Yeah, we got ourselves a new garage!
Widric’s second Impreza. The garage is about two thirds smaller than the previous one – but it is brand new.
Author: searock
Oil pressure in various conditions
This is something that I’ve always wanted to do. Stock oil pressure and various other numbers of the 4A-GZE. Measures from the Pivot gauges, only mod I have is relocated oil filter assembly with sensors attached, which means that the stock oil-to-water cooler is removed.
Amb ient temperature was around 19degreesC, using high performance 5W40 oil.
Edit 4.10.2017 I’ve fucked up this post, haven’t I? Where are the numbers?
Fog
Driving around for a while. Everything runs fine and the car feels like it is settled suspensionwise.
After this I’m going to add the odo to every update I do. I forgot already what I had on the gauge when I took this picture. 113000 something km if I remember correctly 🙂
New head unit
I got this one from a local dealer:
(messy cables, fix soon!)
My mom was complaining that the radio in Corolla was acting badly. I said to her that I’ll buy a new one into AW11 and then the old one is good for Corolla.
I bought one with bluetooth streaming so I can use Spotify in car (I actually said to dealer that I want the cheapest Alpine radio with green buttons and bluetooth streaming, this is what I got) 😀
Pulleys
This one could work as a pulley spare if nothing else is available. It is smaller than toyota idler pulley (which is 90mm?) and bit thicker.
One subaru idler from Widrics stash.
Here are my spares. The bent one is on the left, then I have one idler that has a bearing that can be changed, which probably isnt a genuine toyota part anyways, and then my real spare from the spare engine.
Judging by the things happened…
…I’d say my AW11 is a lady a bitch.
I found this by accident. 😀
We’ve been working with both of our Subarus lately (considering starting a new blog) and I haven’t paid that much attention to my AW11. I think the car was sitting in Widrics yard at least a month and seems it was jealous about the attention what the subarus were getting.
Then one evening, me and Widric went to a drive. Things escalated quickly and we went into a big parking lot in the middle of night and tore some rubber off my tires 😀 I didnt notice anything wrong with the car and left the car again in front of Widrics house.
A week later, when I was leaving Widrics driveway I noticed that something was wrong with the car. It made the most horrendous clunking noise ever. Turned out the drivers side shock top nut was loose! No idea how that could have happened, the top nut had been tightened ages ago and the car had sat untouched for the whole time.
Couple of days later my AW11 really told me to take better care of her, again with a loose nut. I was leaving a gas station and to match the traffic speed I accelerated pretty quickly off ramp. Then something hit the underside of the car maybe three or four times and from the rear view mirror I saw something shiny bouncing on the road. The car was running perfect, no warning lights and all gauges were at normal. I took the next exit, parked the car and went to look if I could find the thing I saw. I was pretty certain that I just drove over some debris on the road but I had to be sure.
I found the the thing and it looked so much like a serpentine belt idler from toyota that I started to think that this is the weirdest thing ever. What are the odds to drive over a similar idler that I have in my car? I went back to my AW11 and opened the hood. Both belts there and everything was good.
…and then I noticed that the idler from SC/WP belt was missing. The belt was there, maybe bit loose, but it was still running the water pump! 😀
Luckily, I had a spare. I found out that I still had one spare idler from the spare engine I bought some time ago, but we visited most of the auto parts stores in the town with Widric until remembered that I had a spare.
The one that flew off the car was not round anymore and it took me maybe 20 minutes to put the spare in. I wonder how the nut holding the idler was loose…
I’ll have to quote Dr. McCoy from Star Trek here:
“”You treat her like a lady, and she’ll always bring you home.“” (TNG: “”Encounter at Farpoint””)
Clutch problems 2
Got it working! I fixed the slave cylinder with a repair kit and added some brand new brakefluid.
Removed the battery and intercooler to get to the slave cylinder – that fucker is down there somewhere:
Removing the cylinder was probably the hardest part. First the line to the master cylinder, then the bleeding line and finally the two bolts securing it against the gearbox.
Here is the cylinder:
The piston is still in
This one seems to come from Aisin – cant make out the numbers…
I’ve read about the longer rods used with beefier clutches, but never really found out how long the stock rod is. Mine is most likely stock and it seems to be 67mm long.
I had some doubts about the helper spring inside the slave cylinder. The lower one is old and upper is new and oh boy it seems that the force is with the old one! I had to really push hard to squash the old spring. No idea why there was such spring in the first place.
Getting all back together was easier than removing the parts. Bleeding the clutch was awful, because the bleeder valve is under the car next to front motor mount. Kinda perverted to put it in such place.
Widric was fixing his Impreza GC8 while we were at the barn. He thought that his Impreza wasnt going to get running properly even after he swapped all the stock components into engine (dump valve, stock injectors and spark plugs). The whole story is long and sad.
MR2 was done and we sat there in silence, sipping our beers and wondering what was going on with the Impreza. Widric said that he was going to drive around one more time just to make sure that we didnt miss anything. I went to clean up our mess and suddenly heard how Widric drove past the barn with such noise that it left no doubt that the car was actually running just fine!
Cars are just voodoo sometimes!
Widrics GC8 and my AW11:
We’re driving back from the barn – Widric is ahead of me:
Clutch problems
Some clutch problems came up recently. The release point has risen, the pedal feel is awful and driving is now bit annoying. Or difficult.
I’m pretty certain that the master cylinder is ok. When we did the auto gearbox swap with Maladar some time ago, I got a master cylinder repair kit from toyota. Now, afterwards, why o why didnt I check the release cylinder as well. Probably thought that it was ok but never really tested it. What can I say – assumption is the mother of all fuckups.
The problem is bit weird. I do have a ATS carbon clutch with lightened flywheel and everything, but hopefully the problem isnt there. The clutch isnt slipping and the release bearing, the fork that moves the said bearing and everything around there seem to be ok. The release cylinder on the otherhand seems to have some weird kind of pressure build-up. I can push the rod that comes out of the release cylinder all the way back, but some kind of force pushes it back agains the clutch fork. I’m not sure if someone before me has “upgraded” the spring that is inside the release cylinder.
To fix the problem I got a used (found it from a car wrecking site) release cylinder and also bought a repair kit. I found out that the SC and NA versions have different release cylinders (part numbers were 31470-17010 for NA and 31470-17020 for SC) altough the same repair kit applies to both. The main difference seems to be that the clutch pipe seems to attach to the cylinder in different angle. NA has a slightly higher angle than SC. I will post photos when I have both next to each other.
I’ve given some thoughts for a proper flush and bleeding of the clutch line, but the clutch release cylinder seems to move without a hitch when pedal is pressed. I’m bit baffled with the whole thing, but I hope I will get enlightened when I get all the parts.
My head is currently a horrible place to be
About nine months ago I was diagnosed with severe reactive depression.
Since that, I’ve gone through multiple different versions of selective serotonine reuptake inhibitors and even had some electricity through my head in the form of electroconvulsive therapy. I even had four appointments with a Dr. of psych (best-in-his-field) and a bunch of colourful sleepingpills but none of this helped.
Electroconvulsive therapy was said to have some effects on the memory but this “treatment” cost me a lot of memories and got me a plenty of garbled ones. My short term memory was so bad at one point that it resembled a sad comedy version of the movie Memento.
I’ve found a small relief into my symptoms through aminoacids and soon I will be tested for some kind of thyroid malfunction, but I dont have high hopes that the thyroid would explain this.
All of this has kept me away from the car and the blog. I have been way too tired to even care about myself, with that kind of tiredness what normal nights sleep wont take away and you wish the life would go by sooner that you could sleep and rest in death.
And in no particular order, these people have kept me sane and helped me: My mom and sis, Maladar, Widric, Aphexic, Bearcat, Z, Shikker, Sensei, dm-g, A, Medusa, Hiro, Ramlin and all the people at the three offices where I work at. I probably left someone out and I’m terribly sorry, I just cant remember. 🙁
After long winter in front of our storage barn.
P.S. Because I got so much electricity through my head in the ECT, I can now tell the direction towards magnetic north pole \;)
Turbo and the secret hideout
Last six months have been hard. I got sick and I’m not well yet. Over six months at this point…
Some pictures from our adventures with Maladar and Widric, first two of the very last pictures of the car before closing our hideout for the winter:
Our hideout is a barn. Whoooo…
Cars waiting outside:
Celebrating our epic moving – we finally got all our stuff to winter hideout:
