psrivats' 2005 TJ Rubicon mild build

psrivats said:
Thanks Mike. The AWD on these things is pretty good. I tired yesterday and I can lay down in the rear quite well diagonally, if I put the rear seat down flat. That is exciting because I can now go car camping if I choose to!

Photo below is from Google, but you can see how much space there is in the back. The thing that is good is that the rear seat is much more usable than the XJ in terms of legroom. There are rear headrests and they are designed to come out and store nicely to get the full flat rear.

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There is an interesting community of people that mod these things. Most popular is putting a turbo from a JDM only STI version, and the other is putting WRX suspension components (and I've seen people do both). I saw a company (Anderson Design and Fab) that sells some crazy suspension stuff for lifting and whatever. I have no desire to put larger tires on this thing .. just not needed where it'll go. I'll still have the TJ for all big tire needs 😂
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Definitely build a STi version. All the cool kids are doing it!

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mxz800 said:
I don't think there are many Lesbians here.
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It just shows that they have better taste in daily driver cars :)

I don't have any dogs, but friends' dogs will certainly get in the car when we go for outdoor stuff. But no "dog barrier".

I did order a set of front rubber mats and a phone holder though. I need to get the head gasket checked out and all the fluids/spark plugs changed (which I do with all used cars I get). I also need to get a hitch installed for my bike rack. But other than that the car needs nothing.
 
psrivats said:
That is a rabbit hole I will not get into :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: This is the photo from Anderson design/fab's website. I think it's the 3rd gen Forester though.

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Who was that guy that was a member here for a bit until Chris banned him? Some girl names dad was his screen name. like LaurasDad or something. He had a Subaru that he had all built up.
 
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One interesting thing is how much different the latest gen (2019+) Foresters look compared gen1/gen2 (98-'08). Happened to take these yesterday after I realized the car parked next to mine was a Subaru.

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psrivats said:
One interesting thing is how much different the latest gen (2019+) Foresters look compared gen1/gen2 (98-'08). Happened to take these yesterday after I realized the car parked next to mine was a Subaru.

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That is a pretty good representation the bloating of american vehicles. My Colorado is technically a mid size truck...but its as big (and capable) as a Full size 20 years ago (yet they still won't design the bed to be wide enough for 4x8 sheet goods :rolleyes: ). There is enough width to do it...but that might steal sales from the full size category and GM won't allow that.
 
Mike_H said:
That is a pretty good representation the bloating of american vehicles. My Colorado is technically a mid size truck...but its as big (and capable) as a Full size 20 years ago (yet they still won't design the bed to be wide enough for 4x8 sheet goods :rolleyes: ). There is enough width to do it...but that might steal sales from the full size category and GM won't allow that.
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I could be wrong on this, but I read some interesting content several weeks back regarding this.

Basically, in the mid 2000s, vehicle manufacturers couldn't keep up or comply with the stringent emissions standards that all these different governments were requiring. To compensate, manufacturers began making the vehicles bigger to "dilute" the requirements they had to meet. It was a very interesting read. That's why say an 00-06 Tundra looks like a mid-size truck compared to an 07+ Tundra which is now small even by today's standards.

I have an 02 Tundra with the 4.7 V8 and absolutely love it. It isn't this absolute monstrosity but still has the performance to get things done.
 
Jamison C said:
I could be wrong on this, but I read some interesting content several weeks back regarding this.

Basically, in the mid 2000s, vehicle manufacturers couldn't keep up or comply with the stringent emissions standards that all these different governments were requiring. To compensate, manufacturers began making the vehicles bigger to "dilute" the requirements they had to meet. It was a very interesting read. That's why say an 00-06 Tundra looks like a mid-size truck compared to an 07+ Tundra which is now small even by today's standards.

I have an 02 Tundra with the 4.7 V8 and absolutely love it. It isn't this absolute monstrosity but still has the performance to get things done.
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Yup .. you got that right. Law of unintended consequences. This video explains it well. I always thought this image below was VERY striking.

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Mike_H said:
That is a pretty good representation the bloating of american vehicles. My Colorado is technically a mid size truck...but its as big (and capable) as a Full size 20 years ago (yet they still won't design the bed to be wide enough for 4x8 sheet goods :rolleyes: ). There is enough width to do it...but that might steal sales from the full size category and GM won't allow that.
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That right there is the real reason.
 
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psrivats said:
@David Kishpaugh Thank you for taking the time to post this information. I'm really enjoying driving the rig, puts a smile on my face everytime I get in. It drives and handles beautifully and soaks up bumps like they aren't even then there.

Going to the mountains again for Sunday, a little rougher 2 track road and I'm really looking forward to it instead of dreading it. I can't wait to go on more adventures with this Jeep. Thank you for building it the way I wanted.
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Yet another non-TJ update.

After some investigation, I learned today that the Subaru Forester I wrote about a couple pages back has many signs of being in a collision before. I got new set of tires a couple weeks ago, and then took it for an alignment and new fluids. The vehicle wouldn't align to spec fully, and that was the starting point of my discoveries. There is enough (but not immediately obvious) tell-tale signs that it was in a collision in the past affecting the chassis/subframe straightness.

A dedicated alignment shop got it as best as they could (final numbers below) and it is actually surprising that it drives as well as it does with these numbers. It's perfectly fine for a beater/local commute for a good while, and it is not the gem of a good older car that I hoped I had found. I think I will sell it after a few months, maybe after the winter. Not going to rush it. It's kind of a shame really, since the engine/trans/interior all are just in really very good shape. Money wise I don't think it is worth trying to get it fixed (if that even is possible) at a body shop.

I have already sold my 1996 XJ .. but even with this story on the Forester, I do not miss my XJ even a little bit. In my opinion, the Forester has it easily beat in every way for a general daily use car.

Sometimes you win, and sometimes you have learning opportunities and sometimes you have both. C'est la vie!


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psrivats said:
Yet another non-TJ update.

After some investigation, I learned today that the Subaru Forester I wrote about a couple pages back has many signs of being in a collision before. I got new set of tires a couple weeks ago, and then took it for an alignment and new fluids. The vehicle wouldn't align to spec fully, and that was the starting point of my discoveries. There is enough (but not immediately obvious) tell-tale signs that it was in a collision in the past affecting the chassis/subframe straightness.

A dedicated alignment shop got it as best as they could (final numbers below) and it is actually surprising that it drives as well as it does with these numbers. It's perfectly fine for a beater/local commute for a good while, and it is not the gem of a good older car that I hoped I had found. I think I will sell it after a few months, maybe after the winter. Not going to rush it. It's kind of a shame really, since the engine/trans/interior all are just in really very good shape. Money wise I don't think it is worth trying to get it fixed (if that even is possible) at a body shop.

I have already sold my 1996 XJ .. but even with this story on the Forester, I do not miss my XJ even a little bit. In my opinion, the Forester has it easily beat in every way for a general daily use car.

Sometimes you win, and sometimes you have learning opportunities and sometimes you have both. C'est la vie!


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I hope there is a place in the Stalin wing of hell for those lying hippies that sold that Subie to you.
 
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JMT said:
That’s unfortunate about the collision Sri. 🙄
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I know better for next time and here forward. And it could have been worse, like a leaking head gasket!

(Subaru head gasket jokes never get old) 🙂
 
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psrivats said:
Subaru head gasket jokes never get old
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One of my earlier cars was a 2002 WRX, these jokes are a bit painful 😖. Bought it with 30k miles on it, barely made it past 90k before selling it for nearly scraps, as a broke college graduate that needed reliable transportation. Crazy that back then I got a Honda Ridgeline for around $12k, which was a really great truck for non-truck people.
 
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