Zannu's Forester (Daily driver and long term project)

[Zannu]

Hi All,

Thought it was time I got a thread going for my car, for all the odd little jobs I do that don't warrant seperate posts. Just to generally document what I do as time goes on. So I bought my 2003 Forester in April last year. It is a 2.0 non turbo that cost me under £1500 to buy, and got an MOT just before I bought it. Had a few jobs to do since, and tinkering here and there. I should say I am a uni student studying Off Highway Automotive Engineering, and this is my first car! So not got the greatest budget at the moment, but I plan on looking after this car and hopefully it will last a while. I hope it will get a few nice parts through the next year as I will be on a placement year working at Prodrive!! Further in the future it may even end up with a different heart when funds allow.

Work done so far:

When bought to exhaust had already got a replaced back section to pass the MOT, but it didn;t take long for the cat section to cause problems. A lot of rust around a guard meant there were a lot of holes in the pipe. So whilst working at a classic car garage last summer (Wren Classics in Shaftesbury) I was able to buy a new cat section and install it one evening after work, using the 4 post lift.

Before

 

Then I had a look at the brakes at some point at Uni. Put some new front brake pads in, as well as doing an engine oil and filter change. Could probably do with some new discs in the not too distant future, but waiting till placement year when money should be more available, and probably go for some slightly upgraded road pads at the same time.

 

The most recent fun, and the reason I found this forum was a failure of my lower control arms. Only one went badly enough I could hear it, but both were very dead when I actually looked at them closely. @Mr B was very helpful showing me some that would fit and so I now have second hand alloy Impreza arms in. Got new ball joints and drop links, but should probably have got new bushes as well. So after a little more research I have bought some strongflex polybushes which I plan to install on Monday, making the most of isolation. Only gone for the standard road replacement strength, not stiffer for now. This car is still my daily driver, gets a lot of miles (About 15000 in the last year) so I want it to still retain the comfort, whilst upgrading things a little here and there. Will be my first time changing things like this so any tips for polybushing the car would be appreciated.

 

[Jay762]

A great start to a build thread - Yup @Mr B knows a thing or two about the Fozzie model for sure!! A placement at Prodrive, that sounds really interesting, think you made the right decision with the bushes given your motor could still go offroad etc you have retained flexibility and a degree of comfort  👍

[Zannu]

Thanks. Progress will probably be slow as it is just when I can afford things or they need changing. And I don't want to mess with it too much yet, everything seems to be working well (done 140k miles) and I like the reliability I am getting.

In the advanced technology department so not racing stuff, but should be a very cool year of work.

It probably will get light off road use from time to time. Unlikely to be anything that serious, but keeping comfort and flex should help if I do. Just got to get them changed over now.

[Zannu]

Today I got the bushes swapped out for the poly bushes. Learnt a few things. The rear bushing mount that came with the alloy arms was actually not right for my car, but I had used it so put the arm at a slightly incorrect angle. This morning I sorted this by cleaning up the rear bushing mount from my original steel arms that came off the car. Amazing how quickly they cleaned up with a manual wire brush. So used them in re-assembly so everything fit a bit better.

Otherwise it all went pretty well. As it was not long ago that I changed the arms they came off pretty quickly and easily. Getting the old bushes out was a pain, but once I found the right size sockets and applied some heat the front ones pressed out. And found that burning out and hacksawing the rear bushings was the best method for those. Got the polybushes in easily enough and put it all back together, torquing things up once the car was at ride height on the axle stands under the ball joints.

I have a load of photos but currently my image hosting site of choice (post image) is down for maintainance so they will have to wait till tomorrow. Not done a test drive yet with the isolation we are in, but I will let everyone know what it feels like when I get the chance.

 

Also found a cv boot has a small hole in it so slinging grease about a bit, so going to order some of them and probably change all the front CV boots. Cheap to do and I have the time at home for now so might as well change all of them at the front. Any that come off good will be kept as spares incase another punctures in the future.

[Jay762]

Some steady progress there - yes get through a few wire brush drill attachments myself 😋

If your photos are less than 2mb each you can just drag and drop of select to upload direct to this site, no need for external hosting if not required

[Zannu]

41 minutes ago, Jay762 said:

Some steady progress there - yes get through a few wire brush drill attachments myself 😋

If your photos are less than 2mb each you can just drag and drop of select to upload direct to this site, no need for external hosting if not required

I just used a manual wire brush with this, but it worked very well. Better than I thought but probably as there wasn't any corrosion and the mucky wasn't really caked on.

And I think my photos are bigger than that. But I completley forgotten to add them so thanks for reminding me!

 

Before and after cleaning up the rear mounts from the original steel arms

Looking much better shiny, not sure how long it will last but was worth the effort

The arms came out easily have only been changed recently. My dad helped as well, so in 30 mins we had both off

 

This was interesting to see. So the alloy arms are compatible. But the rear bush housings are different. I used the impreza ones when originally fitting things to my car, which was not ideal. So hence putting on the original housings from the steel arms. You can see the different height which will adjust the angle the arm is at. I don't actually know if it makes any difference in terms of geometry, but imagine it will change the roll centre a bit or something like that? I will learn more about that in the 4th year of my uni course anyway so will know then!

You can also see the stock Forester one has much thicker flanges where the bolts got through. Not sure if that is really needed but another interesting difference I think

Poly bushes all fitted. Once the old bushes were out this was an easy process to grease things up and push them into place

All sorted. Installation didn't take too long either, and they got torqued up with load on the front.

 

This was the leaking cv boot. I will get on and fix that soon

 

[Zannu]

Got some more work done on my car. A few weeks ago I replaced all my front CV boots. I used SKF replacements and also bought Oetiker clips for the few that had a different style which I wasn't able to get as tight. I also had to buy the proper tool for these clips, but it was well worth it as it made it very easy to get the clips tight enough. Everything went fairly smoothly although the snap ring was a pain to get on and off for one side. Was able to just remove the lower ball joint and leave the drive shafts in the car. Had enough room to move things around. It was a good afternoons work, but was completed within this.

Then for my birthday a few weeks ago I got some uprgaded brake discs and pads. I needed to replace these anyway, so went for some Brembo max discs with Brembo Xtra pads. Should be a nice little upgrade in brake performance. The change over went very well and I am now bedding them in nicely. Very happy with everything. Looking at a brake fluid change sometime soon as well, thinking Motul RBF600 but opinions as to the best for daily driving and some spirited country lane driving would be helpful.

The back side of the old discs were really grooved, the front not as bad, but they did really need changing so glad I did it

 

[Mr B]

good job on using decent grade parts, skf boots decent and your brakes decent ...

Any more decent DOT 4 fluid do on road ...
We use castrol react mainly as deal with castrol oils a lot
Motul is decent fluids ..

Get out get some miles on her and some money into the economy lol ...

Positioning difference of rear front arm bush generally differs to change castor value .
Fozzy has difference too due to increased ride height as it a light suv station wagon  off of what is a impreza chassis with different body panels . .

another option to remember for removing rubber bushes ifnot in ideal environment let out the black smoke lol is drill lots of holes through the rubber then push centre out and go to hacksaw step.

Threaded bar and sockets also make good forcing screw press although proper forcing screw and cup kits can be had for fairly sensible money these days .

Keep up the good work and have fun wrenching 👍

[Zannu]

Thanks @Mr B

I am trying to use decent branded parts as it should pay off in the long run. And found I can get them all fairly cheap from Buy Car Parts which is in Germany. Takes a week or 2 to arrive but I think worth it for the prices. They have a lot of cheap copies too so I just filter it so I can only see the few decent brands. Seems to have worked perfectly for the boots and brakes so far.

Ok, I will have a look at castrol too. Still not too sure what I will go with and when, I just know it is one of the next upgrades on my list of things I want to do.

Lol, the problem with getting money into the economy is I don't have that much at the moment! Waiting for a work placement year to start having finished my second year of University, so can't go out driving too much unfortunatley.

Makes sense for caster adjustment. Didn't feel any different on the Impreza ones, but thought it best to stick with what it came with. Not sure how much it would actually adjust it by. And we did try threaded bars and sockets. Had some success doing that for the smaller ones but just didn't have the right size sockets. I will invest in a proper kit with a good selectrion of cups before doing any more.

Thanks, I am having fun and still loving the car 👍