Seeing this car brought back a vivid memory of my grandmother driving a bunch of kids through the Texas Hill Country for an afternoon swim in the creek.
Those ranch roads could be rough, but “the Plymouth” was up to the task.
You had to pump the brakes to make them work, and sometimes they didn’t work then.
Oma had the sang froid to aim for a large persimmon bush when the brakes failed that afternoon coming down Geisweidt’s Hill, and after we got everyone untangled and picked up off the floorboards (seatbelts? what seatbelts?) we pushed the car back onto the road and continued on our merry way.
That old Plymouth was a prototypical “overland vehicle”: it could handle some fairly tough offroading, yet was versatile enough for more mundane chores–like taking my uncle and me out to the school bus stop on the county road.
Being twelve he had seniority, and since he could almost see over the dash, he got to drive.
But I digress.
Anyway, last year I decided to pass my 4WD Tacoma along to my son: living as he does at the base of the Colorado Rockies, his need was greater than mine here in the suburbs of Phoenix.
I replaced it with a shiny new Subaru Forester: unlike the Tacoma, the Forester was small and easy to park, had a quiet, pleasant ride, got excellent gas mileage, and was the perfect suburban runabout. I even had money left over in my “car fund.”
Clearly I had to do something about all that.
The Forester had respectable credentials right off the showroom floor: although the 2.5l Boxer engine wasn’t going to blow anyone’s doors off, it produced enough torque through its all-wheel drive system to keep the little SUV moving in boggy conditions, particularly with “X-mode” selected to lower the gears and let the wheels spin more or less independently.
The approach angle of 22.9 degrees and departure angle of 28.9, plus an 8.7″ ground clearance, meant it could crawl over pavement irregularities with the best of them.
But I wanted more off-road capability. Much, much more…
Wait a minute, you might ask: exactly how much off-roading was I planning to do with my new Forester, anyway?
Well, let’s see: a couple of times a year we drive up into the mountains for a weekend–sometimes it even snows!
And every spring I spend a week in Texas, traversing those same Hill Country roads that we took on in “the Plymouth.”
Other than that, you ask?
Well, it never hurts to be prepared, as my Scouting friends say. You never know when you’ll really, really need to get off the beaten path, and I for one don’t intend to be restricted to the pavement when that time comes.
Let’s address the elephant in the room up front: there has been a theory irresponsibly bruited about that a person MIGHT make these kinds of vehicle upgrades solely to compensate for, ah, shortcomings in other areas.
Nonsense!
Anyway, I couldn’t wait to get started: for once, my imagination was the limit (as I said, my budget was generous because I had money left over in my car fund).
My first step in transforming the Forester to an overland machine was to ask the dealer to put on a differential skid plate and install a tow package. With a max tongue weight of 150 lbs and a max tow weight of 1,500, I wasn’t going to pull anything very big, but I wanted to have the option.
The factory skid plate looked plenty sturdy. I’d heard they could be a challenge to install, so was happy to let the Subaru Service Department do their stuff.
The next items were from Crawford Performance: after ogling the various delights on their website, I sent away for a set of rock guard rails and a transmission skid plate.
They arrived promptly and I could barely wait to read the instructions before dashing out into the driveway to put them on. The weather was uncharacteristically overcast as I bolted the skid plate under the transmission, and even threatened to drizzle as I finished torqueing the bolts on the driver’s side rock guard.
A light rain began to fall as I briskly set about the passenger side guard.
The MO for bolting this sort of thing to the bottom of your vehicle is to prop up one end just enough that you can get a bolt started. Then using a jack, if convenient–otherwise, brute force will do–raise the free end, adeptly slip a bolt in with your other hand and tighten it a few turns. You then move back and forth, leisurely tightening bolts at alternating ends until the whole business levitates gracefully into place.
Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work.
The cold rain pelted down into my streaming face as I wrestled with that passenger side rock guard: either it had been bent slightly in transit, or my undercarriage was ever so slightly out of spec on that side.
The rain came down harder, my language grew more colorful, and a reasonable person would have gone in out of the rain to contemplate alternatives. But no quitter I, who finally levered a pry bar against some unknown, doubtless fragile and critically important mechanism on the vehicle’s underside and with a mighty heave warped that brand-new rock guard just enough to hastily slip a bolt through and catch it on the edge of the appropriate hole in the chassis.
Straining against the wrench I nearly cross-threaded the bolts, which would’ve jammed them halfway forever and left the rock guard dangling loose. Steady now…I grimly forged ahead as the freezing torrential rain roared and bounced off the pavement around me.
After 40 days and nights the last bolt finally sank into place and the torque wrench clicked. I swam around underneath the car for a while, picking up tools and floating debris and admiring my handiwork.
The rock guards blend discreetly into the black trim, but when you open the door–extreme coolness.
Here’s a picture (taken during drier weather) to show what I mean:
Additional armor for the vehicle’s underside would come from LP Adventure. With growing excitement I ordered an engine skid plate and matching bumper guard: despite coming all the way from Canada they arrived in minimum time.
After carefully checking the weather forecast I went outside, ran the Forester up onto a set of ramps–first overriding the anti-collision system to do so (the present-day equivalent of applying spurs), and bolted the bumper guard on in minutes.
Its attachment points are much sturdier than those of the standard auto mart bull bar I was used to. At almost three times the price, I was glad to see that I was, in fact, getting a serious piece of equipment.
The engine skid plate maneuvered into place easily enough but then–by now you were expecting something like this, right?–disaster struck.
The front of the Crawford Performance transmission skid plate interfered with the back of LP Adventure engine skid plate, preventing the latter from sitting flush.
I’m not ashamed to say I wept. At least it wasn’t raining.
As I lay under there staring, a glimmer of an idea started to form. A quick Google search–yes, this just might work!–then I had the engine skid plate off and was digging through my saber saw blades. Aha! A metal-cutting blade!
I marked the interference points on the skid plate and drilled holes through the 3/16″ aluminum at the “corners” of my expected cut. I widened the holes with successively larger bits, then, wiping the sweat from my eye protection, plugged in my saw and began the cut.
Sparks flew and metal shrieked, and a couple of times I shrieked, too (that metal gets HOT). Following the advice of my Uncle Google, I kept the edge of the cut awash with WD-40.
When I got to the corners of the cut, the holes I’d drilled allowed me to reorient the blade and press on. The cut edge was extremely rough, but I realized that would be a secret between me and the mechanic who changes my oil at the dealership–and now you.
As soon as the metal cooled down enough to touch, I ran back out into the driveway to check the fit–success!
As I backed the Forester off the ramps and picked up my tools, the clouds rolled in and began to threaten rain. I just sat in the driveway and smiled at the car, which was definitely beginning to give off a subtle “Mad Max” vibe.
The final order of business was to see about raising the vehicle a little higher off the ground: nothing crazy, just a couple of inches. I’d already lowered the car’s clearance almost an inch by hanging all the skid plates and guards underneath: I wanted to get that clearance back, plus a little more.
You can order a vanilla lift kit online for a couple hundred dollars, but I had money to burn and wanted something fancier.
Back to my new friends at LP Adventure for their 2″ Forester lift kit. This thing was supposed to comply with every known vehicle safety standard and was getting rave reviews online. It, too, arrived promptly, and in the meantime I’d decided that I was NOT going to attempt to install it myself.
But I knew who was. The guys at 4WheelParts #63 in Phoenix had done good work on my Tacoma and they’d earned my repeat business. I’d also decided that I wanted to go from 17″ to 18″ wheels, so they helped me choose RaceLine Scout wheels and some Falken Wildpeak A/T Trail 225/55R18s.
I was going to go with larger tires but nagging doubts about destroying what was left of the Forester’s ride and fuel economy held me back. As soon as the parts arrived the guys at 4WP did their usual bang up job and I was rolling. The ride was a little stiffer and my mpg went down to 23 city/29 highway from the advertised 26/33, but I couldn’t be happier.
I sold the original wheels and tires on OfferUP at a bargain price to a nice kid who probably couldn’t believe what a stupe he was dealing with. I just wanted them out of my garage.
The 4WP guys had talked me into a cheaper set of wheels–the Racelines–when my first choice was delayed indefinitely, so I was able to afford a full-sized spare on a matching fifth wheel.
Even after removing the styrofoam form for the original donut, I had to play a sort of Tetris to get the new spare to fit in the well along with a fire extinguisher, flares, tools, folding shovel, recovery rings, etc.
If I HAD gone with bigger tires, I’d have been looking at some sort of roof rack storage solution for the spare.
As it is, my snow chains, jack stands, and other cool paraphernalia have overflowed onto the passenger floorboard behind the driver’s seat. When I buy a recovery rope it’ll fit back there, too, but one day when I’ve saved up some money again I’ll have to figure out someplace else to put a pair of MAXTRAX traction boards–I hear great things about them.
Then if we ever have a blizzard in Phoenix, I’ll be ready.