Classic suspension upgrade project (Epic)

[fmj]

So about a year ago I had a plan. Renew all the suspension components on my 11 year old Classic. I didn't really want to go down the route of rock hard coil overs and decided to go for a full set of poly bushes, new KYB dampers, sensible lowering springs and some whiteline ARB's. My aim was to get the aging suspension back to as new condition and do all the work myself.

I started out buying a set of whiteline drop links and a genuine STI carbon fibre strut brace costing about £300 in total:

Next I planned on getting all of the other parts over a long period (as I couldn't afford it in one go) and then at the end fitting it all myself at the same time as waxoyling the arches.

Dampers arrive from Camskill:

Next month it was the springs again from Camskill:

Next were the bushes from.... you guessed it Camskill. They may not look much but a full set cost me about £200 and that was without the large front wishbone bush.

Rather then get the Polybush replacement for the large front wishbone bush at about £80 I decided to go for a whiteline ALK which cost £130 and included the bush.

As I was buying these parts I was looking under the car and saw just how rusted some bits had gotten over the years so decided to replace the track rod ends... Then I saw this kit from White Line on sccobyparts and couldn't resist.

Then new track rods to go with it again from Camskill.

Camskill again for the ARB's adjustable front and back.

Now at this point I was thinking I had pretty much everything I needed for shiny new suspension set-up. Hopefully as good if not better then when the car rolled out of the show room, but not as harsh as a set of coil overs.

I then found a set of wishbones, lateral link arms and trailing arms on ebay with no rust from a jap car for a bargain price. I brought these and now plan on having them powder coated before fitting them.

I then looked to see if there was any weak links in my plan (old parts I would have to reuse which may be worn out). I decided to get some new top mounts. I first looked at some Tien pillow ball mounts but was advised against this by the chap who designed suspension for Prodrive as he said they were noisey and harsh and OE ones would be better. I also asked about bump stops and again he said for my setup OE ones would be ok. Knowing an expensive call to my local Subaru dealer was about to take place I listed the various bolts, nuts and washers that I would need to put all of these bits togehter as I would probably destroy to original rusted ones in their removal. Before making the dreaded call I decided that as I was fitting everything else new I might as well get new spring seats and dust boots too. I emailed the list to my local dealer and awaited their reponse. The total.... £1070! Credit card in hand I made the call and paid up. A week or so later this arrived:

All of the fittings needed:

The boots dust boots and bump stops:

Steering gaiters:

Top mounts & spring seats:

THE INVOICE!!! Never had a two pager before!

Now I have recently bashed the old bushes out of the lateral link arms and trailing arms but the small bush in the front wishbone is a bitch. I have attacked it with a blow torch, drill, dead blow hammer, compressor I made from a G-clamp (It bent the clamp). Didn't budge one bit. So today I took it to a garage where the chap said you sometimes need to get the metal glowing before if will come out. Hopefull I will pick them up tomorrow debushed!

Next I will be getting the wishbones, lateral link arms, trailing arms and ARB brackets powder coated. I am thinking of a blue gloss.

After that I will be getting the last bits including:

An impact wrench

New ali racing trolley jack

ratchet axle stands

waxoyl kit

Hopefully I already have everything else I need!

I will do some before and after pics when I start getting my hands dirty and share any issues I have.

All in all I have spent far more then I originally planned to. Mainly due to not realising how expensive top mounts, bump stops and spring seats were!

Fingers crossed I can fit it all myself without have to go to a garage.

[rig-pig]

nice one m8, looking forward to the build thats upcoming

[euan_r]

good stuff cant beat classic tlc. I did the whole lot too over summer whilst i was sourcing new engine. i didnt do roll centre kit as i used sti springs though.

The rear perches on struts have rubber spacer but fronts dont. To protect the front perches a bit from metal/metal contact i used some whiteline spiral wrap around bottom coil of springs, something you may wish to consider.

I also did full poly kit too. The rear hub/trailing/control arm bushes havent increased nvh as i had read elsewhere. i did fit poly rear diff mounts to my old car so knew it would increase nvh slightly and it has done again to some degree but when i took rear subframe off the bushes were aged so just did them anyway.

Wise choice on prefabed anti lift, i went with the off centre bush route and pressing them in while retaining equal orientation for equal caster was a fiddle.

i pressed out centre of front whishbone bush then cut outer sleeve carefully with hacksaw blade, came out no bother after that.

I went for por15 as i would be able to do it myself, being tight git. Wished id gotten new bolts though or invested in plating kit. rear subframe looks tidier than pics as i tried wiping off all excess grease etc and just ended up smearing it everywhere lol.

[fmj]

Nice Tips from people who have some experience is always good! I am also going to get some rubber bolt caps so hopefully I can cap all the nuts and bolts and stop them from rusting this time around... I am a bit scared that I will come to a point where I can't get something undone but hopefully the impact wrench will handle everything my brute force can't.

[euan_r]

from memory alk bolts were done up tighter than rest, may be worth cracking them undone a turn before getting car in air.

inner tie rod has tab thats bent over as locking device, i broke a screwdriver trying to undo it, just ended up using big key on tie rod and tab moved as a result.

if your removing rear subframe might be worth squirting some penetrating fluid up holes in chassis rails next to bolts day or so before. They go into nuts welded inside chasis and i had misfortune to break one of these loose on an previous uk car. this resulted in cutting hole in chassis then welding back up (right next to fuel tank).

[fmj]

from memory alk bolts were done up tighter than rest, may be worth cracking them undone a turn before getting car in air.

inner tie rod has tab thats bent over as locking device, i broke a screwdriver trying to undo it, just ended up using big key on tie rod and tab moved as a result.

if your removing rear subframe might be worth squirting some penetrating fluid up holes in chassis rails next to bolts day or so before. They go into nuts welded inside chasis and i had misfortune to break one of these loose on an previous uk car. this resulted in cutting hole in chassis then welding back up (right next to fuel tank).

Nice one, all good stuff to be prepared for!

[fmj]

Quick (and not very exciting) update. I gave the front wishbones over to a local garage so that they could press out the old bushes. They couldn't press them out but have now managed to burn them out. I will be picking them up tomorrow. I also got a qoute of £50 to have the wishbones, lateral link arms and trailing arms powder coate which I will drop off next week.

I also went on an ebay spending spree and brought a lightwieght low profile racing trolley jack, ratchet axle stands, Waxoyl starter kit and 5ltr refill, several wire brushes and dremel attachments to remove any rust and a car cover from scooby world.... because I want to keep the car covered over while its not in use and while I am using messy waxoyl underneath.

[fmj]

Well the front wishbones bushes were burnt out using all of the gas at the garage lol... But I then realised I still had to remove the front bushes from the trailing arms... BUGGER. Luckily the rubber part of these is much bigger then the wishbone bushes were so I could attack them with a drill until they came free. I then cut the metal outer with a hacksaw and knocked them out with a chisel. They put up quite a fight!

Success!

The complete set of suspension components with ALL bushes removed:

These parts have now been delivered to a metal finishers to strip and apply a blue powder coat.

I have also had some more deliveries:

Electric impact wrench (works bloody well)

Extensions for above (I already have the sockets)

A decent jack as every cheap one I have every brought has failed

Ratchet axle stands

One of Scoobywords car covers

Bits for restoration

And some more waxoyl just to be sure

[lewisscoob]

An inspiration for us all. I plan to do all this to my scoob too. Need to finish repairing/ruining my little run around first though.

[subarucraig]

good project mate will be like new when finished great to see all your pics to its more like a resto project than an upgrade

[fmj]

Cheers guys, I will hopefully get the powder coated bits back tomorrow. Just got home from work and Im ordering bolt caps at 0220hours lol...

[fmj]

Picked up the powder coated suspension parts today.... Well impressed! They have donea cracking job which the pictures just don't do justice. Nice even complete coverage and a smooth rock hard finish. The only bits that are uncoated (as you may see in some pics) are the parts that bushes and bolts fit into as it would make the fit too tight. It seems like a shame to hide these parts under the car now!

The finish:

The whole lot:

I'm so impressed that next time I am under the bonnet I will be looking to see which parts I can pull out to be coated!

I ordered the bolt caps yesterday and am going to order some coil wrap for the springs tonight. The next few days I will be fitting the bushes into these components so they are ready to be swapped. The build starts on the 14th (I have booked a week off work for it). So stay tuned.

Edited October 8, 2011 by FMJ

[Vimmy]

Great write up, I need to do all of this to my ageing wagon, keep up the great work

[amccan10]

Bloody hell this is epic! Exactly what i've been looking for

Good work and take plenty of pics

You should make up a how to guide or even something for true grip

[amccan10]

oh and is there any chance you could take a larger copy of that invoice? Keen to see all those part numbers

[fmj]

Yes mate no worries will try to scan it on.

[fmj]

Ok so it's been a while.... and I have updates and pics to tell the story. First here is how the underside looked before the upgrade.

The rear:

You will see that I had already fitted the Whiteline Drop Links on a previous occassion.

The rust seen in these pics is actually nowhere near as bad as it looks. For some reason the camera flash really brings it out! It's all surface to be honest and can be rubbed off with a bit of elbow grease.

The Front:

You can see that I had already removed that front Anti Roll Bar and Drop links before I remembered to take these pics! To remove the bars or drop links you need the cars weight on it's wheels. I.e on ramps or a pit NOT a jack. The removal of the drop links was easy as they were fitted with new bolts less then a year ago and well greased. The ARB brackets were fairly easy to undo too considering they had been subjected to 11 years of rust and never undone! I strongly recomend a good set of six sided sockets here and for all rusted bolts/nuts as they don't round bolt heads off like the more common multi point sockets. I actually use a Halfords Professional Impact socket set for this as they are six sided and hard as hell. They only downside is they are bulky and sometimes too big to fit in smaller spaces.

Before going any further I soaked all bolts/nuts with penetrating oil and left it to work for a few hours. I don't know if this worked but it was worth a go as I had some laying around.

Stay tunned.

[fmj]

Fitting the new Poly Bushes to the rear lateral link arms. These were far more difficult then I thought they would be! The instructions say "Inset bush and then insert tube". By "Insert" they must mean force with all your might! In the end I applied loads of grease and used a black and decker vice/workbench to squeeze the tubes into the bushes. I tried heating the bushes in hot water as suggested to soften them but this had no effect at all. Photos are shown below:

First part of the bush is pushed in by hand:

Then I tried to push the rest in by hand which was impossible as they were so hard to squeeze in. Then I tried forceing them in by clamping them in the work bench but they kept popping out rather then seating.

The method that worked was to use a BLUNT screwdriver to get the last part in. Then finally clamp the bush in the bench to push it through.

Then fitting the tubes with the bench method:

To get the last part in (as they sit slightly below the surface) I used a socket to press them in.

Then I found that one tube and one washer (used later) were missing from the kit! Luckily CamSkill are brilliant in the customer service department. Despite the fact I had brought the kit almost a year ago they still sent the missing parts to me. This went missing in the post so they then sent me the rest of the kit they had opened and let me return what I didn't need. Now THATS customer service!

The trailing arm and front wishbone bushes were fitted in much the same way.

Edited December 9, 2011 by FMJ

[fmj]

Work on the rear starts:

Rear ARB and Droplinks removed:

Pic showing strut to hub bolts cracked off, abs sensor wire and bracket undone and caliper unbolted and suspended from Arb mount.

The other side of the strut to hub bolts. I put a spanner on this side and used the impact gun on the bolt side.

Removing the lateral link arms was.... interesting! Luckily Subaru had a bit of a clever idea here. The bolt and nut for the front lateral link you can see here are obstructed by the driveshaft one side and the fuel tank the other. So you cant get the impact gun on. Luckily the nut side has been covered with a rubber cap that stops corrosion so you can easily use a spanner to undo the nut. Also worth mentioning that with the hubs hanging down the bolt won;t come out as it will hit the driveshaft. If you jack the hub up the driveshaft lifts out of the way and with some wiggling you can get the bolt out.

Now a bit of a snag. There is a very long bolt that runs through the outer ends of both lateral links and through the hub. There is then a nut on the end. Now with a bit of effort the nut came off. However the bolt had seized itself inside the steel bushing tube of the front link arm. So the bolt would not slide out. I tried everything including hitting it with hammers, mallets etc. Using the impact gun to try and free it up, extension bar etc.... nothing worked.

So in my anger I cut the bolt head off of the rear end and swore at it.

Luckily the rear lateral link arm bush wasn't seized like the front one and with no bolt head in the way it came off with a bit of pulling.

Leaving something that I could hit with a hammer!

This is what slide out the other side after a bit of whacking. It really has seized completely and no matter how hard I tried it won't come out! The other side was the same.

A pic with both link arms removed A word of warning the bolt that holds the rear lateral link arm to the subfarme is a cam adjustment bolt. Make sure to undo the nut end and keep the bolt head still. If you undo it the other way the cam wiill spin and bend the bracket it fits in. Again some drive shaft lifting via hub jacking may be needed.

I didn't take any pictures of the trailing arm removal but its as easy as undoing the three bolts that hold it to the chassis and the one bolt that holds it to the hub. All removed.... Now focusing on that old bush in the bottom of the hub.

Using a puller as pusher to get it out. It put up a bit of a fight.

With that out I then cleaned up the hole with the dremel as well as the long bolt hole in the hub and all bolt mounting points on the subframe and chassis.

Edited December 11, 2011 by FMJ

[fmj]

After doing all this I unbolted the strut. The top is a bit of a bitch at the rear as you have to remove the rear seats and there isn't much room at the top. Removing the seat belt reel is a must to get to the top mount bolts. Another thing you have to do before pulling the strut is to remove the brake line from the bracket that is attached to the strut body. To do this VERY carefully cut a small slit in the brack so you can bend it open to remove the line. DONT CUT YOUR BRAKE LINE! The proper way to do it would be to remove the brake line.... stupid design!

Anyway with the strut removed and mountains of 11 year old dust brushed out of the rear arch. I attacked any rust with vairous products and fillers until it was all clean. Then I masked everything off and applied the waxoyl.

Waxoyl done and masking removed.

New rear strut assembled:

New top nut

New Subaru top mount

New spring seat

New rubber upper spring seat

New dust boot

New bump stop/helper

Eibach Spring

Lower rubber spring seat

KYB Damper

It is important to ensure that all parts are fitted the right way around with the spring ends sat in the right parts of the seats. You also have to keep an eye on the rubber seats as they can twist as you remove the spring compressors. When you first sit the compresses springs on the lower seat it will look wrong. But as you loosen the compressors you will see the spring fit into the correct allignment.

Old V New

Strut fitted:

Edited January 4, 2012 by FMJ

[fmj]

New trailing arms assembled with new stainless bolts and Poly bushes:

Trailing arm bush fitted into lower rear hub. I used a g clamp and piece of wood to get this one in and as usual it wasn't easy!

Rear lateral link arm fitted.

Both arms fitted remember if you cant get the bolt in the chassis end jack the hub to raise the drive shaft.

A moment of looking at what I had done so far and wishing that the weather was better, that I had a double garage and that it wasn't getting dark so early!

[rig-pig]

looking ace m8 thats some work you are putting in top job

[fmj]

So onto the front of the car!

Front wishbone, tie rod, ball joint removed:

Next the strut:

Removed :

Old strut and all the parts to build the new one:

New vs Old:

Shiney new track rod fitted to steering rack:

Booted:

Track rod end fitted, thread coper slipped and a bike inner tube fitted as a sleeve to stop the thread from rusting!

Fitted to hub:

New ball joint seated:

New wishbone with ALK and new bushes:

[fmj]

While doing all this I found that my offside rocker cover was leaking and the lower weld of my stainless up-pipe was cracked about 80% of the circumference. GREAT.

I duly removed the turbo heat shield and then started to realise what a bitch of the job the up-pipe was. I quite easily removed the downpipe which was a shock and then undid the up-pipe to turbo bolts.

Then I moved to the lower bolts but decided it would be easier to do without the heat shield. The problem with this was that every time i touched a bolt the head would fall apart leaving a very strong fixing with nothing for a socket to grip! I got very angry and drilled, cut, beat and twisted the sheild off. I was so pissed off with the shield being a rusty piece of sh*t that I removed the whole lot and ordered some wrap.

VICTORY!!!!

Little did I realise you can't get the up-pipe off the car once its unbolted! You have to remove the engine mount bolts and jack the engine via the sump until you get enough clearence to slide the pipe out. I couldn't get enough height with the nuts left on so I had to remove them and then of course the engine moved out of the mounts which took a lot of effort to get back into place.

Of course it had the last laugh as while a pulled it off I knocked the rad drain plug which then wouldn't reseal! So the next job was to drain the coolant. Reseal the plug with a bit of 3 bond and then refil.

New pipe wrapped:

I then refitted it and wrapped the manifold in the same way with stainless ties.

I was getting so pissed off with extra jobs by this point this is the only picture I took of the rocker gasket fix. Here it is all finished:

Surfice to say its a pain in the ass.

Edited February 11, 2012 by FMJ

[rig-pig]

very nice m8,the car will be better than new with that all done, thats a ace idea with the inner tube