Exhaust strap repair on the Subaru

I had been hearing some odd vibrations in the exhaust recently, and upon examination I found this:

Hmm… that’s not right.

The basics: how do to an oil change

One of the most basic items on the maintenance checklist is changing your car’s oil. Once you’ve done it once or twice, it’s easy and quick and not necessarily messy. I remember the first time I did it myself, and I wondered why anyone would endure that terrible ordeal rather than shelling out $50 to have someone else do it. Happily, poverty forced me to try it again, and I’ve learned a few tricks along the way that make oil changes a snap.

You don’t need your own garage to do your own oil changes. Sure, it’s nice, but plenty of people use their driveways, condo parking spaces, or even on their street parking. Pick a nice, warm day and get outside. Just be considerate and don’t leave a mess!

I change my oil every 5000km which is on the conservative side of oil change intervals. Most cars will specify an interval in the owners manual (usually 5000-10000km), but modern cars have fancy oil analyzers built into the computer that monitor the oil life and will tell you when it needs changing.

Here are the tools and supplies I use for oil changes.

Re-mounting the electronic boost controller

Once upon a time, the location of the three switches operating my auxiliary lights used to be home to my HKS electronic boost controller. When I needed a place for the switches, it was the obvious choice, which meant the boost controller needed a new home.

Here it is, back in the day:

It was mounted simply, with double-sided tape, stuck directly to the switch blanks. I looked all around the cockpit for another place to stick it, but no flat surfaces were available. I’d have to build a bracket.

Making an on/off switch for ABS brakes

From my increasing experience with competition driving, I have learned that ABS braking is often not your friend, especially on loose surfaces. A sensitive touch has the capacity to outbrake the computer-controlled ABS system, particularly when we’re talking about the crude Subaru ABS computer.

Wiring the Subaru aux lights, part 9: we aim to please

Lights installed? check. Wires connected? check. Let there be light.

Let’s start with the comparison with low beams:

Wiring the Subaru aux lights, part 8: final connections

Are you excited? I’m excited. All this work and still no light. Perhaps we can fix that.

I needed to first add the connection points for the spot lights and magnetic spot light to the fuse and relay box. The spot lights, with their combined 22 amps of current, would use one of these big Anderson connectors, while the magnetic spotlight and its measly 7 amps would use a miniature version of it.

Wiring the Subaru aux lights, part 7: preparing the lights

Building the light bar was only part of getting the lights mounted. In this chapter I’ll actually get to adding wire and protecting them from rocks.

In the wiring diagram post, I mentioned that I would be making the lights a switched negative system (with a constant positive) as long as the lights weren’t grounded through their attachment points. A quick check with the multimeter showed continuity between the mounting bolt and the negative wire on the middle spot light, but not the two outside lights. This could be easily fixed by disassembling the light.

Wiring the Subaru aux lights, part 6: making and installing thefuse/relay box

With this auxiliary lighting project I’m adding a bunch of fuses and relays, and these are things best left protected from the elements. There’s a reason fuse boxes have covers. In this installment, I’ll be building a box to house all of these items and fitting it to the car.

The basis for the box is this, a hard drive enclosure that has been sitting in my basement for far too long. It has been cut down by about 1" from its original length to fit in the space available.

Wiring the Subaru aux lights, part 5: under the dashboard

Time to string some wire! This part of the wiring project will be all about finding the wires under the dash that we need to cut and tap into, and connecting those to the switches and relays.

When I removed the lower dash panel (three screws and two plastic fasteners) I realized I needed to get rid of some excess wire. This car’s previous owner, though he kept spectacular care of the car, didn’t believe in cutting the extra wire off of his many electronic gadgets and instead just tucked it away in neat coils. This makes for a cramped under-dash area, and isn’t much fun to sort through. With a few cuts and a few new soldered connections, I was rid of all this wire:

Into my bucket of spare wires with you!