The tow Bar continued.......

Today I looked over the front of the wagon and read the instructions for the base plates.  Of course the plan is to make my own plates but do a job that will not fall apart.  And using what I can find around here would keep the $$ within budget, whatever that is.

Using some tin I tried to see what would work.  This was after using some cardboard.
I could always make a push bar on the front to push Wilbur with.
Or make a big light bar for the off roading stuff at night.

The lower tie down loop is on both sides of the frame, if you can call this a frame.
The plates will use this as a place to bolt to on both sides.

On the passenger side is also a tow hook.  The store bought base plates use this to bolt to along with the tie down loop underneath.

The tow bar folded up.  I can just leave it hooked on the front when driving around.

Then folded out for towing.

My Ball Warmer

What does it mean when someone gives you a ball warmer????
I don't know who put this on my Wagon, but you must have thought it was needed.

The Wagon's Ball Warmer

So today I took Wilbur out for a couple of trailer hitch places to look at my trailer hitch.  Wilbur is my '73 Winnebago for those that didn't know.  Anyway the trailer hitch that is on it was built many years ago and I have only used it to tow my utility trailer a few times.  That was another reason for buying the Wagon, it uses way less gas than Wilbur to pull a small trailer.

So the hitch on Wilbur was looked at by two places that sell and build trailer hitches.  Both of them thought it looked strong enough to pull a car.  That's what I wanted to hear.

Removing trees from the back yard this Summer, I hauled a few loads of brush to the recycle place with Wilbur.

Now thats a shine on the ball.  I can see myself.

The ball mount is made out of channel.  I would like to weld a square tube reciver to this but don't want it any lower.
It has hit the road when driving thru steep driveways.

The Tow Bar for the Wagon

Today I bought a tow bar that I plan to use on the Wagon.  It is a Roadmaster Stowmaster, now that's a mouth full. 

The tow bar folds up and came with wiring, safety cables and even the adjustable stinger.







Now the base plates for a '93 Subaru Legacy wagon are here Base Plate and instructions

The plan is to make my own base plates.

The flood in Salem, OR

I live in a town next to Salem, OR so today my wife and I drove into Salem and took a walk over the Willamette River on an old Train bridge that is made into a pedestrian bridge.  On the West Salem side is a park that is mostly underwater.  Here are some of the pictures I took.

I replaced the Bellows

The new rack bellows (boots) are on and I did it a different way than all the info I read about this job.  Rather than removing the outer tie rod ends I just unscrewed the outer tier rod from the inner tie rod.  No need for removing the outer tie rod ends from the steering knuckle.

Drivers side bellows is close to the exhaust pipe so that probably doesn't help it last longer.

I unscrewed the outer tie rod end and measured the distance to the locking nut.

This is before cleaning up.  Doesn't look to bad to me, so I just wiped off the area, put on more grease and installed the new bellows.  This is the end of the rack and pinion steering rack with the inner tie rod attached to the end of the rack.

This is not really a tough job, but getting the new bellows on and strapped them down did take some time.  The new bellows came with some metal clamps but after trying to get them tight I just used some plastic cable ties. 

And then today I got the two new front tires, to match the rear ones that were in good shape.  I hope my front end alignment works and the new tires hold up.

DIY Front end alignment

I tried it today.  Put my pipes with strings on them on the jack stands, measured from the axles to the strings, and from the wheels to the strings.  I even straightened out the steering wheel.  I don't think it's perfect, but since I will be taking the tie rods apart for the changing of the Rack and Pinion bellows replacement I think its good for a start.

Now maybe tomorrow for the bellows.  It will be a trial to see if I just unscrew the inner tie rods from the outer tie rods, slip the old bellows off, clean the old grease and dirt then fight the new bellows on and realign the front end again.

Then I need my 2 new tires on and watch the tire wear, or not wear, to see how I did.  The feel of how the car drove today after adjusting the tie rods was better than before adjusting.  I like it.

Adjusting the Hill Holder

The rear brakes turned out great, but one thing that was also needing adjusting was the Hill Holder. My brakes would lock up if I was backing up and hit the brakes, even on a level parking lot. Then they would not release until the clutch was let out past where it engaged. It was really working the drive train to get going.



I found it easier to adjust the HH by removing the spring from the HH, and that lets the cable pull out of the clutch fork some below where the clutch cable attach's. That let me put an 8 MM deep socket over the end of the cable, then with a 14 MM open end wrench hold the other nut to loosen it.



That really made a difference of when the HH releases the brakes. And it looks like you need the HH hooked up to hold the clutch throw out bearing back from the clutch fingers to keep it from turning and wearing out faster.

Another Hobby....The Wagon

Some of you that know me as a "Classic Winnebago" person might wonder about all this Subaru (also known as the Wagon) stuff.  Well they are connected since one plan for the Wagon is to tow it behind the Bago.

And then I do fly RC planes, OK I do have a couple of RC cars too, and the larger planes are rather big to fit inside a regular car.

My latest repair on the wagon has been the rear brakes.  Nothing strange here except that there is a HH "Hill Holder" system.  For those of you that don't know about the HH, it holds the car stopped on a hill when the clutch is pushed in.  So you are going up a hill, stop for whatever reason, and set there with the clutch in and your other foot on the brake.  You let off the brake to step on the gas and the car does not roll backwards down the hill.  Good idea right?

Well my car was working great after the new brakes but I noticed that if I backed up and hit the brakes it was had to get going again.  Felt like the brakes were still on, and they were.  So then I needed to learn about this HH thing some more.

There is a cable attached to the clutch fork,  and it goes to a thing with brake lines and a spring on it.  This is the HH.  One thing other than adjusting the cable but you can also adjust the level of this HH.  Two bolts hold it down, just loosen up the bolts and slide something under one end. I raised up the rear part, and it makes a difference in how steep a hill the brakes hold on.

Now if the weather would stop the rain/snow thing I would go out and adjust the cable.  Or I could just park one car outside and drive the wagon into the garage to work on it, or not.

That's the brakes continued

Today the new rear rotors came in and I installed them.  The weather forecast calls for a chance of snow so the AWD might be needed.

I took more time with this brake job than any other one I have done.  The pads fit real tight in the holders so a file was used to clean them up so they slide like they should.  I even cleaned and greased the pins and everything that should slide with brake grease.

Now that looks to good to cover up with a dirty/rusty wheel.

After a quick trip out of the garage and around the block all is good, really they work great.  When I would come to a stop before this brake work, the brakes would still be grabbing when I let off the brake peddle.

That's the brakes

So today I pulled the wagon into the garage and removed the rear brakes.  I could tell that the rear brakes were dragging for awhile after braking, and here is what I found.  Plenty of rust.  I will put on new rotors when they come in tomorrow.  For the price of $17.99each for new, or $15.00 each to turn them, I am going with the new rotors.

The pads are $12.99 per axle,  and the calipers pistons seemed to slide good, so I am not replacing anything else.  Just lots of cleaning and greasing.  Probably flush out the brake system before putting the wheels back on.

Right rear brake.

Left rear brake.

I screwed the caliper bolts into the rotor to help remove it.
I used some PB Blaster to remove the rust inside the threaded holes.

The pads did not wear evenly.  This was the right rear (I think) and the caliper pins did not slide very good.
I spent time cleaning up the new pads where they slide on the holder to make sure they slide better.

Another view of the same pads.

I did have a chance to look around at the rear axles and exhaust while the car is up.  Nothing else looks like I need to work on it back here, right now.

Should have ordered the new rotors before doing this job, but thought I would look at them first.  The rotors will be in tomorrow.  It gave me time to clean up the brake parts before putting it back together.

This is the parking brake shoes.

This picture is for my brother who wonders if he can use Subaru brakes on a old Cushman scooter he has.  Looks like about 6 1/2" dia brakes and I will have some old rotors with the brake drum for you.

New inner tie rod boots

The mail man brought me the 2 new boots for my steering rack inner tie rods.  The plan is to remove the outer tie rods, take off the old boots, clean off the old grease and re grease the inner tie rods, slide the new boots on and put the rest back together.  Then I want to try a DIY alignment of the front wheel toe-in adjustment.

They were $14.99 delivered.

Front end alignment

I have been putting together some info on how to check and adjust the alignment of the front wheels.  I think my wagon has a real problem with the alignment because of the tire wear.  So right now I plan to use some of the things that I have found on the web.
Here is a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8qFjAB67vk

And some pictures

What do you think, will it work?????

More Subaru work

Well today I got to looking under the front end of the wagon.  I know the alignment is off since the front tires were worn kind of bad, compared to the rear tires.  When I took the wheel covers off to rotate the tires I noticed the front axle nuts were rather new looking and it looks like the front axles were replaced not to long ago, that's good to see.
 
But the steering rack, rack and pinion or whatever you call it, has boots or bellows that are torn open. I cleaned up the bottom of the engine and steering  to see if the rack was leaking.  Not any sign of a big leak or damage so I think I will just replace the boots, everything else looks OK.
And I just might give a try at aligning the front end myself.  When I measured the distance between the front wheels at the front and rear of the tires there is a difference.  Hey I never tried this before but I read about it.

Then I might look into the oil leaking around the bottom of the engine.  I used a Harbor Freight engine cleaner http://www.harborfreight.com/engine-cleaning-gun-68290.html that I read someone else suggest, and it worked pretty good with Simple Green.

Why would I want to tow my wagon?

There are some smaller, lighter cars out there to tow, but as I get older the idea of more protection from the other cars or trucks sounds good.  I did think about getting a '73 VW bug to tow behind my '73 MH but was scared everytime I drove one.

Then the airplane thing made a wagon my choice.  I looked at some Toyotas and Hondas but they were too much money.  So the Subaru found me, and so cheap too. 

I never even drove a Subaru before this one, and my planes fit in just fine.  The largest plane has a 2 meter wing, thats 78" for us americans.  Try that in a VW bug.

So that's my reason to get the Wagon and tow it.

Can I tow my Subaru Wagon?

One of the reasons I bought my wagon was to tow it. So can it be towed?  Here is the info I used to make that decision.

Remco towing info 

 Even Subaru said this

And some brackets to use.  I plan to make some like these
http://www.roadmaster-tow-bars.com/mounting-brackets/roadmaster-classic-tow-bar-mounting-bracket-906-1

And mounting instructions
instructions

The toad

Some of the Subaru friends might not know what a toad is, or know what a dingy is but to RV'ers the vehicle you tow behind a motor home can be called a toad or dinghy, I'm sure there are other things to call them too.

So here is what I plan to try with my wagon.

Happy New Year

The 2011 year went out with a bang around here.
Some friends from the Portland area came down with one of their motor homes, and spent the night at the local Elks, where we joined them for a first class New Years Eve party.

Hats, feathers and noise makers all around.

Then after midnight we enjoyed breakfast.  I guess we worked up an appetite with all the dancing and celebrated because when we smelled food we were ready to eat.

Then after the band played its last dance we headed home.  I can't remember the last time I out later than 1AM for a long time.

So catching up with friends for coffee and a quick trip to the Elks where I put on my RV repair hat on and fixed some leveling jacks that would not retract, it was time to eat another breakfast and do some sight seeing.