Postcards from the Pleiades.
Irregular, not necessarily chronological.
Results of work or notes related to places and times, rather than strict knowledge about cars.
Primarily a record of what’s happening, but also a nod to Subaru and the wider Subie family.
I did some detective work and am 99% sure this is my car:
In those clips the first owner behind the wheel, about 16 years ago, which is
just over a year after purchasing it (best wishes if you’re reading this!).
The same owner kept the car for many a years, despite driving a whole bunch of very unusual cars during that time (looking at you, Fiesta R2 and DS3 R3T). I’m mentioning this because on Friday, I removed the aramid skid plate from under the engine, a memento from those days. The aramid plate is cool, but for my usage and how I drive the car, it’s definitely an overkill. It also had one flaw: the front is securely held on with two bolts, but the rear has a, rather poorly designed, pair of tabs, which slides into holes in the plastic underbody shields (I had to have those floor pan splash shields welded back in the day). This is not a great solution. Not only does the skid plate not stay rigid and hits the underbody on bumps, giving me a mini heart attack every time it does that, but over time, it also cracks the shields it’s inserted into. I think this plate might have been a part of a bigger N12 kit, and perhaps it was better integrated with the other shields?
It all started when my son wanted a bit of peace and quiet. He said he would like a system that shows when he’s available, busy, and when it’s absolutely not okay to disturb him (oh, the horror of being nine!). I thought it sounded like a traffic light - red, amber and green. A trip to the electronics store, a raid on the Lego box, a bit of soldering, and this is what I came up with:
It’s easier to start with the thing I didn’t buy because there’s only one. And since I didn’t buy it, there’s not much to elaborate on — I’ll just say that I missed it by less than ¥100,000. Oh well, it seems like this is one of those situations where it’s not about if, but when.
However, I did buy something rather quite special, shown here in the brochure for the 22B:
For quite some time, I have been changing the oil and filters myself. I have notes with the mileage and dates of the changes, but it always annoyed me that I had to check them to see if “it’s time.” Inspired by Boxer Beauty, who, by the way, have a lot of rare stickers for Subaru, I decided to fix this. Here’s the fix:
A single sticker is 105x85mm, the minimum order for that size was 66 stickers, so I’m good for round about 30 years.
During the last oil change, about 7,000 kilometers ago, I noticed that the engine mount subframe had seen better days. It took me a little while to buy them because the prices weren’t very encouraging, but in the end, I managed to get some well-refurbished ones from my local Subaru forum. For comparison, here are the old and new ones:
The hole in the picture above appeared with a light tap from a hammer during the last oil change, and I remember being quite concerned about it at the time. Honestly, I expected them to be in much worse condition.
Since the Impreza has been in winter hibernation, resting peacefully, I decided to take care of the Forester a bit. Back in November, I scheduled a repair for the right arch. It turned out very nicely, with perfect finish, and the new paint blends perfectly with the rest of the car. Maybe even too perfectly, because the Forester’s paint is quite tired, and now there’s this ideal metallic shine. While at it, both bumpers were repainted; the front one – someone scratched it in the parking lot, and the rear one – was poorly done, probably right after the car was imported from Switzerland, someone didn’t even bother to take it off the car for the re-spray.
57497FE000 – If anyone else would like it :)
I’ve had it for a while now. It all started looking like this:
It’s a nice thing, but feels a bit rough and ready. Even the brand-new key, had the blue plastic cover sticking out. I was a little disappointed, but quickly forgot about it, especially after I’d read online that it was a common issue.
313109 km
313350 km
321058 km
322133 km
60871 km
