Forester STI – Rear Bumper Paint

The rear bumper had been painted at some time prior to my ownership. It wasn’t the best job and some paint had started to lift in a few places. It didn’t jump out as being too obvious and nobody noticed until I pointed it out. But I always figured I’d get it repainted properly sometime. […]

Forester STI – Spark Plug Change

Time for some new spark plugs and while I’m at it an upgrade to a cooler running plug in preparation for more boost, more on that another time. From what I read, the spark plug to go for is the NGK ILFR7H. This is more of a job than with most other cars due to […]

Forester STI – New Rear Discs and Pads

I had already bought a set of rear discs and pads when I bought the set for the front from Godspeed. I didn’t fit the rears at the time I did the fronts as there was a decent amount of life left in the pads. Now it was time to fit the Godspeed G Hook […]

Forester STI – Noisy Power Steering Pump Fix

As the title says, a simple fix here for what I was worried might be a more costly and involved job of replacing the power steering pump. The symptoms were a whining/whirring noise when maneuvering the Forester in the driveway or when parking so when going from lock to lock. This began happening on cold […]

Forester STI – Sloppy Gear Change Fix

There was a bit of play in the gear change. To be honest it wasn’t too bad but I really hate feeling any slack in a cars controls so I took a look at the linkage to see if I could find anywhere with any slack and if I could do anything to tighten up […]

Forester STI – Engine, Gearbox and Diff Oil Change

Whenever I get a car I tend to change all the oils early on so I know it’s all fresh and decent quality stuff. The Forester was no different so I got myself some Millers oils for the engine, gearbox and differentials and a genuine Subaru engine oil filter and sump washer. For the engine […]

Forester STI – New Front Discs and Pads

I could see it was likely the front pads were going to need replacing before I bought the car and sure enough when I got the car home and gave it an all over inspection I found the previous owners had certainly got their money’s worth! I also measured the disc thickness to compare with […]

Forester STI – How to Repair Brembo Caliper Threads

As I showed in my last post, when I replaced a rear wheel stud, Brembo calipers can cause problems when it comes to removing them. This is because they are an aluminium alloy and they are bolted with steel bolts. Galvanic corrosion happens between the two different metals which weakens the aluminium and it sort […]

Forester STI – Replacing a Rear Wheel Stud

When I took the wheels off for the first time I was a bit disappointing to find a broken wheel stud. There was enough of the stud left to screw the wheel nut on but not really enough to tighten it up properly. After a bit of research I found that this isn’t that uncommon […]

Forester STI – First Inspection and New Tyres

So now I had a Forester STI but it wasn’t the perfect fresh import I’d planned on bringing home and I could see before buying it there were one or two jobs I’d want to do right away. Plus whatever I might find after a close inspection with it up on the lift. Tyres were […]