I'm sure this has been done before but I just did it today and thought I would share what I did with everyone.
I had the rear pads on my drum brakes shatter into little pieces then I heard about some Subaru XT's being in the local wrecking yard. I went and grabbed all the parts for the disk brakes on the XT (backing plate, caliper, pads, rotor) and swapped them into my 1979 Wagon originally with rear drums.
The backing plates needed to be ground down a bit to clear the larger stamped/welded axle carrier. I then cut a notch into the carrier so that I could access the caliper bolt since you can slide on the rotor unless the caliper is removed.
Be sure to get rotors for a 4wd if your converting a 4wd car :-)
January 3rd 2012:
I didn't do an update for week 3 since I didn't really do much with the car until this week. Was working on a friends 1986 Subaru XT Turbo.
Since the car is up and running good. I had it parked under my porch to keep it dry until I was ready to address the minor rust along bottom edge of the car. There where a couple of rust holes bend the driver side fenders, and on the back side of the rear passenger wheel well. After grinding out the rust and treating it with rust dissolver and saturating the inside of the panel with rust eating primer sealer. I filled up the big holes with some expanding foam and shaped it to the proper curves. Then I put on several coats of Truck Bed Liner spray. I did all the rocker panels and up to the bottom body line of the car for looks and protection. One of the bottom chrome strips was missing, so I took the other side off. Filled all the holes and put the Bed Liner all along the bottom after addressing any rust issues. This should form a nice long term rust deterrent.
Filled the rust holes with expanding foam after spraying the inside with ample rust eating primer. This section is hidden behind the fender so it only needs to be water tight and nothing else. Otherwise I would have welded steel plate over it.
Then tonight I decided to put a little more work into the hood. I really don't want to afford a new hood so I had all the stuff on hand to pull the dents and body fill the imperfections. I decided to use a slide hammer to pull the dents, but I didn't want to drill holes in the hood that I would have to weld shut. So instead I welded steel washers to the hood for my dent puller hook. For the major dent it took about 8 weld spots to get it to the right shape. I used a heat gun to heat the metal at the creases before I hammered them to get a bit better shape with fewer welds. For the passenger side of the hood where the welding ground is clamped too, I simply cut the support behind the hood and used a hammer and dolly to level out. On the center of the hood this wasn't really an option because the hood latch was located behind this and I didn't want any alignment issues after re-welding it. This process took about 3 hours up to the point of putting first layer of body filler down and spraying on some high build primer to the right part of the hood to begin leveling out imperfections.
Oh yes, the ratchet strap... The hood wasn't quite setting down as far as it should due the that big center dent. I couldn't put enough pressure on each side of the hood to get it to fold down. So I came up with the ratchet strap idea to put the curve back into the hood. It came down a bit, but not enough so this is my second pull. I left it like this for the night for my body filler to dry. Hopefully I don't crack my filler by doing both steps at once lol.
Finally... The person behind the glass:
All the work I did today was after I had driven all over town with it. I put $15 in gas and drove probably 50-60 miles and my gas needle moved about an 8th of a tank. In my 2011 STi just futzing around it would have been $30 and the needle would have moved about the same lol. In total I spent probably about 5 hours working on the car today. I spent about an hour of that polishing the driver side of the car since I hadn't cut the oxidation off that side yet.
December 21st 2011:
Parked the car yesterday because I was loosing brake fluid. So today I walk out and see a puddle of brake fluid around the rear drivers side tire. I discovered to pull the drum off you must unbolt the wheel axle. No big deal except it was tight as hell. Breaker bar and a few bounces on it and I was rebuilding the brake cylinder. I didn't stop to think maybe I should take pictures of it, but it was a greasy mess of soapy water, degreaser, and carb cleaner.
Got all the blinkers working for real this time. I had forgotten to plug one of them into the harness and a rear bulb needed replaced because of corrosion. With that done, I re-gapped the spark plugs from 0.038 to 0.065 since I have super ignition now. The car starts with almost no choke now when cold, runs stronger when cold, and has a lot more power and no more hesitation when warmed up.
Finally did some more clean up of the old paint with some cut and buff compound on the passenger side. I still need to fix the hood and buff the hood, trunk, and drivers side. Great running car, if I can keep brake fluid in it, it would be completely reliable.
December 17th 2011:
The car has been on the ground and driving around since yesterday. So far I have put about 60-70 miles on the car and its running great. It was a bit sluggish around half throttle until the last 20 miles or so. Seems like the carb and bad fuel has finally cleaned up as its really responsive now. Have no problems getting up to 70mph freeway speeds and maintaining that speed up small hills. The only problem with driving the last few days was not seating the main coil wire to the distributor down far enough and slightly melting the top of the cap with the insane ignition system I installed which you can read about below.
Since last update I have fixed the dent in the front left fender, primed it, and re-installed it and the marker lights. Installed new bulbs to replace ones that where out. We where in a rush to get it driving because we needed to pick up an engine hoist to start out next project. Actually a project car my friend and I have been working on for a while, his XT turbo motor rebuild which was ready to go in the car. So our maden test run of the car was a 15 mile round trip drive to pick it up, we loaded up all the tool boxes, jacks, and a spare part of everything we had on hand and took off.
It was a good thing we took the tools, because nothing went wrong! Car runs like a champ and drives just as well. Its finally nice having a vehicle with enough cargo room to carry large items. The 2011 STi sedan to the left just doesn't have room for things like this lol.
Did you notice the painted wheels in the pic? They are finally done and for $100 I found some almost brand new 155/85 R13 studded snow tires for it. Normally I wouldn't buy a studded tire but the deal was just too good. They are in such nice shape I think I will not pull the studs in the spring and just stash them for the next winter seasons to come.
The wiring issue for the brake lights turning on all the lights ended up being a single prong light bulb stuck in a brake/blink housing causing the brake lights to send power to the parking lights also. This has been fixed and all the lights are now working correctly.
One of the best modifications I have done to the car so far is Multi-Spark high voltage ignition system. I had an old Accel 300+ digital multi-strike ignition that I had in my 1966 Impala that I removed to go to a programmable MSD unit. I figured this would find a great home in the wagon combined with an Accel Super-coil which the instructions say not to use this coil for the 300+ but its all I have available since I am not taking the proper coil out of the Impala for it. When the coil burns up I will buy the proper one then. We shot a little video and a few pictures of the installation. Next to the setup are the relays from the Cadillac to run the lights and the 300+ ignition (I need to wipe off the pink writing on the relays).
More rust! I had my sand blaster out for working on cleaning up the wheels for painting, and had the great idea to hit some of the rust spots on the car. Its amazing how fast a sand blaster turns surface rust (or what appears to be surface rust) into rust holes! Its time to get some sheet metal and pull out the welder! Take a look at some of the clean up work. After hitting the rust, I sparyed some rust eating primer over them. I even sand blasted and primered the calipers and rotors with the stuff and shot over it with a clear coat!
Next on the list of things to do is to finish buffing out the body. Fix the small brake leak we discovered today, re-gap the spark plugs to like 0.065 and work on more rust spots. I plan to repaint the car in the spring.
Another long day working on the Kraken. I spent about 3 hours sanding and sand blasting five Jackman wheels for the Subaru Wagon. The garage is heating up right now so that I can shoot some paint onto them. Since I had the sand blaster out, I had the brilliant idea to hit the rotors and calipers with some sand to knock the rust off. Then I shot them with rust etching primer followed by a shot of some clear coat to turn the primer glossy black. Turned out better than I hoped for such low effort. I do expect some cooking of the paint once the brakes actually get used, but for now they look good!
Here is a picture of one of the wheels with a dusting of rust etching primer only on the rusty portions. I don't have the time or the sand to take all the wheels to bare metal, so I focused on the out side portion and roughed up everything else so it takes paint well.
Also did a bit more work straightening the rear of the wheel well on driver side. Was dented up from a log or something that did some damage in there. Also filled a big rust hole right at the bottom where the mud got behind the mudflap and was allowed to soak for who knows how long.
Started on the electrical problems. The brake pedal activated ALL the exterior lights on the car. After pulling the rear brake light bulbs I discovered a single pin brake like stuck in a dual pin brake light socket. Which was shorting the parking lights to the brake lights. I tested the brake without the bulb and sure enough the parking lights didn't come on. I need to look at the wiring diagram some more because the right side has that dual pin stop light, and the left side has a single pin. So It seems as if someone replaced one of the brake housings with a different model. I would have to have a right blinking stop light and a left one that is only a brake light. So once I identify which is correct I will fix one side or the other.
Hmm, How about a picture of my make-shift painting booth for the wheels?
Unfortunately I don't have rubber for the other wheels, so I won't be able to drive the car for a few days until I can locate something really cheap. I have pretty much spent my budget on the car so can't buy anything new or fancy. The goal was to buy the car and fix it up into daily driving condition for a total of not more than $1000. The cost breakdown for the car is:
Door handle latch, shift knob, side blinker, parking light assembly, : $24
Two brake calipers (broke both bleed nipples), 2-ball-joints: $45
Window regulator (rolls up window, stripped): $19
Turn signal switch and harness: $14
Relay harness with 4 large relays from a Cadillac: $33
Gas money for parts collection: $40 (2011 Turbo STi, 20mpg......)
Total: $955
The relay harness will be used to rewire the headlights for much improved performance. It will also switch on the Accel Multispark ignition with super-coil I will be installing. It's an old ignition item orginally used in my 1966 Impala before it was upgraded to an MSD digital (laptop) programmable unit that was installed. This leaves one relay for driving lights (fog lights).
Restoration project of a 1979 Subaru Leone Wagon has begun with the purchase of said vehicle on December, 10th 2011 at around 4pm and 31 degrees Fahrenheit lol!
December 14th 2011: In the last few day's since the vehicle was purchased the following has been done:
Broken ball joints have already been replaced.
Both front calipers have been replaced from a junk yard Subaru brat.
The window regulator replaced.
Broken drivers door latch replaced.
Derusted and readjusted trunk hatch so it actually opens.
