farmerpug

Well its an old car, there is worse rust along the top of the windscreen, and wait till i get pictures of the repaired sill, it looks like it was welded in but not treated so its quite badly rusted. Its only a bit of practice really, i suppose it just takes a bit more patience and time with the isopon to get it right.

Got the paint, sanded for ages at the door, after a few coats of primer and colour paint: Its not perfect, its my time using isopon so it will do ok, there is no more rust, or hole in the door

If filtered right it shouldnt clog up the engines. I had a friend tried to run his 406 HDi on it but after a few weeks clogged up the fuel pump and injectors, he bought an older xud 406 and its still running fine on it.

They should in theory but modern diesels have such precise fuel pumps and injectors they clog up very easy, the older indirect injection engines are more resilient to poorer quality fuels

It seems to be hard to find diesel 4x4 estates that are about 5 years old, audi made a few, most of the older 4x4 estates are petrols. Like my forester its a good car, the last owner he does very little driving so didnt mind the fuel economy. I seen a 405 estate on ebay a while back, it had the 1.9 xud and a 4x4 system i think from the mi16, and citroen rear suspension it was a collection of bits and pieces from rare cars. finding spares would be a nightmare. it seemed like a good idea and them old xud engines will run on biodiesel.

Is there many about that are both 4x4 and diesel, they did the v6 with 4x4 but i never seen a diesel one. Although every time i go on the internet looking for a sensible x type jag i always end up looking at XJ-R's and trying to justify buying one :D Thanks anyhow for asking, i didnt get to the breakers today with the snow on the roads, but looking at the shocks i have right now on the back they are in good nick so i might just whack in new springs and leave it alone.

I find this to be the problem with most of the breakers on ebay, for all makes and models of cars. I dont know why the messaging thing comes through as an email i broke a clio and a 406 in the past and was able to get emails asking me for parts fine. Its hard to beat the old fashoned local scrapyard, im going to take a run over to a place tommorow which breaks subaru's hopefully they might have a forester. But if you see any let me know that would be great thanks. Although a price of springs for the back are only £50 it might work out cheaper just to put new springs on the shocks. A 4 wheel drive jag, that would be an x type, they are a nice car. Did they ever offer the 4x4 version with a diesel engine?

Still looking for rear shocks all week and gambit your right, the phone is always awnsered by some woman with a very nice telephone manner but who couldnt tell the difference between a steering wheel and gearstick, some prices for rear shocks out of used cars have been more than brand new shocks when they quote a price. Still a load of feckers on ebay who just dont reply, there is a really mint looking red forester being broken for parts but they never reply I almost got a pair of shocks paid for them, the next day the man said he took them out and they were leaking at least he was honest so he refunded me. I might end up buying a pair of standard springs and put them into the current shocks, to save any waiting about.

It was indeed a panda 1.1 active (about 50bhp), great wee car drove like a go-cart and cost very little to run, it was traded in against a 2002 clio 1.2 16v although its a nicer looking car it was !Removed! to drive and guzzled petrol, although i had fixed the panda and even though money was spent on it i still made £500. Your right there about the IOS thing, too much money for a new iPhone, but once a newer model comes out the old one is worthless, although i have bought both my iphones used after the newer model came out.

Got the front struts in today, no back ones yet. Ebay sellers who break cars, i dont know why they bother lisiting the stuff none of the feckers ever reply to any emails asking for parts. With the car in the air i got some brake calliper paint and painted them red, the only thing was i forgot i had compressed the front callipers and near drove into the gatepost. Before with the apparently STI springs the front of the car from the ground to the wheel arch was 26 inches, now with the standard springs its 29 inches which makes a huge difference, it can go over kerbs. Before: and after:

I had a look on ebay the iphone obd yoke is down to under £30 now on ebay, not bad value. I dont mind android or IOS, as long as it gets emials, plays youtube and has an internet browser im happy, the only reason i went for an ipod is that the radio in my 406 can control ipods through the steering wheels controls. It might be a fuse or bad wire going to the obd port, I've heard of the earth for the port going bad on some cars and the reader unable to find any codes. The front bumper might be a bit controversial, although my first car looked much much worse: (get the sick bucket ready) In my defence for buying a yellow car, it was a stupendously cheap damage repairable £1100 in 2007 for a 2004 car with 21k miles, and i always planned to paint the car black, but the head gasket failed at 28k, and after replacing the interior, the door and wing, and rear boot glass i didnt want to spend any more on it.

The time i did the brake callipers on the 406 i used a bit of massey ferguson red paint my uncle had lying around, painted on with a brush and it still looks grand, probably will do the same here. I think there is a better chance of getting the right paint in B&Q than there is in halfords :) The website said they could make up custom paints, the eejit behind the till said they didnt.

The other day while i was in they couldnt make the paint even when i offered the registration, vin number, colour code, even a picture of the car. And i made the mistake of buying "metallic red" brake calliper paint while i was in there, painted the callipers today and they are fecking pink now.

Some of the phone kits are very good, ive tried an iphone wifi thing but it was a bit too expensive at £100 for the device, then the apps had to be purchased separately.

Yup its 406 silver, i ordered myself a few tins off an ebay seller, without lacquer (i have a few tins lying about). Halfords were useless for the subaru paint, they didnt have any paint for any sort of subaru. Anyhow here is what ive been at to the subarus bodywork:

I recently purcased a fault code reader an autel maxiscan ms509 a £40 job off amazon, its read codes on my mums clio and uncles toyota previa but not connecting to the subaru. Is my 1997 forester OBDII complaint, it has an occasional check engine light and id like to be able to find out what it is, i suspect 02 sensor but id like to be sure.

My foresters VIN plate shows the colour as 8G5, is there a name for this colour of paint so i can get a few rattle cans of this colour, im touching up and isoponing a few rusty spots and just need the original colour of paint to finish the job.

Thanks Jay for the advice. I see some foresters being broken on ebay and in the pictures the ground clearance looks much higher than mine (ive got no room between the front wheel and arch, its wore the inner wheelarch liner through to the metal) Gambit, yep its my uncles land down on the farm. I have to say the springs in the forester were a doddle to remove, compared to the same job on the 406, where the hub clamps around the strut and trying to seperate the hub was something which did cause many bad words to be said. In comparison the foresters strut just came out with no fuss, didnt even need wd40.

I like the 2 tone colour scheme with the grey bumper, its very 90's retro :D It matches the grey wheels, or the wheels match it. There is bits of rust here and there but ive got a big tub of P38 Isopon to attack it with, and the scuff near the headlight washer will get painted. As for the samurai, it was a great wee jeep, very fast and went anywhere, it served a few good years doing this: But between removing the 1.3 engine and getting a replacement 1.6 it sat outside for a while in the wet and the body got rusty, there was too much rust, and the brake servo failed and i crashed it hence no front end It wasnt dead, i left it parked in my garage for over a year, got fed up with it taking up the space, it started first push of the button, i parked it out in the garden that day to change the gearbox oil in my mums clio, i sold it on gumtree for £220, so it paid for the forester. Back to the forester i removed the front spring as i might get a replacement set of used struts off ebay, but how do i measure the height of this strut so it can be compared to what some ebay seller is selling them for:

Apologies for no forester picture in this thread a tight squeeze to get it in the garage and its predecessor, a 1991 suzuki samurai with a vitara 1.6 on the subject of the suspension again, i think ill look out for a set of standard shocks and springs and whack them into the forester.

My dad wants to use it for getting a few rabbits round the farm, the big sunroof is fantastic for that. Im more interested in rallying it :D I wouldnt really want to sell the 406 though i need something economical and comfy for the daily drives, plus i also have bought a few wrote off 406s in the past dissected them and now my attic is full with spare parts which is a big plus with a car of this age, here it is:

I took it into the field for the first time i was very impressed by how well the thing goes, even on road tyres it got across very mucky parts and could handle properly in the corners, it seems to do a bit of lift off oversteer which was great, need to fix the handbrake though it doesnt seem to do much. Going this speed in the suzuki would have put it on its roof. I think ill leave raising it for a while i reckon it will cost at least £300 to do, and i need to change the timing belt on my pug soon.

I want to raise the suspension on my 1997 forester as its too low for the off roading i have planned for it Apparently according to the previous owner it has STI suspension in it, i dont even know if there was an STi forester. all i know is it cant get over a kerb. What is the best way to raise a forester, any particular type of springs, would the shocks need replaced aswell?

Thankfully it was the pipes which were corroded and not the tank, i just cut out all the metal parts and replaced them with rubber fuel lines which has cured the leak, removing the tank looks like it would be a big job on this car.

I have a petrol leak in my 1998 forester 2.0 I bought the car last week, knowing it had this issue, jacked the car up, and took the rear tyre off there tonight but its too dark to see it clearly, but it seems to be the pipe which is leaking where the rubber hose meets a metal bit of pipe. Is there a pump in the tank that i can go back to in order to put on rubber fuel hose? I dont like the idea of taking the back axle etc out to remove the tank, is it hard on these cars?