Chapter 22 - Scooby ? Whats Scooby?

So picture the scene if you will, I now have my daily driver, my company van, my project van, and now the newest member of the family, my Subaru Impreza Turbo.
Something has got to go, so .....

We broke out the spanners, and started disassembly of the scooby., out came the lights, bumper, radiator. It was decided that we should drill out all the factory spot welds,  & unpicked the front panel , both for ease of removal, and because i want to use the race specification  radiator that this car was fitted with, so Were going to use the subaru's factory mounts, and weld them into the van later in the project.

Oh i forgot to mention, as we began to dismantle the car, certain hidden treasures came into view, that I'd not really noticed, until i started to compare them against pictures of stock items, the inter-cooler, and dump valve, and radiator are all from a company called "Forge Motorsport"

over the course of a few days we battled with the weather, and i used up my remaining owed holidays, ripping the scooby to bits

Getting the engine out was only the tip of the iceberg, for removing the wiring, was indeed a mission, especially as i needed to label everything up as i went to ensure, Id know what cables needed removing from the wiring loom, and what wires needed to be kept.

Dash out, heaters, Strengthening cross-members removed, airbags you name it, we totally bare shelled the car, even the glass was removed intact!

Looking back at these pictures, i can see what my friends were questioning my sanity, here i was ripping up a taxed, and tested Subaru impreza turbo, and turning into spare parts, and scrap!

Originally, we had a lad interested in having the shell, but he dithered about over money, so i told him, youve got until Saturday, and then I'm going to take a reciprocating  saw to it.

Obviously thought i was joking, but when i say i'm going to chop it up......

                                            I chop it up........

and in less then 30 minutes, I'd sliced, diced and quartered the scooby.

The lad phoned me up about a week later , offering me less then i weighed it in for, , I sent him this picture complete with the reg plate saying "I told you not to mess me about"

Chapter 21 - Scooby dooby dooo

After a few months trawling through ebay, autotrader, and the local rags, I spotted a car on ebay, that was re-listed probably ten minutes before i read the ad, however, my hand was tipped due to the fact the car was still on my watched list from the earlier time it was listed, but now was being re listed due to a ebay time waster. It seems not once, but twice buyers had arse'd this fella around, so i thought id chance my hand, and throw in a seriously low bid via the message system, stating as the car was located in leeds, and if it was as described, ie, Starting and running without any issues, regarding the engine, then Id be happy to take it off his hands.

Seems this particular impreza was suffering from a dodgy gearbox, and although still drivable, was obviously going to need a new box......

A little haggling ensued on the phone, and a deal was struck 11pm friday night, providing i came to collect it the next day, he'd end the auction, Sweet!
However i had two guys i knew who claimed that if i gave them a call, they could move any cars for me, no problemo, problem was, one wasnt answering the phone, and the other had loaned out the truck to another mate! ......I could feel the deal slipping through my fingers.....

Franticly i made a few calls, the company whom i work for also have a recovery truck, surely as a company employee, i'll be covered on the insurance??? Two phone calls later? Apparently not..... gutted, thing was, they were happy to change it over temporarily........ on Monday, ok scratch that idea....

Then my mate "Wally The Welder" gave me a idea.... Why not just insure it and drive it home?, so i rang the owner who said yes it would drive, but he wasn't sure if the box would last back to Liverpool.
Ok, no problem, hit the internet, found a place that did temp cover, and i could spec top of the range breakdown recovery, for a measly £50! Sorted, Plan was simple, do the deal, drive it home, if it goes bang, the very nice man from the AA would pop in on the back of the truck and bring it back to scouse land, so i grabbed Wally, jumped in my Mondeo and burned rubber to Leeds.

We got to Leeds just before it started to go dark, gave the car a quick going over, battery was flat,  but started with a jump, was some water in the boot, as the rear screen seal was leaking, had a patch of primer ofver the passenger side rear arch, and of course the gearbox was bad, sounded like the dif in the box was chewing bolts.... However engine was sweet as a nut, and a previous owner had lavished the car in plenty of tune up items, samco hoses, uprated turbo, intercooler, and a race spec radator.

We shook hands, said goodbye, and i told Wally to follow me to the nearest petrol station. Nervously i drove the car the couple of miles to the shell garage by the motorway, in my head, i thought this will never make it, i figured as soon as i hit 60, it would explode, so i told Wally we'd take it easy,.....

A hour and a half later, and it was home safe and sound in Liverpool, and under its own steam too!
God only knows how the box survived, but i even got it up to motorway speed limits as i rolled into Liverpool

, and it still wouldn't die!

Chapter 20 - I have a dream

Some of the prices for parts recently have been a bit crazy, i saw a Westy toilet / buddy seat box for sale for £400 recently, that's not the toilet, that's the square box and the cushion lid, seriously insane!

Since Busefest, I've been scanning ebay, etc and keeping a eye on subaru prices, My mate Tony got his engine from a Legacy, but all Impreza's, and Forrester's use the same engines, including the more powerful turbo engines from the WRX, STi models.(at least the 2000cc models do)

At first glance, prices were all over the place, and the fact that people were waiting till the last second to buy meant watching hundreds of listings, and checking back to see what they went for, turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

If i was serious about converting my van to Subaru power, it was going to come at a cost, I found cars on ebay with issues, going for as low as £800 for a legacy with bad paint, a few forresters, for as little as £600 with no mot, but it was the prices of impreza's that caught my eye, 3 or 4 cars, non turbo models good for 140-150 bhp were changing hands for £500!

I discovered a few damanged turbos dipping below a grand too, hmmmm - more research was needed.
 Seems when it comes to Subaru transplants into VW's, two companies names kept coming up, TSR, and RJES.

The quick way to to split the two up is this, TSR use a adapter plate to mate the vw box and the subaru together, where as RJES make a complete new bellhousing which replaces the VW one to connect the two.

Reading through all the stuff written on the forums helped me make my decision which system to imply on my van.........

But first of all, i needed a donor car..........

Chapter 19 - Winter of discontent

Soon after me and my friends had shook hands and departed for home after Busfest, attentions turned to the ever looming season of winter, and more to the point Christmas.........

Given any and all spare monies would now be directed towards presents for friends and loved ones, i figured we had plenty of panels and rot to deal with to keep me going, however what i hadn't planned on was the weather.

As you can see, not very good weather for welding in the open! I was well and truely up against it, seemed like every weekend i was presented with this, or torrential rain.All the while i was planning my new route of attack, waiting for a break in the weather.

I also started searching ebay for a few trinkets and missing parts for my bus.
I find that sometimes when you go collect car parts from a seller, it pays to bring a few quid extra with you in case they have some little gem tucked away, in the back of they're garage.

This was the case when it came to a ebay seller, whom I'd won the auction for a passenger side door for my van to replace one of my rusty doors. We exchanged numbers and due to the size of the door, and my lack of trust with courier services to deliver the door undamaged, I agreed to meet the seller at his home to collect the door for myself.

I set off straight from work, and made my way up north to Skegness, to meet Paul, a fellow dubber, who invited me in and told me his sad tale of the girlfriend who didn't get the whole camper van scene, and how when his project failed to pass its MOT, he decided to break it for parts , and alas most of it had gone and was sold including the matching front door to the one i had gone to collect (Damn!) , however whislt enjoying the hot cuppa, i spotted a sliding door with a rug over it,..... turns out it was due to appear on Ebay, but due to its size it was going to be even more costly to ship for potential buyers, i had a good look over it and noticed this..........

 Seems he bought it from a show somewhere, popped it on his van unpainted, and was going for the rat look. Well untill the rot had taken over other areas.
 

Obviously i had stumbled over a tidy bit of kit, as these doors are no longer available from VW,
Doors like this are worth a tidy sum on the show circuit, perhaps more then i gave for my whole van in the beginning, so needless to say, i struck up a deal, loaded up my doors and headed home for Liverpool with a huge grin upon my face .

Now if i can only find a drivers door as good and my passenger one, I'll have good grounds for a rot free bus!

Chapter 18 - A long time coming

Been meaning to catch up with my writing of the blog, but as you see the last post was August, and as we went to Busfest in September, I realised that getting the van completed, with a full shake down wasnt possible, and so put the project on hold and I missed my deadline to complete the project.

After attending a fantastic Busfest (I attended in my works T5)

Much beer and food was consumed upon the BBQ at the Project Orange Base Camp

It was during these hazy drinking sessions, and much ogling of my mate Tonys awesome subaru powered Dub, that i decided that i too would have some of this scooby madness someday!

More updates to follow!