Put the car in gear to pull away from the stoplight. Slowly let up on the clutch. A moment that feels almost like forward motion is followed by grinding. Feel that gut sink. Try again with same results. Open the window, then the door. Step out. Reach in and turn the wheel. Put a shoulder to the door frame.
Push the car off the road and onto gravel. Call a friend who hopefully has a tow rope, and while waiting, try to imagine the best and worst-case scenarios for what might be broken. Then consider the possible solutions when dealing with an abandonware car purchased for $1,300.

That was one of my commutes home in the Justy not two months into my ownership. Thankfully, this was on a Thursday, so I only had to bike to work for one day. It’s not a long ride, but I live in Florida and rain is always a possibility.
When the weekend came, I jacked the car up and quickly discovered the problem, as you can see in the video above. It was, thankfully, a stripped hub rather than a broken differential or some other potential disaster.

Justy hubs bolt on to the rotor. Once the axle nut and four bolts are loose, it pops right off with little persuasion. The hard part for this job would be finding a replacement. New ones are available for around $150. A few people on the Subaru Justy forum had used ones for sale; I could’ve waited half a week and received one of theirs for about $20.
Right before logging in to Paypal, I decided I would, with a gut full of desperate futility, check the inventory list at my local junkyard. Huzzah! Not one, but two Justys! How lucky could one man be? I rushed there to verify their existence.

There was a red and a grey one, both second-generation cars, both front wheel drive. Red had fuel injection and a 5-speed, Grey had a carburetor and CVT transmission. No matter, the hubs are all the same. It was then I realized I’d have to remove lug nuts and an axle nut from a car that was suspended in the air.
I asked a gentleman passing by if he could help by stepping on the brakes. He spoke little English, but was very polite and agreed. Unfortunately, these cars are left with the brake reservoir cap off and the system was filled with water. Brake pressure was nearly nil, no matter how much he pumped that pedal. We tried the other car and were met with only marginally better brake pressure, but it was enough to crack the lug nuts loose.
After this success, the man went on his way and I figured out the right way to complete this job alone. A wrench through the wheel spokes, propped against the brake caliper, would hold the wheel in one position and allow me to loosen the lug nuts on the other car.

Likewise, to loosen the axle nut, I could slip an open-end wrench into the vanes on the vented brake disc and again turn it against the caliper to hold the brake as I wrenched it loose. The hub cost $10, so I grabbed a spare — I suspected both of these Justys would be crushed before long, and I didn’t want to end up in the same bind again.

While there, I nabbed a few odds and ends from inside each car. A new sun visor clip replaced the broken one on my car, but not for long. It broke three days later. Cheap, 20-year-old plastics are brittle and don’t flex well in cold weather. Replacing it was futile.

I nabbed a new dome light, too. The plastics in my Justy couldn’t handle both heat, age, and a metal tab rotating on the pivot. It had crumbled apart. This replacement, thankfully, has worked just fine.

Upon returning home, I removed the brake caliper and rotor from my car and used a file to clean up the slight damage to the car’s axle splines. Unlike many other front-drive cars, a press or a special tool is required to push the axle stub out from the wheel bearing.

I took this opportunity to also buy a few cans of engine degreaser at my local parts store. The transmission was filthy and I wanted to find out where all that oil was leaking from. (It was the distributor.) I also finally broke loose the clutch adjustment nut, which had been vexing me for some time. I adjusted the clutch engagement point closer to the floor and drove away satisfied with my weekend’s accomplishments.
 
Photos Copyright 2014 Hooniverse/Alan Cesar.