The Big Book of Brat

[04fxt]

Well, I gotta start somewhere, might as well be here. I Want to strip this thing bare like I do with everything else, but I don't have a place to do it right now. So I guess it will be one small project at a time until I get it smoothed out. There's a lot of dents, a lot of rust, and it's got more clunks and rattles than you can shake a stick at. so, here goes, some of these are repairs and some just for fun or because I can.... and in no particular order:

stripped some of the inner fender well grime(25 years of mud, rust, and rusty jones) down to bare metal, just to see how much work I'm in for. Also sealed it with some primer and black paint until I can tackle the rest of it.

shift linkage was pretty beat, rusted solid pivots and such, broken bushing on the body side caused a lot of slap stick on decel in the lower gears. I sandblasted all the linkage, cleaned or replaced bushings, repaired the broken link on the back, and painted everything before installing it again with lots of grease.

inspection of the front pipe and studs before I start building a header for it.

got a free exhaust manifold from a 04 honda element at work(stainless tube, not cast) so I decided to cut it up and make my primary tubes out of it for my header project. I cut the flanges off both ends(pictured below) and angle cut two pipes for each side to fit eachother, then welded them up. they are 1-7/8 single inlet to be mated to the flange on the head, then split into two pipes, and I'm making collectors for each side out of 3" stainless that I got from a chevy 3/4 ton front pipe. I know the 3" will be huge, but this is all for fun, and it's free parts... so it's ok if it is gutless

primary tubes all welded up.

It needed wheel bearings in front in a bad way, so I did the passenger's side first. In keeping with the theme of this project, I sandblasted the knuckle/hub/caliper frame while it was apart and painted all the clean parts to protect them from further cancerous rust.

Here's the untouched driver's side

and the passenger's side with new bearings/seals and free of rust

that's it for now. I'm going to build the rest of the header/y pipe on saturday, so more pics then.

thanks for looking!

 

[Mark]

Uhm...AWESOME!

Looks like this went to a good home. Can't wait to see the progress, keep up with the before and after, that's the best part.

 

[IBratmanI]

Great work so far!!!!! I'm really happy that this went to someone who is going to and is able to take the time and have fun with it!!!! Can't wait to see more progress!!!!

 

[04fxt]

haha, thanks guys. I really love this thing, even though it's pretty rough. I just keep telling myself "BABY steps", otherwise it is pretty overwhelming. But I guess just the fact that it's a Brat, and it runs and drives.... that's cool in itself.

 

[scoobiesforlife]

i almost got a brat for 600 bucks while i was still in nj, but i didnt get it since i moved back up here

 

[IBratmanI]

haha, thanks guys. I really love this thing, even though it's pretty rough. I just keep telling myself "BABY steps", otherwise it is pretty overwhelming. But I guess just the fact that it's a Brat, and it runs and drives.... that's cool in itself.

The fact that it's a BRAT, and the fact that it has a 5 spd instead of 4 spd, fuel injection, rear disc brakes, and even though it has rust, I bet it's one of the cleanest in New England!!! Do you plan on keeping the trend of not driving it in the winter?? I know that has helped keep it alive for so long.

 

[04fxt]

ya, no way am I going to spend all this time sandblasting rusty parts and then cover it with snow! haha... maybe just the clean stuff in my driveway.

 

[IBratmanI]

Sweet!!! Good to hear. Can't wait to come down one of these weekends and see it in person again!!

 

[Chris]

Sweet! I can't wait until I have the time and recourses to do something like that with my GL!

If you think the shifter bushings in that were bad, you'd roll over in your grave if you tried the shifter in my GL. You can move it back and forth in any gear as much as in neutral.

 

[04fxt]

buahahaha... bring it down and we'll yank all the linkage and give it the treatment! My problem with the brat is that I want it to drive as nice as my 04 forester xt... and it never will, But I can definitely clean it up and get it smooth and fun to drive. Makes me nuts when I have loose or broken stuff. I'd rather drive an old beater that is full of holes, but drives nice and tight... than drive a nice straight new car with all kinds of mechanical problems. Guess that's why I used to drive vw's, no matter how many miles they had on them, they all felt the same.

 

[Mark]

heh. reminds me of my friends 89 golf. no power steering, 5 speed. thing was a dog and in general a real peace of crap, but god the thing drove tight and could actually be a blast.

 

[boxer3main]

the headers...

I like the brat chassis for what the back of the "cab" does for strength.. these rust chores are well worth it.. ALL the others break in the middle.. the brat can't...unless owner was blind and never looked in the bed for some clues.

that empty hole in the lower knuckle arm..can that take an ea82 sway bar?

that little brick should handle like a sports car.

 

[04fxt]

the headers...

not sure if that's good or bad...? lol

I don't know about the sway, might be worth looking into though. Although I am not sure what I am shooting for right now as far as suspension goes. I like the lift, but it handles like balls on the road. It would be cool at the stock height with some wide rubber and a real power plant, but I might not be able to spend that kind of $$ on it right now.

 

[IBratmanI]

I removed the sway long ago because it did very little for it, except lots more travel off road. The EA82 will not fit

 

[04fxt]

MOAR! Here is my overkill, pointless header that I built from scraps of pipe. Looks stupid, but it sounds pretty cool.

New studs and loctite

Had to bang up a few spots to clear some stuff

Honda ball flange and spring bolts

My welding gets worse after 8hrs of work without food

Still need to rip off the stickers, heat paint, weld in a bung and put in a new o2 sensor...

fire away with the comments!!!

 

[Chris]

Awesome! I wish I had a shop, lift, and tools to work with exhaust! That's really cool.

Starting to look cleaner under there.

 

[IBratmanI]

Wow, great work. I really can't wait till I can make it down to have some UEL headers made!!!! Awesome job! How does it sound?

 

[04fxt]

haha, thanks Jason! It sounds ok, not the way I expected... but after building many systems I have come to realize that there is no way to predict sound when you are doing things out of the norm. ie, Using humungous pipe and also going from 2-1 and back to 2, and then into a very large collector.

It's got a real deep growl, very smooth, and also has a nice drone at all rpms.. lol.

I tried to keep it somewhat unequal length, but 3" pipe takes up a lot of space. So it doesn't quite have the rumble I wanted. I might cut a section out of the driver's side collector and make a few turns in it to get some more length. That might give it a little more "suby rumble"

thanks for the compliments, and I'll try to get a video of it up here tomorrow so you can hear it.

 

[IBratmanI]

Yeah I bet it sounds quite different than what it did!! But you gotta have the Subaru rumble!!! that's what I'm after with my OBS!!! But great work. I'm jealous of the tools and stuff you get to use!!