calicamper
Expedition Leader
Smooth sandy track in a Subaru? Dude thats 40+mph terrain. Our rough logging roads around here tend to keep the subie checked in the high 30s. ;-)Looks like you were on FR-09 (The pipeline)
Smooth sandy track in a Subaru? Dude thats 40+mph terrain. Our rough logging roads around here tend to keep the subie checked in the high 30s. ;-)Looks like you were on FR-09 (The pipeline)
Got my primitive skid plates installed today. The front and mid plate where both a piece of cake, the rear diff plate was a PITA. I'm just shy of the 1000 mile break in period, time to see what it's got.
It took me longer to do that little diff plate than the other two combined.
I loosened the nuts and pried the diff away from its mount like the instructions stated to do, this did not work. I then hammered a half inch wooden dowel between the diff and mount and tried moving the plate up in between with both hammering the plate and jacking it with a floor jack, this did not work. It seemed like I was making enough space for the plate to slide into but it seemed like the slots were very precise cut and the plate needed to be perfectly aligned and there wasnt enough room to see what I was doing. Also it was about 32F and aluminum plate has an amazing ability to make your un-gloved hands go numb. I finally dug around and the garage found a ratchet strap. I pulled forward on the rear diff's front cross-member(there is kind of a front and rear mount for the rear diff). It took about as much force to do as I could muster but it made about a 1/4" of gap at the rear of the diff. It still wasn't easy to get the plate in between. I lubed everything up with some waxy under coat spray I had handy and then I used a combination of prying, hammering, and jacking to get it into place.
If I had to do it again I would consider semi-removal of the rear diff.