The Great Alaskan Tundra Humper *pic heavy*

The latest news is the lift. 2 inch subframe spacers and strut bottom lift:



Only the front is done so far. Should have it complete tomorrow. Then i am finally going to weld the rear frame section back together and redo the quarter panel. I also have some dark orange vinyl that i am going to try to wrap it with as well as weld together a roof rack, front skidplate, and cut up the front bumper. I modified the rear bumper, not sure how much i like it, but i will put up a picture soon enough. Need to weld up a new exhaust to tuck it up higher, and i have plans to relocate the charcoal canister to a better location as well.

Gidday Jeremiah

Beautiful, wonderful part of the World you live in there. I have a couple of mates from that area.

Love the photo of your Forester smelling the flowers ... :ebiggrin: :biggrin:.

Even though it looks as if that strut bottom lift will never break, the strut top might ... .

You might be far better off putting a strut top lift in. There are any number of patterns available for these.

I'm certainly no expert on this subject, but there are those here who are. They can tell you what the differences are, and why the strut top lift is a better solution. I can't.

Nice pics, esp the one in the deep snow drift :biggrin:

Make sure you get a wheel alignment after the lift :iconwink:

Howdy and Jeremiahs22!!!

great pics, especially the one in snow.
Was up your end of the world 2 years ago but not as inland as Fairbanks. the few subis I did see had a lot of rust damage from all that salt.

Enjoyed your post and especially the photos

Welcome to the forum! Enjoy Alaska while you can--but don't overlook your studies!

We almost flew to Alaska a couple of summers ago. We usually "scout" before we truly go somewhere. Unfortunately, even with award tickets for the whole family, the numbers never looked right. The long-term plan calls for driving over in the slightly modified OB at the close of this decade. Fingers crossed!

No update today, had to order the bolts from Fastenal. Should be done next monday.

MiddleAgeSubie said:

Welcome to the forum! Enjoy Alaska while you can--but don't overlook your studies!

We almost flew to Alaska a couple of summers ago. We usually "scout" before we truly go somewhere. Unfortunately, even with award tickets for the whole family, the numbers never looked right. The long-term plan calls for driving over in the slightly modified OB at the close of this decade. Fingers crossed!

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My family and I drove up from Laramie, Wyoming about 8 years ago, and talk about a beautiful drive! Just about the whole trip is awesome.

havachat said:

Enjoyed your post and especially the photos

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Thanks man! I recently got a Dslr so better pictures to come!

lefty said:

great pics, especially the one in snow.
Was up your end of the world 2 years ago but not as inland as Fairbanks. the few subis I did see had a lot of rust damage from all that salt.

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Thanks, and yeah in the coastal regions, they use alot of salt, but thankfully in Fairbanks, they just dump rocks. Paint chips and windshield cracks are a little better than rust imo.

carljwnc said:

Howdy and Jeremiahs22!!!

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Thanks man!

NachaLuva said:

Nice pics, esp the one in the deep snow drift :biggrin:

Make sure you get a wheel alignment after the lift :iconwink:

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Thank you, and i do plan on getting an alignment... If i can't get it pretty good myself. haha.

Ratbag said:

Gidday Jeremiah

Beautiful, wonderful part of the World you live in there. I have a couple of mates from that area.

Love the photo of your Forester smelling the flowers ... :ebiggrin: :biggrin:.

Even though it looks as if that strut bottom lift will never break, the strut top might ... .

You might be far better off putting a strut top lift in. There are any number of patterns available for these.

I'm certainly no expert on this subject, but there are those here who are. They can tell you what the differences are, and why the strut top lift is a better solution. I can't.

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It is indeed a beautiful place! I love it here.
I am intrigued as to why the strut bottom would cause the top hats to fail prematurely. I'm sticking with stock springs for better articulation, so i can't see more stress in the system, but i don't know a whole lot about the stresses. I just want to run 29's without wide offset wheels, and also wanted to test out the lesser used lift.

Nice Foz !

As for the lift, you might (will) have CV issues if you go too high...:iconwink:

If strut bottom lift weren't completely and utterly illegal here I'd consider it myself. I like the extra room for tires it gives. Looks like you've done a good job with it. Love the pics too.

What bolts are you getting?

The strut bottom lift isn't legal here so no-one does it, but I see no reason why it cant work if done properly. Are those plates welded onto the strut? What bracing does it have? As the forces are amplified by effectively being on a lever, you would need to strengthen & brace the bottom of the strut in both lateral & longitudinal directions. This is even more important if you're doing this on the front. Not easy as its oil filled & under pressure. I've thought about this & it can probably be welded safely by welding in short sections then cooling.

The other way is to replace the SF rear struts with SG rears which gives you ~1" lift & 1" more tyre to strut perch clearance & then use a 2" strut top lift which is tried & tested

NachaLuva,

I hunted high and low, all over town to find m12 1.25 class 10.9 bolts, and came up with nothing. It was hard enough to just find an 8.8. I wish America switched to the metric system when they said we would. So i'm going to use class 8.8 bolts and also weld the spacer to the chassis (after I ensure there are no issues). The strut bolts are grade 8, so no worries there. Im not worried about the subframe bolts really, with the lower tensile strength, they will bend more before breaking but im sure the spacers will fold before that.

Im using 1/4 inch steel plate for the struts, with a spacer for the top bolt and washers for the bottom so it tightens up nicely. I am considering welding them just like you were saying, but im not real sure if its worth it.

As for the legality issues, just another reason why i love Alaska; we don't need to have our vehicles inspected for anything. Of course there is a max height and width of tires and amount of poke, but the troopers dont pull people over for stuff like that, more for safety things like headlights and taillights being burnt out.

On a side note, Fastenal messed up a bit so i am still waiting on them bolts. Hopefully have them tomorrow, i have some camping plans for the weekend in the hills, and would love to sling some mud after all the rain we've been getting!

Class 8.8 bolts is fine, thats what is normally used. 10.9 is pretty extreme, for things like wheel studs.

Yeah, the longer America leaves converting to metric, the more costly it will be.

I wish cops here focused more on basic car safety light broken head/tail lights. In Melbourne, I would see one with either out maybe every 10th car

Finally got it lifted, and "fixed" the bumper so it will hopefully quit getting torn off:

Yeah, the quarter panel is pretty messed up.


And how i bolted it together for maximum safety and to be a major PITA:


Took it for a test drive, and it feels pretty stiff, as if the suspension is binding, but that wouldn't make sense since the geometry hasn't really changed. But it has been a couple weeks since i've driven it, so maybe thats just how it is. I am also running without the huge muffler now, so its louder than i'd like, of course. I'll get to that eventually with something cheap and smaller.

Your Foz is short !

Finally went out on an adventure yesterday. We drove out to Murphy Dome, which is a radar station from the 50's that is still in use as a long range radar site:


We had a day of skeet shooting with an awesome view:



It really is just an amazing place to hang out, with a nice breeze to keep bugs away:



My lift seems to be holding up very well. I didnt get to really test it out in a gnarly place. Maybe next weekend. There's a huge hill that i want to try to make it to the top of that we were headed to when we ran into this fellow who thrashed his tire and didn't have a jack or tire iron:




I had everything he needed; always go prepared!
We turned around after that, because we had to be back to town by 8:00.
Of course something did have to break though. On the way out, i misjudged one of the million pot holes, and hit so hard that the mirror fell off. That aint so bad, except it took a chunk of GLASS out of the window:



I'm not sure what to do about that yet.

Also, i just decided that i am no longer going to use Photobucket. They destroy the quality of pictures. Anyone else notice this?

Jeremiahs22 said:

That aint so bad, except it took a chunk of GLASS out of the window:



I'm not sure what to do about that yet.

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Never seen that before! Guessing the windscreen is out of warranty :rotfl:

... providing you still have the glass chunk attached to your rear vision mirror - try some of this..... tape it for a good 24 hours before you use it.... and... try and avoid such massive potholes!

https://www.loctiteproducts.com/p/sg_glass/overview/Loctite-Glass-Glue.htm

Best regards,