I know, I know.. it isn't a Mazda. That's why it's in the off topic section. I do have a few friends here that like to keep up with my car adventures and pranks, whatever you want to call it . Well here it is! 2004 Subaru Forester XT. Picked it up with 68XXX miles. Completely stock, for now .
Yeah, my wife has one as her "fun car" and it took me a couple months to get up to speed on how to maintain one. The more I drove hers around town, the more it became apparent to me that it would make the perfect dad car so here we are today. Wife's FXT is crazy, it's an STI clone whereas mine is an automatic and stock lol
Over the weekend, I took the car on a short trip down the street only to notice that the car started overheating. I turned the car off for a bit and made my way home. I was only less than a mile away. It turns out the hose clamp on the thermostat housing was just loose enough to allow coolant to leak out. Tightened the clamp up, checked all other hose clamps, and burped the cooling system without issues. A small set back but thankfully a really easy one to solve.
The underside is super clean and rust free. I'm not counting surface rust.
The clamp and the drip.
I got some goodies coming in the mail over the next couple weeks so more pics to come.
Gave the car an oil change yesterday too since it was already up in the air and was on my to do list. Triple checked under the car for leaks before moving it out of the garage today. Drove around on my very first errand with this car. The ultra-gauge showed coolant temp was fine.
Yeah, I need a replacement shifter bezel surround piece. This one looks ruined. It's not dirt or grime.
Came home to some goodies.
The STI tmic itself won't make much of a difference on the car since I'm super stock. It'll give some bling factor and be more efficient at cooling the air. I think I may be missing 1 coupler for the swap but I'll figure that out later. Most likely will clean the tmic and apply some heat deflective tape on the end tanks.
The stock Impreza WRX suspension was an option I considered as it was a bit softer than the Impreza STI suspension. But after thinking about it, I decided to go with swift springs for only a small drop. Heard good reviews about the ride quality and performance aspect. Rather keep the clearance on this one.
I made a wtb thread on the subaru forester forum for the tmic stuff. Took about 2-3 weeks. Then randomly ran into a for sale thread for the springs and sway bar on nasioc only to find out seller also posted a for sale thread on the subaru forester forum too lol.
Pulled the forester into the garage today and removed all the struts! New struts and related components should be arriving tomorrow. Surprisingly, all the struts removed are still in proper working condition so I will be gifting them to the person that bought my first forester since he's also looking to lower his forester.
Oh yeah, this broke while I was undoing a strut mount nut lol.
The camera body is a Canon 5D Mark II mated with one of the cheapest plastic lenses, the Canon 50mm f1.8 II. Owned the camera body since 2013. Purchased it as my forever photo camera. I've been trying to use my camera more these past few months.