the subaru prayer

The Subaru Prayer

Oh six great stars it is this we ask this of thee,
That you watch over us and our cars for eternity.
That the driver’s calm courage shall never wane,
That our bearings forever stand up to the strain.
That our lifters never tick and our seals do not leak,
That relays never stick and oil pressure does not get weak.

Resilience to our axles and head gaskets give,
For that we shall thank thee as long as we live.
May our radiators have the capacity to never get hot,
And our fuel injectors give all that they’ve got.
Let our tires grab the road so we can haul ass,
And give us the visibility so we can make it through the pass.

May our sensors always read correctly,
And our ground connections work directly.
May our wheels never lose the ability to steer,
And may our transmissions never grind a gear.
May we never be foolish but always bold,
And may our starters never fail to turn in the cold.

Not rain, fog, mud, cold or snow,
Shall keep us from where we need to go.
Give us the strength to drive on through the night,
And keep our voltage up so lights may shine bright.
In the blackness of night or whiteout of the day,
Our cars, if not us, shall know the way.

Sophia gets some more goodies!

Here's the latest pic of Sophia:


Last weekend, I used Matt's garage to get a bunch of work done. I did a temporary rust repair on the spot behind the driver's side rear door:

Before After


I also added some stout mudflaps that I made from one Kenworth mudflap, which cost $5 instead of close to $50 for regular "automotive" mudflaps from Schucks.

Finally, I added a diverter valve to the tranny cooler circuit, so now I can run the stock cooler, or have my gigantic aftermarket cooler in series with the stock one. I did this because I was having trouble with the tranny not warming up when the outside temperature dropped below 50 degrees.

Gertrude's progress

Last week, the biggest box I have ever seen and the second biggest box I have ever seen arrived with most of the parts I need for Gertrude's restoration.

Most of the stuff appears to be fitting together pretty well.


The biggest challenge is reconstructing the frame on the driver's side where the bumper mounts. I've spent about two hours on that part so far, welding up a frame rail from angle iron and flat stock. A test fit of the bumper cover showed that the alignment is pretty close, which is good enough for me:).


I'm hoping to work on it a bunch more tomorrow and hopefully get the whole front end done if everything goes well. I'll post pics of the progress soon.

Keep on soobin'!

OH YEAAAAAAAAH!

Most of the body panels for Gertrude, the wrecked Impreza, came in this week from Washington on the barge! I can't wait to get started cutting, welding, and hitting things with a large hammer to make it all fit together.

When I went to pick the stuff up from Lynden Transport, neither of the two boxes would fit in the back of my car, so I strapped them both on top. I had to drive about five miles with a four-foot-tall stack of boxes on top of my car. I can't imagine why people were looking at me funny...

Anyway, I'll post pictures of the progress soon!

My Denali trip! (continued)

So as I was saying, I went to this cool glacier:

After that, I drove most of the way to Delta Junction and camped on a levee.












Sunday:

Most of Sunday was spent driving from Delta to Denali. While I was in Fairbanks, I checked out the Chena River to see about doing a canoe trip on it next summer, which looks pretty good. I got to Denali around 4 pm and spent a couple of hours wandering around by a series of waterfalls near the highway. After that, I decided to drive into the park itself, which was a gorgeous drive. Due to partial cloudcover, I could see one of the corners of Mt. McKinley. Later on, I went about 40 miles south of the park to camp on the bank of some river.

Monday:

It was COLD monday morning. The outside of the car was all frosted up. I slept in late, so I had to really book it going back up to Denali in order to get there in time for the raft trip I had arranged the day before. I went with DOC on a two-hour paddle-raft trip on the Nenana, which was a great time. Andy, my guide, happened to know a couple of people I work with down at Chilkat Guides, which was cool. By this time, it had warmed up significantly, so it wasn't too cold. After the raft trip, I went hiking toward Mt. Healy until about 8 pm. It was a long walk, but the views were absolutely spectacular up there.

For example:

After my long and tiring hike, I drove back in to the park and watched some moose in rut. It never turned into moose porn, but it was pretty cool to watch. After that was over and it was getting dark, I camped illegally just outside of town.








Tuesday:

I slept really late on tuesday, made a huge breakfast to try to get rid of most of my leftover food, and then drove the 250-some miles back to Anchorage. All in all, it was an awesome trip. It was very relaxing and unstressful, which I needed after a summer of working like crazy. I think this trip also helped to open my eyes to all the cool stuff out there that I need to see. In light of that, you'll probably be seeing more posts about crazy adventures on here.

In the words of Red Green, "So long, and keep your stick on the ice."

my trip to Denali! (the first three days)

Last week, I decided that I really really needed a vacation from the civilized world. It just so happened that I had a five-day weekend coming up, thanks to Labor Day. I decided to spend it wandering around Alaska's interior, mostly in Denali state and national parks. After spending about $100 on camping/cooking gear and $70 on food, I loaded everything I needed up in Sophia, and took off. Here's how it went down:

Thursday night:


After class got done on thursday, I drove the 200 miles to Cantwell and found a place to camp near an emergency landing strip. On the right is a picture of some river, I think it might be the Chulitna.

No hotels for me, but I did have "six-star" accomodations:


Friday:

On friday, I turned on the Denali highway, which is 135 miles of gravel road from Cantwell to Paxson. After about 30 miles, I found a place to go hiking for a few hours, which is where the above picture was taken. I also scouted the put-in for a possible Nenana river trip next summer. After that, I drove to the Susitna river crossing, about 50 miles along the road, had dinner, and went to bed.

Saturday:

Saturday, I found an awesome hill to hike to the top of. The above picture is the stuff behind the hill, which I thought was pretty cool. I still wonder exactly what geologic events formed such a feature. I'll have to ask somebody about it sometime. After hiking, I drove the rest of the Denali highway to Paxson, then headed north toward Fairbanks. I took an hour to walk toward this cool glacier... (I'll continue the story in the next post, as blogger limits the size of posts)

Sophia's first modification

If you actually know me in person, you probably know two things about me: 1. I'm big on electrical, and 2. I like to build things as bullet-proof as possible.

With this in mind, it probably comes as no surprise to you that this is what I chose to power Sophia's starting system and electrical accessories:






What you are looking at in the picture above (never mind the hiking shoes being dried out in the engine compartment;) ):

2 Napa orbital batteries rated at 750 CCA each (the stock single battery is rated at 520 CCA)
000-size fine-strand arctic-rated battery cables (the stock cables look like 4 gauge to me)
2-gauge alternator-to-battery and auxilliary ground cables
a new alternator, since the old one died recently

How does it work you ask?

Well, I jump-started a bus the other day. Does that answer your question?

out with the old (wipes a single tear off cheek), and in with the new

Sorry I haven't posted in so long...I went to Mexico for a while, then as soon as I got back, work became incredibly hectic, so this sort of went by the wayside for a bit.

All good things come to an end, sooner or later. This August, I finally decided to part out my trusty steed, Roxanne. We'd been through a lot together in the 50,000 miles that I owned her, and through thick and thin, she always pulled through. Goodbye old friend, and I know that your parts will live on in other Subarus for many years to come.

Here she is, in her element:














Of course, no car could ever "replace" Roxanne, so that's out of the question. However, I did find a new Subaru that I'm quite pleased with so far. Sophia is a 92 Legacy, with a 2.2L EJ22 engine and a 4EAT 4 speed auto tranny. I bought her this august with 166,000 miles, and she's about to turn over 169,000. My concept for this car is to build a vehicle that will be able to take me anywhere in north or south america with no worries of breakdowns or other complications. I'll keep you updated on the modifications. So far, I've done a bit of electrical work, which I will elaborate on soon.

Here's Sophia in Denali Nat'l Park yesterday. You can read more about the trip in my next post.

Almost caught the soobie on fire today!

As I had mentioned previously, my car had developed a small fuel leak from the #2 injector. I went down to Continental Subaru here in Anchorage and ordered all the injector O-rings so that I could replace them and fix the leak. Well, today I drove out to Peters Creek and pulled my car inside Matt's garage so I had a warm place to work. After getting the injector out, I found that the main O-ring was the wrong one. The old one looked okay, so I reused it and put some vaseline on in hopes that it would cause the O-ring to swell slightly and maybe seal better. I put everything back together, started the car, and it didn't leak. Sweet!

After driving back into town, I decided to open the hood and double check that the leak was fixed. As luck would have it, fuel was dripping ALL over the place, including on the spark plug wires and the cylinder head. What fun! Went back to Subaru, but they were closed. Checked EVERY parts store in town, and they didn't even list fuel injector O-rings for my car. What a crock! Of course, this whole time, I was driving all over town with fuel spraying on my engine.

As a last resort, I went into Schmuck's and bought every O-ring in their assortment that was close to the right size, in hopes that one would work. Luckily, one of them slipped right in, and hasn't leaked yet. However, it's not rated for fuel system use, so it will probably fall apart after a while. Oh well, this one should at least get me back to Haines on thursday night, and I'm going to pick up several spares in case it fails.

Oh, I suppose I should include a disclaimer: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME, KIDS.

Sold!

I finally sold Stella, my 96 Legacy, this past week. She was a good one. 205,000 miles on the clock and ran great. Amazingly, on the drive from Anchorage to Haines, the little EJ22 managed around 25-26 mpg while doing 80-85 mph. I almost kept this one for myself, but decided to sell her and get started on some other projects. I wouldn't be surprised if she's still running around Haines in ten years with over 300,000 miles.

Bye Stella!