Low and slow 93 subaru brat

[pneuma]

Hey,

Ive been lurking around this forum for a while but never really thought about starting a thread until now. So here it goes.


Well this is a bit of a departure from my car comfort zone as I'm pretty much a honda boy through and through.
This is slightly different, so let me explain.

Back in the 80's my grandad and uncle used to own a Subaru dealership, this was way before the impreza hit the car scene.
So the cars Subaru sold were mainly practical vehicles, as a kid I spent alot of time around the garage......my dad is also in the trade so time spent around cars in general was pretty much normal.

Anyway, skip forward to now. I randomly had a dream about one of the cars that I saw alot of back in the day. So onto ebay I went out of curiosity and behold I found the car! It's not the one I've ended up with but it sparked the search.
So yesterday after a 400 odd mile round trip I have my hands on my new project, and for me a huge piece of nostalgia that's close to the heart.


So I present to you my Subaru MV pickup AKA the brat (Bi-drive Recreational All-terrain Transporter)



This is the picture from the advert with the awful box on the back and even nastier stickers



As soon as I got back that thing was off!







I've had the car for nearly a year now and its looking very different now. I'll keep on posting all the various stages it went through up to its current state.

Thanks for looking.

Chris.

[The Jackeria]

I'm interested to see what you've done, not too many of these about

[luckyseven]

Love these! Like a 1/3rd scale El Camino

[darrenh]

as practical as it might be, agree those truckman load covers looks stupid.

love the broken english on the hi lo

"when shift the select lever"

[pneuma]

Despite the truckman top looking curse word, it's been a bit of blessing in disguise as it's really saved the bed from rotting out over the years.
In fact the whole car was in really good condition overall thanks to the old dear who had it before had it undersealed yearly.

of course there is the usual rot in a few places. The wings were shot, as was the front valance. the rear arches needed some bits cutting out. But nothing major.


The first thing to happen was removing all the bits i didn't intend on keeping.

Rear bumper pods and tow bar got the boot.

Before.




After.




Bull bars also went.




Removed the rear number plate cage while i was there.



Fubared wings. and arch rot.

[Carlosfandango.]

Loving this. Looking forward to see how it progresses. I have a pick up itch that needs to be scratched..

[pneuma]

Decided to go 'full retard' and strip all the paint off to see if there was anything else lurking under the paint. all was good. Plus i liked knowing that there isn't any rust underneath after a fresh paint job.



Started welding in new metal.






As you will see with the next picture i went high with the cut as i need the clearance for the wheels. Plus Bolt on drift arches are going on.
Also in this picture i flipped the stock wheels to see what a bit of poke looked like.

[pneuma]

The next thing i started to tackle was how to lower the car. Obviously aftermarket parts are non existent.
So lots of research and improvising was needed for the front.

Fortunately i found some KYB shocks on American ebay, these were perfect as they are much stronger than stock and can put up with being run low.



After speaking with a guy in the states he informed me that 5th-6th generation coilover sleeves fitted.
So this happened.



I managed to find a set that had a softer spring rate as most of the civic ones were fairly stiff.

In and down.




The rear on the other hand was way trickier. In practise its very simple as its just a case of clocking the torsion bar. But years of water ingress meant that it wasn't so easy.

Sooooo, the whole rear end had to come out.



This is the end that needed to come off.



A ten ton press and lots of heat finally got them unstuck. I manged to get replacements from the states.



The back finally dropped. with a touch of natural camber too.

[si2001]

I'm liking where this is going.....

[WillCarter]

Aug 8, 2015 18:31:57 GMT si2001 said:

I'm liking where this is going.....

Me too, this thread IS potential.

[darrenh]

well, kirk lazurus was clearly wrong, you should always go full retard

[pneuma]

Aug 8, 2015 20:29:00 GMT darrenh said:

well, kirk lazurus was clearly wrong, you should always go full retard

Ha! Plenty more to come.

[Deleted]

I've always loved these. I love what you're to this one too. Moar pics!

[pneuma]

Parts started turning up pretty quick. New fiberglass wings, bolt on arches and wing mounted mirrors (stock ones flushed obviously)










With arches.






With the new mirrors.

[oukie]

I really like this, those fiberglass wings look a good fit, much fettling required ?

Bookmarked.

[pneuma]

Next up were changing the wheels. Now the standard pcd is so bizarre, 4x140! So as you can guess there isn't anything out there at all.
So a cool trick all the offroad guys do is knock out two opposing studs. This allows a 6x139 wheel to fit on.....then mark and drill new stud holes. Then fit new studs!

This opens up a whole world of wheel choices.

I'm pretty happy with the wheels i have but I'm always on the look out for some old school J 6 studs wheels. So if anyone has any or know of any please let me know!


These turned up. 15x8 et-22






Test fit!






Test fit with the bolt on's.




Then i couldn't contain myself and got two tyres to see what it would really look like!





And my personal favorite. (note the filled holes from the bumper pods)

[pneuma]

Aug 9, 2015 8:26:35 GMT oukie said:

I really like this, those fiberglass wings look a good fit, much fettling required ?

Bookmarked.

Thanks buddy.

They are very good, the guy who makes them is a proper brat enthusiast. They are mouled off brand new oem wings. Just a little bit of fiddling was required as the fiberglass tends to move around a little. Nothing major.

[pneuma]

Due to the stock exhaust being absolutely horrid i wanted to change it up. Originally i was just going to weld a new tip onto the stock one, but my buddy kindly gifted me his old backbox off his old jetta for me to play with.

Not my style, so i had a play.

Before.





Started chopping it up.




So using a combination of the two exhausts i welding up this thing.

First two sections.



Cut off the up swept part and welded a straight piece.



All together.



Painted.



Fitted!




Then tweeked

[darrenh]

why on earth do fibreglass wings for a brat even exist !! pretty cool though

or is it because they are the same as legacy/leone or something ?

[pneuma]

Aug 9, 2015 9:59:20 GMT darrenh said:

why on earth do fibreglass wings for a brat even exist !! pretty cool though

or is it because they are the same as legacy/leone or something ?

Well, oem steel ones are next to impossible to find. A guy i know is SUPER into brats and has them made. He's sold loads of sets. He also makes new tailgate panels and front valance's.
They would fit leone's also, pretty much all that stuff is the same.

A great guy to know. Only £120 for the pair of wings from what i remember