The Great Alaskan Tundra Humper *pic heavy*

Hello Gents and Ladies, I am Jeremiah. I live in Fairbanks, Alaska; i'm in college, aspiring to become an English teacher; and bought my foz two years ago. This is it's story:

I broke it really soon after buying it, about a month or two. I got the ol' beast stuck in the snow, and trying to tow it out did a fair deal of damage:



But that was no big deal, it drove quite alright after we shoveled it out. Then, in the spring time, a bit of hooning started the rear bumper's issue of wanting a divorce:


Summer of 2013 brought plastidip and rear wheel bearings sounding like they were trying to make butter out of gravel:



Also got a nice deep clean at the laser wash:


Of course some adventures:




The spring of 2014 brought blown headgaskets, which i replaced with the help of a local Subaru flipper and cylinder head specialist.

I also did a few mods for the local ice track like two switches in the handbrake to fully unlock the center diff when pulled, even with my 4wd lock switch on. Sadly, i have no videos of that hooning.

More adventures came this spring:



Navigator Kyle:



Continues below. I have a picture limit :(
 
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I'm gonna catch this back up:

We took the Foz out on a trip North via the Elliot Highway last month, with hopes of reaching Prudhoe Bay. We headed out Friday night and camped at a random spot at the end of an overgrown trail we came across:

IMG_4613 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

IMG_4615 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

The next morning we continued on and entered the Arctic Circle:

IMG_4626 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

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Continuing on, we didn't have very good weather:

IMG_4634 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

But as we neared Atigun Pass, it got pretty nice out:

IMG_4651 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

In Atigun Pass:

IMG_4652_stitch by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

IMG_4661 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

IMG_4662 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

Otherside of Atigun:

IMG_4667_stitch by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

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IMG_4680 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

Saw a muskox lol, he scampered away faster than I could take a pic.

IMG_4688 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

IMG_4689 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

That's the last big adventure the Foz went on, and now it's going under the knife, so you wont be seeing anymore adventure pics for a while. Maybe i'll post some of my two impreza's, especially if I lift my racecar for the winter. But I'll be starting a new thread for the new build soon, because it's gonna be epic.
 
I've seen Atigun Pass & the Dalton Hwy on "Iceroad Truckers" TV show, looks good. You'll have to do it in winter lol.

Nice pic at the Arctic Circle sign :)
 
Beautiful scenery but seems very hostile…and cold !

Yellow lights remind me of french cars 30 years ago and at that time, they were all looking like crap ! Haven't fixed your exhaust yet…?!

Have you measured your flex yet ?
 
NachaLuva said:
I've seen Atigun Pass & the Dalton Hwy on "Iceroad Truckers" TV show, looks good. You'll have to do it in winter lol.

Nice pic at the Arctic Circle sign :)
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I'd love to drive it during the winter! Though moving over for some of the wide loads would be sketchy.

jf1sf5 said:
Beautiful scenery but seems very hostile…and cold !

Yellow lights remind me of french cars 30 years ago and at that time, they were all looking like crap ! Haven't fixed your exhaust yet…?!

Have you measured your flex yet ?
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Haha! I love the look of classic cars with the amber headlights!
I'm actually going to be throwing the whole exhaust system away this week, which is why i never fixed it. As for flex, I think I measured it when I used the forklift to flex it, and it was only like 22". But it was leaving about an inch of spring left uncompressed.

So the Foz has been put in the garage, and i've already stripped half the interior, and the engine is ready to be hoisted.

DSC00075 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr
 
Well it has been over a year now since I last updated. Ol' Silver is almost a running and driving beast now, but I need to spend some more time with it to get it running right. That will all be in the Baja Foz thread. To keep the spirit of the Tundra Humper alive, I'll be updating this with the new daily/wheeler: The Purple Nurple. I'm starting to think it's actually Maroon or Burgundy but I'm not good at thinking of names, so it's still the Purple Nurple.

I bought this while on a cross country roadtrip with my buddy Sid in my sister's 2010 FXT. It was in Anchorage, Alaska for what seemed like a steal so I had a buddy in Fairbanks go down to buy it and bring it back to Fairbanks for me. He had to replace the radiator in a parking lot in Anchorage the day after he bought it lol. When I got back to Fairbanks in September 2017 and saw it for the first time, I cringed. The paint is clearly brushed on and done hastily. Yellow peeked through in places where the brushes missed and where Purple has worn off. I looked inside with disgust, seeing a very dirty interior that had clearly been smoked in. There were random holes in the dashboard from screws which were not alone, as the roof had random holes as well as a radio antenna mount. It then came to me what this vehicle was before it was painted purple; it was a taxi. Everything made sense at that point, and I disliked the car even more. But there was no time to sell it, as I had to get back down to the states. So I bought a used transmission on Craigslist and Sid and I proceeded to swap out the valve bodies and a solenoid to get the car to shift properly. After accomplishing that, we went on our first adventure the day before he would depart to Anchorage for work and I would leave for Wyoming.

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I did not take any pictures of the trip down through Canada to Wyoming. It took 4 days, I slept in the back on top of junk, and was sick the whole time so it was not fun. I left Wyoming after a week or so to go to Oregon to work for ADF. We had a ton of adventures and I took a lot of pictures, so I'm just going to post some of my favorites here. The first order of business however, was to get my old suspension put on:

DSC03950 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

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I fought a couple of issues with the car while in Oregon, like the transmission slipping which ended up being caused by a loose tranny cooler line fitting. The other issue was a leaking water pump which ended up being the weep hole, and multiple stripped bolt holes. Whoever put the last water pump on used a lot of ultra grey to get it to seal. But after that, it was an alright car:

DSC04026 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

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This was off of the Rubicon trail which was a blast even though the trail very quickly lived up to it's reputation:

DSC04972 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr
 
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Here are some shots from the drive back up to Alaska in the first week of January 2018:

DSC06651 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

DSC06693 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

DSC06740-Pano by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

Since then, I have put my old 30x9.5r15 Cooper STT's on, finished the bumper and painted it, also modified the headlights and added some marker lights to the grill:

DSC07488 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

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Great shots, love that front bar!
I wish I could do something like that here (australia), but it would be considerd quite illegal and void insurance. :(

(unless someone can build a legal one. In which case, I want one, PM me!)
 
Wow those amazing pics i wish i could go trip there too. Just breathtaking views. And car looks so cool. Did you put wheel spacers on it and how big? Or its just rims with that offset
 
Thanks guys!
[MENTION=15721]scalman[/MENTION], the wheels are Method MR502 with only +15mm offset.

Now that snow has been melting, I've been up to much more:

DSC08316-Pano-2.1 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

DSC09130-HDR by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

I made a weekend trip to Anchorage to visit friends and ended up going on an adventure out at Jim's Creek. We were trying to make it out to Knik Glacier, but there was too deep of a water crossing through the Knik River so we played around instead:

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Shortly after, my friend Kris Vironin got some awesome action shots:

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IMG_9023 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

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Bouncy! :cool:
 
Protect the shafts/rods from dust and stones.

Jeremiah, your exhaust is still hanging very low... :rolleyes:
 
[MENTION=3295]jf1sf5[/MENTION] The exhaust is higher up then it was on the Silver foz! haha.

[MENTION=2617]NachaLuva[/MENTION] Exactly what jf1sf5 said. Here's a good example (notice how dirty and grimy the shock body and covers are, but how clean the springs and rods are):

DSC00325 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

Here are some shots of the skid plate situation:

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I finally got a winch too!

Armagedon Foz by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

I went for the Smittybilt XRC9500 this time around (previously used Superwinch ts9500) because the solenoid pack wiring was extremely well done, allowing it to placed wherever I wish with minimal effort (except the wires were too short to put it where I actually wanted to). The only issue that is worth worrying about is that the plug for the controller tends to fail for various reasons. Idk why they haven't changed it yet, but I don't care because I'll T off of those wires to hard wire a switch in the cab like I did with my old Superwinch and only use the controller as a backup.

Superwinch ts9500sr comparison: the Smittybilt had a way better synthetic line setup and protective sleeves on both ends of the line as well as a better eyelet on the hook end. I prefer that the superwinch hook is removable via a pin, but at the same time, the Smittybilt hook doesn't have a cotter pin to cut and pick your hand because let's face it, most people don't use the little hook strap.
The smitty built has a higher horsepower and higher gear ratio so it has a much faster line speed which I think is a great perk, though it might put more of a strain on your battery/Alt and might make it run hotter, therefore negating the time saved by a faster line speed (but that's just speculation!).
Lastly, the Superwinch has a limited 2year warranty, whereas the Smittybilt has a lifetime mechanical/3yr electric warranty.
I should not I did not bother with Warn because I'm not rich and a lot of reviews make them out to be inferior.

That wasn't a very well structured review, but you get the idea. Lastly, these shots get us up to date:

DSC09461-Pano by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

I lost my side skirt somewhere:

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Beautiful pics ! The before last one looks like the Forester is floating in levitation !

I like your led headlamps, how did you adapt them to the oem's ?
 
damn thats amazing. thats one of the baddest forys i saw here in while. those wheels and front bumper just change all look of car. and if i understanding right most thing that makes it so capable are those shocks. they just change travel and all with that is it ?
and with those comes other mods that must be done for those shocks to fit and make proper aligment yes ?
again it looks so mean from front , better then most bad heavy 4wds that i saw. just wow.
and skidplates cover gearbox fully yes ? thats great. what ground clearance is left with those skid plates now ?
just hat large sticker on front window bothers me . i hate anything be on my window even smashed bugs.
 
Well everyone, the Nurple is no more. Kind of, I still have it, but it's practically a bare shell. Here are the last adventure pics from earlier this summer:

DSC00562 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

DSC00646 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

DSC00587 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

DSC00728 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

Then it came apart:

DSC02249 by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr

Everything was sold to a good friend, Robert [MENTION=3214]Subaru[/MENTION]_rob in IG
I just got tired of spending more time working on the thing than adventuring in it. So the only subie I plan to keep is the silver Forester, both the Nurple and the Impreza are leaving soon unless I decide to conjoin the two and make the Nurple a low, rwd, H6 powered drift wagon before I sell it.
Any way, most of you already know I replaced the Nurple with a Lexus GX470 which I have been very happy with:

DSC03480-Pano by jeremiah stewart, on Flickr
 
Sad to hear about nurple, but if it leaves you more time to spend on the silver one, that's not such a bad thing. :)
 
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