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My Subaru Forester 2003X



So I've been spending a lot of time on this forum for a couple of years ever since I got my first Subaru. I thought it was time I started a journal.

As it's almost 10 years old I don't think it's going too badly - I change the fluids myself and I'm slowly modifying bits and pieces - either to improve the looks or make it more functional.

For starters - it's a 2003X and I got it in what I thought was stock form - however when a bus struck the rear bumper and it went in for a new bumper at a body shop they told me the colour of the silver wasn't the actual original grey - so I have a reasonably unique two tone (I think) in that it's blue over light silver.

My modifications are as follows (in no particular order)...
LED interior lights, with the map lights linked in to the door opening.
Added the tweeter kit to the original audio setup (big difference).
Added an AUX cable to the CD changer input.
Removed the second CAT from the exhaust system (old one rusted through so an exhaust shop just removed it and sleeved a bit of stainless steel in).
Fitted a towbar and UK electrics.
Thule roof bars and bike rack.
Replaced failed SLS strut with Pedders rear struts and heavy duty springs.
Fitted Rear Strut brace.
Mesh Grill replacement
Subtle Ash Tray Bezel Fitting
Added stainless 'tie downs' on the boot liner.
Impreza Momo Steering Wheel.

In progress
Front Behind Grill Spot Lights
15" Impreza Alloys

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In the Isle of Man - derestricted roads and no MOT's!
Blue 2003 2.0X 5 speed All Weather

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Mesh Grill Project

So after sucessfully winning a 2nd grill (I wasn't brave enough to modify my stock one 'just in case') on ebay I set about my mesh grill modification.

I looked at plenty of others on here and decided I wanted to get the grill quite far forward, removing the grills - as it happens the depth of my grill seemed to fit in well with the depth of masking (painters) tape that I had - so I ran a strip of it around (the blue stuff in picture below) and cracked on!



The tape gives me a line to cut to, and as I'm using a Dremal will stop the plastic from melting around back on to itself on the 'good side' of the cut.

I then started to cut and hack it to bits! Dremal and junior hack saw made short work of this.



Once I'd cut it out I'd noticed a few minor problems, one is I'd got carried away with the dremal and had cut along the mounting point brackets, this isn't too much of a problem as they still had enough structural integrity - I decided to spray the plastic primer on and see what it covered.



I used Autotek Grey Plastic Primer - mainly because it was what my local Halfords equivalent had in stock and looked like it would do the trick! I sanded the chrome and plastic quite a lot first, and then sprayed the lot!



It covered and stuck reasonably well - but there were a few blemishes so after the third coat I stopped and lightly sanded the areas I wasn't happy with - I also used some two part Araldite to fill in the gaps where I had cut to much. This will be lightly sanded down flat again and then a couple more coats of primer put on before the final coat of matt black.



This evening's job is more sanding and priming! Hopefully the mesh grill will arrive this week!

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In the Isle of Man - derestricted roads and no MOT's!
Blue 2003 2.0X 5 speed All Weather

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Mesh Grill Replacement Part 2

So the grill arrived today, and so did the sunshine - as I don't have a shed or garage I have to spray paint in the back yard!

So on went the Satin Black top coat - I went for this rather than gloss because I thought it would look a bit closer to OEM than a gloss finish - I can always rub it down and try something different if I don't like it!



The grill I went for was purchased on ebay from a seller in Poland! ALUMINIUM BLACK MESH GRILL 16x10 SUBARU TOYOTA ROVER | eBay



It looks pretty good and solid - pre-coated in Black - doesn't look like chicken wire :) Only thing I think I'll have to do now is cut the bottom lug from the emblem as the geometry of the mesh doesn't allow it to go straight with three lugs on it!

Once the paint has gone off I'll bend and fit the grill - I picked up some Aluminium strip which I plan to drill holes in and use it to clamp the mesh in at the top and maybe some blobs of Black silicon sealant I've got kicking around to stop it rattling.

Update - 11th July 2012

So everything is going to plan - here is the finished product -



I cut the mesh with some snips, bit fiddly - especially around the edge of the bracket, I stuck the emblem back on with a hot glue gun which seems to hold it ok - I'll soon find out. You can see it better in the image below -



In that image you can also see at the top one of the strips of aluminium (from B&Q) I cut from a 1m length and drilled a 5 mm hole in to act as a big washer - you can't see it from the front.

I'll fit it to the car tomorrow and take some pictures of it installed - can't wait but have to goto work soon!

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Update 14/07/2012

Finally got the grill fitted - phone picture below (I must dig out the SLR soon and clean the car!)



I was surprised at how loose the old one was and how easily it came out - might have to squirt some silicone around the clips of the new one 'just to be sure'.

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In the Isle of Man - derestricted roads and no MOT's!
Blue 2003 2.0X 5 speed All Weather

Ciedric

Good work at the grill :)
How did you fixed a aux-in plug on your stock radio?

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My Japanese Beast

Bereno

Thats awesome! Can't wait to see the final product

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AUX out on OEM Radio

In answer to the question above -

If you have a radio like this one (not my image btw), and no CD Changer -



You can order a cable from ebay - - Signal input AUX BLAUPUNKT,Becker,VDO Mini-ISO/2RCA - | eBay

Which plugs into the CD Changer socket on the rear of the unit.

I then got a 3.5 mm surface mount socket - PSG01698 - PRO SIGNAL - 3.5MM JACK SOCKET TO SOCKET ADAPTOR | CPC and a 3m RCA to 3.5mm cable and ran the cable down the center console and fitted the socket in the armrest cubby hole.

I'll find a picture but it means the AUX socket is right next to the 12v source there.

I then had to dig a manual out and change the setting from CD Changer to Aux -

Hold down 'INIT' button
Then press 'right' till it says CD CHANGER - then press the middle button (between the arrows) and it should change to AUX.

Job done!

__________________
In the Isle of Man - derestricted roads and no MOT's!
Blue 2003 2.0X 5 speed All Weather

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Thread Starter

Subtle Solutions Ash Tray Bezel - Part 1

So I don't smoke, never have, never will! An ashtray is pretty useless to me. Over the past 5 years of owning my Forester it has pretty much had the same three items sat in it - a 2pence piece, a plastic washer and a Sony headphone ear insert thing.

My wife and I do have a number of items that need a USB socket to charge, and I've always been looking at a neat solution to present a USB socket to the dashboard that looks neat and tidy.

One option was to buy a 12v-5v transformer, a panel mount USB connector and dig out my soldering iron and make it all work. In the end I found a US company called Blue Sea Systems who make nice components for marine dashboards. Although I don't intend to get it 'that' wet it's still nice to go for slightly more rugged components.

Blue Sea Systems produce a Dual USB Charger socket, with the transformer and electronics built in. I was fairly sure this was going to mount where the ashtray was so wanted one of their matching 12v sockets as well (for the odd time I want to plug something else in!).

I spoke to Brad at Subtle Solutions, who kindly supplied me with one of their Ash Tray Bezel Mounts (Subtle Solutions) but not only that they managed to supply me with the Blue Sea Components and put them in one box and shipped them to the Isle of Man for me (no mean feat as many have to look up on the map to find the country in the first place).

I think it took them less than 2 weeks to arrive, so they were put to one side until Christmas was taken care of! I spent this time researching different finishes and other ideas.



I ended up going for mounting the two Blue Sea components, two switches and two fuse holders. The switches are going to run two relays, one for a set of spot lights to go behind the grill (copying a few other members here) and also 'probably' a Radiator fan cut out - more to fill the real estate of the bezel.

First job was to mark what I wanted where and lay things out - I wasn't going for complicated hole shapes (everything is 'round') -



Then to drill the holes - to do this I used some new hole saws and a round tapered file to adjust them, they aren't perfect but hey! paint will cover it!



Then a test fit -



and another test fit in the trim-



My next thing, probably be tomorrow, will be to finish it - right now, as I have it to hand I think I'll be going for a matt black sprayed finish - and keep an eye out for some vinyl of some kind in the future. I love the finishes that some of the members have already got on here but haven't seen a good UK supplier yet (unless someone can point me in the right direction!).

I do have a friendly upholsterer around the corner so I might just go and see if there is scrap I can take from him!

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In the Isle of Man - derestricted roads and no MOT's!
Blue 2003 2.0X 5 speed All Weather

Neelie

woohoo 2-tone fozzie with black mesh grill mod lol. you own my car's twin haha.
love your dash panel! very tidy! im very very jealous of your handy work :)

Subtle-Solutions

Looks great!

Keep up the good work and post some installed photos when you get a chance.

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The exterior of yours looks in far better condition than mine, and you've got the original 'gunmetal' grey lower bits - whoever had mine before me had the bumpers re-sprayed but only used a generic paint colour - hence the slightly lighter silver.

I like the two tone, certainly grown on me!

I pulled into an over-flow car park the other day, wife got out on the gravel path and I pulled onto the grass and parked in a 'new' line - got out and my feet sunk about 2 inches into the ground - my heart sank but thought I'd ignore it and deal with it after the shopping - came back to the car, got in and it just pulled itself out! hooray for AWD, decent tyres and all round lovely Subaru-ness! I wonder whether the Honda CRV and two wheel drive cars that had started to park up next to me thinking it was an 'official' line of parked cars will have the same ease of extraction!

Update on the bezel - it's now sprayed in grey primer, 24 hours from now it will be sprayed black, 24 hours after that it'll be refitted! Hooray!

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In the Isle of Man - derestricted roads and no MOT's!
Blue 2003 2.0X 5 speed All Weather

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Thread Starter

Subtle Solutions Ash Tray Bezel - Part 2

So I finally got round to priming and spraying the bezel with a matt black spray paint from B&Q. Mainly because it was the only place open!

It looks 'ok', I don't think I could go wrong with just black and the texture is pretty good.

With the wiring, I used two 'blue' spade connectors to patch into the original wiring, this meant I didn't have to cut or splice any wires and when I sell it to buy an XT (one day!) I can just move it between cars within minutes.



I haven't installed the wires or the fuses for the switches / relays yet, so it's just the 12v socket and USB socket that are operational at the moment, again just with crimp connections with a bit of tape on the final install to keep them vibration proof!



Painted and ready to go - note the essential coffee pot in the background!



Installed in the Forester! Need to get my decent camera set up one day.



Gave the girl a decent vacuum and carpet shampoo in the boot and it no longer smells of dog either! Time to start surfing for the front spot lights.

__________________
In the Isle of Man - derestricted roads and no MOT's!
Blue 2003 2.0X 5 speed All Weather

Subtle-Solutions

Awesome job!

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Neelie

thats extremely tidy! looks factory! wanna do me one? lol

ah i was wondering why your car looked a bit different than mine haha. thought maybe mine had a respray lol. nice grill btw :-D everyone does a DIY mesh mod, its great!

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Thanks - I could do with figuring out a way of putting a green 'glow' onto the front, maybe with an LED located down the bottom directed up. My BMW used to have a light right up behind the mirror that used to cast an awesome 'glow' over the entire dashboard, haven't found anything that I would trust as aftermarket to do the same thing! If you want to order the bits I'd happily obilge putting them together for you!

If I had thought about it perhaps those of us on this side of the pond should have done a group buy to cut postage costs down. I'll consider it when I can justify a set of 1" spacers.

Subtle stickers will be installed when the car is next cleaned!

The mesh grill was easy, and I've got the original one for when I upgrade to an XT :D

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In the Isle of Man - derestricted roads and no MOT's!
Blue 2003 2.0X 5 speed All Weather

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Thread Starter

We were promised a massive dump of snow this weekend, which I was looking forward to! Unfortunatly it just missed our little Island but I hunted some down and got this picture -



It looks pretty good - if you look carefully you can see where one of the headlight washers dropped off. I've got a new pair on order (£55 from dealer) - you don't have to buy two but I didn't want one brand new looking one and one faded one!

Not sure but I might try and wrap the front bumper in matt black wrap when I fit them - don't know how easy it would be around the fog lights and how much cutting is involved!

__________________
In the Isle of Man - derestricted roads and no MOT's!
Blue 2003 2.0X 5 speed All Weather