from the equation, so if you can clean the back of it enough to get a good solid coating of paint on it, it may last a couple decades, but who knows?

ah, gotcha

 

yeah, depends on where on the car, thickness of metal, and so on. Where possible i like to replace more, but sometimes that means a ton more work and if a given panel isn't rusty beyond that area, i'm ok with smaller patches. Also depends on metal thickness and ability to get to the backside as you say. For, say, the unibody frame rails, those are thick enough metal to the point that they should last a good long time even if not painted inside, but the rear quarters etc not so much and so on.
Just a balance between time, money, and "this will probably last longer than the lifespan of the car regardless" etc

[JackRT]

Great progress! Way to go

[Noll]

Ok, this summer/fall has passed in a blur and i've been awful at actually updating threads etc for the stuff I'm working on, but I have been working on the foz and taking pics, so here we go 🙂 .

Rundown below of what i've been up to on it the past couple of months, not going into all the detail as that'd take forever but now i'm caught up i'll try to actually update the thread as I go again.

 

May end up splitting this into 2 or 3  posts depending on how long it gets.

 

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Got the rear all wire-wheeled, all sound deadening residue removed, and primer'd to have a better lock at everything the needed fixing.

 

 

 

Front passenger door was dented to hell, so managed to find one in a junkyard a few hours away. Not perfect, but way better than the one I had. Sadly the front driver's door on the junkyard car wasn't nice enough to take to replace mine or would have grabbed that too. Grabbed some LHD pre-facelift headlights and other misc. off another (much rustier) foz while I was there too.

 

 

 

 

 

Once I got them home I found out one of the ball-and-socket joints in one of the headlights was popped out (so the aiming just flopped around), with no way to fix unless I baked the lense off for access. Didn't want to do that and these headlights were super cheap from the junkyard, so went the choppy choppy route to gain access then sealed it back up after. Keeps moisture out and will never be seen once installed so good enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chopped up the trailer hitch to replace the receiver as the old one had the trailer ball mount seized in it, and there's generally a lot more useful accessories etc available for 2" than 1 1/4".

 

 

 

 

Replaced all the rear suspension bushings as they were shot. Started with my hydraulic knockout tool and a bunch of stacked spacers, then went and borrowed a friend's press for the rest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Acquired a nice rare OEM rear diff skidplate, so got that, the links, and other misc. painted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Noll]

the flange off the cat was rotten and generally junk, so got that all fixed up so it would actually bolt together and seal. The other end was also junk so I welded in a new flange there as I need to rebuild much of the midpipe anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The matching flange on the header was also junk, happily i had a spare header in my shed i put there like 5 years and 3 cars ago so i just swapped that on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally acquired a bunch of clecos so I could stop using sheetmetal screws for temporary panel fitment. Also acquired a spot welder, so used that to make some new handbrake cable brackets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Got most of the interior bits cleaned up while the weather/temp still allows; not a fun job once winter hits haha. The carpet is *trashed* but at least it's cleaner for the time being.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One stubborn salt stain on the rear seat i haven't been able to remove entirely yet, all clean otherwise.

 

 

 

Finally bought tires and got them mounted:

 

 

 

 

New driveshaft showed up:

 

 

[Noll]

Made some spacers for the trailing arms (as otherwise with the strut top lift without these the rear wheels would end up sucked closer to the front of the wheel opening). Fully boxed with crush tubes, ought to be more than strong enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some misc. repairs to the left foot footrest that sits under the carpet:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Was missing one of the guides for the handbrake cables so made one:

 

 

Started on the rear strut towers and surrounding area. The towers will come out again to finish the inner arches before they are welded in for good, so I am making sure to keep the "attached to car" and "attached to strut tower" bits separate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Found a forester in the junkyard that was remarkably clean in the areas that mattered (was oil sprayed every year it seems), so I cut the entire rear out of it to replace my unibody frame rails, the rotten bit of floor where the rear seat sits, etc. Had planned to make patches for all of this stuff but this will save me a lot of work overall. The frame rails need repair in a couple of spots but are 100x better than mine, and it's very easy to do the needed work while they're on my workbench vs while lying under the car

 

 

 

 

I'm sad I had to cut it in half, but it wouldn't fit in my car to get it home otherwise.

 

 

 

 

 

Pulled the timing cover off, and the timing belt seems literally brand new so there's one job and several hundred bucks I don't have to spend right away, woo (at the very least until after this winter).

 

 

 

Skidplate mounting. The exhaust hung lower then the front jackpoint and the skidplate i bought used off marketplace also had some clearance issues, so I killed  2 birds with one stone by spacing this piece down a little bit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The skidplate was meant for a GD impreza and so fitment was a bit different on my SF forester, and someone had chopped the front corners out of it for clearance on a different subaru, so after chopping off the bits that I didn't need for the foz application I used the leftover aluminium to cover the holes someone else made. This is in a spot where it's unlikely the skidplate will have to do much skidding, so riveted on patches to keep sticks and snow out does the trick (i wish I owned a TIG though...)

 

 

 

More strut tower rebuilding. The rear folding seat latches were important as far as position, so I made those work first and then rebuilt the less dimensionally-crucial areas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some general hole-removal on patches that will be welded in (cut out of the red forester's floor):

 

 

 

 

Got the driver's rear dogleg finished and massaged a little so the trim fit properly, the holes for it were stamped wrong so I opted to fix by welding some washers in the correct spot as it's all hidden when assembled.

 

 

 

 

That roughly brings us to the present day.

 

[EDM620]

You've done a lot of work Noll, the red Forester find was fantastic! Clecos are wonderful for panel fitting - I had been using small Tek screws before I started to use Clecos and found the holes from the Tek screws would always strip out then the panel would not realign properly. I also wish I had a Tig, haven't yet come up with justification to buy one.

[Noll]

On 10/16/2023 at 8:41 AM, EDM620 said:

You've done a lot of work Noll, the red Forester find was fantastic! Clecos are wonderful for panel fitting - I had been using small Tek screws before I started to use Clecos and found the holes from the Tek screws would always strip out then the panel would not realign properly. I also wish I had a Tig, haven't yet come up with justification to buy one.

 

Many thanks! Still a long ways to go but getting there little by little. And that they are, especially when having to remove stuff a bunch. tek screws are still handy sometimes (pulling panels together that don't quite want to sit right without more force than the clecos impart), but they've very much taken a back seat now.

 

And mood, i keep wanting to but i just about get by without one so it keeps getting delayed. Also don't have 220v or even a 20a 120v outlet in the garage (just 15a) so that would need to be sorted first.

 

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Got the passenger side rear dogleg done over the last couple days, finished it last night. Took a fair bit more than the other side did back when I did it; needed a decent amount of reshaping so that the lines were right and the plastic panel fit properly. Still not as perfect as I'd like but it's close enough for some filler (likely the short-hair fibreglass reinforced stuff due to its proximity to the tires/ higher general chances of getting nicked or hit by stuff) so that's good enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also have yet to make that lower section of 90deg flange where it wraps around to the back (on the area where i welded in that lower repair), as I want to get the rocker done first (inner layers still need fixing before the outer box section tubing gets welded in) to make sure i build it to the right spot.

[Noll]

Back to the strut towers; re-making the reinforcing gussets. 1/8" plate, ought to be a lot beefier than stock 🙂
Only 3 more to make now (the one in the pic is getting replaced, just kept it there for a reference point)
 

 

 

 

Also got the lower rear dirt shield thingy welded back on. All weld cleanup will happen once I remove the strut towers one last time to clean and paint them before final install.

[Noll]

Got the rest of the strut tower structure made and welded in, just need to make the other gusset and this side is done! Not bad considering the starting point 🙂

 

 

[]2eDeYe]

I feel so much better about my cj5 haha. Thanks 🙂

 

On 10/15/2023 at 1:33 PM, Noll said:

 (i wish I owned a TIG though...)

 

On 10/16/2023 at 5:41 AM, EDM620 said:

 I also wish I had a Tig, haven't yet come up with justification to buy one.

 

 

I love my Eastwood T200, it was a value considering how much I have used it. It is the nicest 'cheap' machine or the 'cheapest' nice machine that I found. 
Saying that, for most panel tacking I think mig is the way to go.

[Noll]

5 hours ago, ]2eDeYe said:

I feel so much better about my cj5 haha. Thanks 🙂

 

 

 

 

I love my Eastwood T200, it was a value considering how much I have used it. It is the nicest 'cheap' machine or the 'cheapest' nice machine that I found. 
Saying that, for most panel tacking I think mig is the way to go.

 

 

Hah no problem 😛
i end up working on the rustiest possible things it seems, idk why I do this to myself.

 

And good to know! MIG is definitely very nice for a ton of stuff, some things TIG would be super handy for though (partial panel replacements especially on flatter panels so as to reduce warpage etc)

 

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got the passenger rear tower to 99% complete last night, made the other gusset pane and welded it in after making sure it didn't interfere with the filler neck etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Final welding of that lower bit I sliced up to bend to the contour better/general weld cleanup/welding the backsides of areas I feel need it/etc will happen when I pull the tower off to replace the frame rail before welding it in for good; no sense in making life harder trying to weld/grind/etc in an enclosed area if I don't need to.