JPX

Usually I am too cheap to simply buy rebuilt parts. So a seal repair is how I would normally go. To satisfy my curiosity, I am going to try again to see if the seal from the kit will go in the caliper bore. I just don't see how it is going to work since the ring would crinkle up in the groove - it just seemed way to big. You can see the indentation in the bore in this photo. The piston itself was fine. So in this case I have no choice but to get rebuilt calipers.

My 1996 Subaru Legacy 2.2 started to run lumpy. It finally threw an engine code P0303. Cylinder #3 misfire. I used a timing light to verify spark through each plug wire. #3 sure enough was dead. When I pulled the wire off the coil pack, the plug fell off - the wire had arc-ed itself to death. On the coil side, the bakelite insulating material had been pitted and the terminal was eaten up. Replacement coil from Pep Boys for $99 and the problem was gone.

For several months I have noticed a very gradual loss of brake fluid at the reservoir. Something finally presented itself in the form of a squishy brake pedal. With the winter season approaching, I figured this was about time to check out the brakes. The parking brake shoes have long since been worn out - 178,000 miles on them with the obligatory leaving them engaged with driving around to worsen the effect. So those were definitely up for replacement - I had planned on pads and rotors. But I knew SOMEWHERE there was a leaking caliper. Since I had been in the fronts already for a pad replacement, I checked, but expected no problems there. That would have to leave the rears. Sure enough, a leaking piston seal on the left rear caliper. The dust boot had been damaged from some bungling around of pad replacement in the past. I bled the system just to eliminate the squishiness for a few more days while I waited for the rebuild kit I ordered. I was glad that I have both an air compressor and some advance warning about using said air compressor for extracting the piston from the caliper bore. Once it popped out of the bore, it can easily bang on your hand and give a nasty injury. Fortunately I had packed a rag around the piston to catch it and avoid getting pinched by it. The cylinder bore revealed that the piston had been getting cock-eyed in the bore under load. Similar to the engine piston-slap concept, the "skirt" of the piston was touching the side of the bore. This slack also means that the brake pads twist in the caliper and wear unevenly. Unfortunately, the sealing ring in the kit (from the Subaru dealer no less) was not the right size. It was MUCH larger than the ring I pulled out of the caliper. I was hoping that this was the way it's supposed to be. But there was no way this was going to work. So knowing that the caliper and piston on one side is kind of toast, it doesn't really matter what is going on with the rebuild kit. Next step, unloaded rebuilt calipers.:-\

I replaced the 194 with a pair of LEDs that I soldered in. In the end it wasn't that much of an improvement. Easy to get in there once you start taking the top cover around the e-brake off with the console open. A couple of screws on the gear shift and around the selector box and you're there!

I used a similar harness (that I bought from an auto parts store back in 1996). This was for my 1996 Legacy L sedan, which certainly did not have a connector to plug anything into. The module is helpful for separating out the turn signals and brakes. I simply tapped into the tail light assembly. I don't exactly recall which wires I spliced into the harness pigtail, but I can take a look later and post what I did later. It wasn't difficult, but it isn't nearly as elegant as plugging into the factory harness.

Well, I dove back into the dash to pursue this problem further. One thing they don't tell you in the manual:confused: is that the continuity checks might give OPEN per the diagram. But if you swap the test leads on your meter, you will detect continuity. This is because of several diodes (one way valves essentially) are mounted on the board. The vent selector portion of the control panel still checked out okay. But something about that AC switch was not sitting well with me. When I ran the continuity check last time, it was working. This time it did not test okay on pins 1+2 or 2+3.....only 1+3. So I dismantled the switch down to the inner guts - a spring, a 3-way contact plate and the three copper traces on the main board. The contact plate had a bent center contact point while the other two were okay.:-\ This was mostly the reason for the 2+anything not working on the continuity check. And this was the culprit. So I straightened out the bent contact plate pin. The traces for the contact plate were not as bright as the rest of the copper. So I took a pencil eraser and brightened them up for good measure. Upon reassembly, the AC button lights up and turns on the compressor in all the vent settings correctly. Perfect timing as it has become quite warm this week and the wife will be happy to have AC working correctly.

Thanks for the interest in this guys. Yeah, I took a closer look at the diagram and can see how the AC relay still "listens" to the evap thermo switch and the pressure switch in either case. The button itself checks out on all three of its terminals.....which I would expect since it does light up when the button is pressed AND the defrost+blower is going. I've been looking for a good excuse to hit a junkyard this weekend anyway. So this is just enough of a reason to go as well as feed the Rabbit (89 VW Cabriolet). At this risk of going off topic, the yard is next to an alternator shop that carries the electrical contacts for the starter plunger. Replacing these has been working out great for me so I can avoid buying solenoids or starter assemblies. Which points to me being a curious cheapskate because there is still part of me that wants to figure out what is wrong with the control panel. Traces on the PCB are good, but I'l lhave to check them again. Maybe a bad capacitor or the transistor by the recirc switch?....who knows?:-\

So I jumpered the pressure switch at the receiver/dryer. No change - still won't try to turn on compressor at vent+AC. Pull it on defrost+blower and it will stop the compressor. I also checked continuity of the thermoswitch on the evaporator behind the glovebox. Pull it out during Defrost+blower and it will stop the compressor. Put in back in and the compressor turns on. Again, no change to the vent+AC which still doesn't work. Outside, this evening's temperature dropped suddenly into the high 40s (San Jose, CA). So it was difficult getting a decent reading of pressure on the low side. Will have to wait until it warms up. I'm having some doubts about the control panel again. During my LED replacement, it could be possible a trace got damaged or there is a short. Will take it back out and test it some more.

Big screwdriver in the access hole is good to lock the flex plate. An extra pair of hands to hold it while railing on the crank bolt is helpful. The real fun is try to undo flex plate bolts during engine/trans removal - fussy angle to get a wrench on those.

My 96 Legacy L can turn on the AC compressor and cool when the defrost position is set and the blower turned on. In a 96, the defrost+blower will automatically turn on the AC switch light whether or not the AC button is depressed. But when set to any other vent position, the AC switch will not do anything. No compressor engagement. I did a very thorough continuity check of the PCB of the HVAC control panel. All fuses and relays have been pinned and checked......which would have been unlikely problem spots since the compressor does indeed turn on and cools. I can see in the wiring diagram how the regular vent positions+blower+AC would be gated by the low pressure switch. In looking at the wiring diagrams in the service manual and Haynes books, it appears that the defrost setting might be able to bypass the low pressure switch? Am I reading that wrong? If this were the case, then a low refrigerant charge would fault out the vent+AC, but could possibly still allow the defrost+AC to work? Can anyone think of a reason why defrost+blower=AC, but vent+blower does not?

Thank god you posted this information! Night 1 - Jacked up car. Removed hardware. Beat the hell out of the ball joint stud under the control arm. Mangled it. Got fed up. Put back together because it was needed for work the next morning. Night 2 - Think I am smart - got a pickle fork. Jacked up car and removed hardware (again). Beat the hell out of the pickle fork on both sides of the ball joint. Mangled the boot and scored the top side of the control arm. Got fed up. Put back together because it was needed for work the next morning. Night 3 - Picked up a 2 jaw puller and a pitman arm puller. Neither would fit. Got pissed off and surfed web for a bit. Read the mtnman38's post about the jack. Day 4 - Jacked up car and removed hardware (again). Jacked up ball joint at the stud. Popped loose with no effort or tapping. Pinch bolt was piece of cake. Bingo - ball joint finished in total of 20 minutes. I'm going to pick up another ball joint and do the other side whether it needs it or not - now that I am armed with this valuable tip! (Other ball joint is cooked anyway).

Mid-range is good. I have one of these that I bought specifically while chasing a code following a long-block swap. But I have used it numerous times on other cars since then.....totally worth it.

Heed these words. My heater slowly stopped working during the coldest time of year. This went on for a couple of months with some very mild coolant consumption. Of course as luck would have it, when the weather got hot, my headgasket let go (due to a waterpump failure) and really overheated the engine, you could see steam from the tailpipe, stumbling of the engine, oil in the coolant and constant coolant consumption.

As someone who has had to let go of cars for OTHER reasons than ultimate failure, I don't have a good reference point on when to stop fixing an old car..........in fact, I'm going in the wrong direction by Reasons I I've had to ditch cars: I went to college and couldn't take the car I move from Texas to California Cressida was not CARB compliant My two VWs could not be practically moved halfway across the country Now that I think about it, I haven't gotten rid of any cars lately:-\ - although the Legacy is probably the first in line in a few more years since the wife talks about getting a newer car. But if the enjoyment of owning the car is going away (because of repairs or just gettting old), then you might want to move on. Some consider these "features":dead: part of the charm of the car......and others will consider it time to get rid of it.

x2

Same here.....I assumed it was a slow oil seep at the headgasket. Turned out it was a leading indicator (that I had not realized at the time) that my headgasket was giving out.

If you are upgrading your suspension, you might want to change the mounts to maximize the purpose of an upgrade.......most notably on the fronts where you can feel the action in the steering wheel as well. Front struts have to do extra work supporting the turning action as well as damping the force into the chassis at the mounting point. So these are the first to consider over the rears. But if the mounts appear to be fine, then no harm, no foul.

Yeah, this is ATF fluid change 1 of 3 as part of the el-cheapo "flush" in my garage. So a large part of the fluid in the transmission will be MD-3.

Trying to stay up to date with whatever ATF should be used in my 1996 Legacy 2.2L. Manual requires DexronIII. I picked up a whole case of Chevron ATF at Costco thinking it was DexronIII/Mercon. When I went to change 4.5 quarts of transmission fluid, I smelled a bottle of Valvoline DexronIII and the new Chevron MD-3 and they smelled VERY different - DexIII is sweeter smelling;) . Both were the usual red ATF color. I flipped the Chevron MD-3 bottle around to see what the rating was. The text is similar to what they have on the website. https://www.cbest.chevron.com/generated/MSDS/PDS7676241.PDF If you navigate to their ATF products, you will see a link for the DexronIII line and it leads you to the same MD-3 link above.http://www.chevronlubricants.com/worldwide/northamerica/na_personalvehicles/na_chevron_personalvehicleapps/chev_personal_prodindex.asp At this point, I decided to run the MD-3 into the car and see what happens since Chevron MD-3 appears to be equivalent to DexronIII. Some Internet surfing turned up this link discussing the naming convention change: http://theoildrop.server101.com/forums/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=888796&Main=888113 Anyone else run across this MD-3 designation yet?

So yesterday my wife was telling me about some weird problem where the engine stops when she turns on the air conditioner. I had driven the car the afternoon before she told me about this. So I couldn't understand what turning on the AC could possible have to do with stalling the engine. I opened the hood today in preparation for a transmission fluid change and found the yellow hood prop clip was broken and the rod had fallen in between the AC clutch pulley and the coolant reservoir. Judging by the chew marks on the rod and the dings on the little circles on the AC clutch it appears that they were in contact at one point or another. Lucky that the prop rod didn't punch the coolant reservoir and make MORE fun for me.

ABS and Battery lights together = charging system dying. Most likely alternator. Kind of a bizarre way to let you know, would be a Subaru if it WASN'T weird, eh? But thanks to this forum, within a few hours of posting about my dilemma, these guys helped me zero right into the alternator as the failed part.

Electric motors for the radiator? Blower motor or crap stuck in the fan rotor in the heater vent box?

One thing to consider when using heavier gauge materials for the floor panel is safety in the event of a collision from the rear. Newer cars contain foam to save weight, but also to limit the amount of projectiles that could enter the passenger area. A large sheet of 1/2" plywood becomes a battering ram in a major impact. Where are your rear passengers kidneys or spine located relative to a sheet of heavy material like that? So I'm not saying that you shouldn't do this. But do keep in mind that while many auto manufacturers are being cheap to save weight and material cost, they are also altering the materials to protect the car's occupants. With that in mind, MDF properly supported from underneath is the cheaper and yet still sturdy way to go. Perhaps if the panel was screwed down the same way the spare tire is, this is a more secure solution. If I was using a larger gauge plywood, I'd still support it from underneath, but cut some relief slots across in 1/4th or 1/2th of the length so i CAN buckle if there is a crash.

Here is a link to my personal experience with the AC compressor clutch bearing replacement on my Volkswagen Cabriolet. http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=2289281 Bearing replacement for the clutch assembly itself is possible without dumping the entire refrigerant side of the system. But this assumes you catch it BEFORE the clutch overheats to the point that the shaft seal to the compressor to leak and the clutch coil melts down. AC shops here already pointed out that 1:10 chance the entire compressor shaft/bearing assembly is toast - it would be a miracle if a simple bearing change makes things right. In my case it is working pretty well for almost 10K miles. Here is a very good write up I found on the clutch pulley bearing replacement. http://www.stu-offroad.com/oth...1.htm And here is an interesting article about overall compressor repair. http://www.ryderfleetproducts....l.jsp

That sucks about your friend's injuries. Getting hit on a bike....ouch. On the flip side, I saw the weirdest thing last week. I saw a guy on a big Harley rear end a Prius. He lept off the line before the Pirus did and laid the bike down on himself after he tore the bumper skin off the car.