How To Rebuild a Car! UPDATE 2.0

I'll tell you when I'm done.

I will be in grease monkey mode for the day. Today I am replacing the head gaskets in Murphy, the $500 87 Subaru Turbo Wagon. While I'm getting grimey, I figured I would change the transmission from the crappy 3 speed automatic that is in the car now, to the manual 5 spees Full Time 4 Wheel Drive tranny with locking differential. The current tranny gets horrible gas mileage, and the manual will do better, plus the manual will be more fun to drive. Wish me luck!

DAY 1 - Got the heads off and the crappy 3 speed auto tranny out of the cavity. Also had to remove both 23 spline half shafts to replace with 25 spliners. I started at about 10:00 AM and stopped around 7. Took a few breaks, did lunch, and waisted some time looking for misplaced ratchet or sockets. All in all - a very productive day.

DAY 2 - The day in a nutshell. The ultimate goal - to at least get the new tranny mounted. I had some extra jobs to do today (you know the equation, work = money = more Subie parts; this is like an adiction), so I started early, 7 AM'ish. I pulled the shift lever for the automatic, then went to work for a couple of hours. During the day I went to pick up the 25 sline halfshafts. Got home and found one of the new halfshafts was a 23 spliner. Crap! That means another trip to the store. I ended up doing a lot more running around than I wanted, waisting sevaral hours. I got the crappy 3 speed auto tranny out from underneath the car. Man - that thing is heavy! I forgot to secure the torque converter, so of coarse it came off and spilled tranny fluid everywhere. Funny thing is that when I was installing it a year and a half ago, I did the same thing. At the end of the day, I got the Full Time 4 Wheel Drive tranny up into the tranny bay, plus I also cleaned the cylinder heads and prepped them for install. I couldn't get the one halfshaft to slide onto the differential stub. I fear I have the wrong one. Will try again tomorrow. I think, if I get the halfshaft issues resolved, I will tomorrow have brought Murphy back to life.

DAY 3 - Have more work today and again started early. I managed to get the halfshaft on the tranny stub. It was just a matter of finding the right angle of attack. The stck shift is installed too. I forgot how short the throw is on the shift. Thats all for now. Today I will post some video bits documenting the job.

I worked more than I thought and only had a few hours to work on Murphy. I pulled the old auto pedal assy. (which includes pulling the steering wheel of coarse) and installed the new clutchy one. But I ended up taking the new one out to check if the accel pedal was tha same as the old one. The travel distance to the floor seemed awful short. Also, I had to dissasemble my dash because I couldn't get the speedo cable from the FT4WD tranny to stay on. So it was kinda a two-steps-forward-one-step-back kinda day.