delli50

smaked it good with a sledge hammer and a block of hardwood flooring. it's not moving. got creative.... took the inner boot and joint off and slid the outer boot from that end. a little more work. i'll have to repack the inner boot and reband it. too late tonight. will try again tomorrow. this ended up being a big job. with rebooting a joint that wouldn't come off and breaking the ball joint pinch bolt off. heated it first and hit it with pb blaster and it still broke. had to take that to a machine shop for removal. crazy job. didn't learn anything from this.

the boot is off and i wiped a lot of the grease away so that i could inspect the cv joint. there is no clip visible and no room for a clip. there is no area where the cv joint meets the shaft where you could access a clip. it looks like you need to beat on it to get it off but i gave it a couple of good ones with an oversize hammer. it never moved. i'll look for some hardwood to try again.

had a look and can't see any clip. the cv joint is tight to the shaft. looks to me like you would just pound it off. i tried that and it hasn't moved. marco

i am replacing a right ball joint on my 05 outback. not a lot of fun on a car from the rust belt. in the process. i used heat on the ball joint pinch bolt and melted a hole in the outer cv boot. i pulled the axle out and it is in the vice on my bench but i can't figure out how to get the cv joint off of the axle. i have looked for a snap ring and have beat on it with a hammer...... i really beat on it it hasn't moved. i have searched google and this board but have come up empty. anyone out there have done this and can help? marco

some more information... i torque the wheel nuts at 100 foot pounds. the car is not rallied or driven hard. it is my daily driver and driven responsibly. i am the second owner. i bought it at about 190,000 kilometres. i have had 2 new sets of tires in it since. the tires wear very rapidly. the wheel stud issue is separate from the tire issue, i think. also, i am only breaking wheel studs in the rear. mark

i have an 05 outback - 4cyl, auto, 250,000 kms. It's been a great vehicle but there are 2 issues that i have noticed recently. i don't think they are related but i would like to hear about other members experiences and thoughts on my issues with the rear wheels. first issue is that this wagon wears out tires fast. probably in under 30,000 kms - that's under 20,000 miles. the wear is very even and i first notice it on the middle rib of the tire. the car has never been hit and has had recent alignments. the rear tires wear much faster than the front ones. i also have an 06 forester and i dont see tire wear on that vehicle like i do on the outback. second issue is that i have had to replace numerous wheel studs on the rear wheels. this has happenend a number of times. this week there were 2 broken studs on the left rear. also when i went to remove the right rear wheel the acorn lug nut cam off and when i removed the wheel a piece of one of the studs fell off. i replace them with parts from a local supplier who seels dorman wheel studs to me. they are american made and dorman is supposed to be a good maker. both of these issues puzzle me. anyone else ever experience this? any thoughts? no sense in me asking the dealer as they are always less than helpful. regards, mark

years ago, i had a similar problem - stripped the threads for a head bolt in a ford 292 cid engine. (i guess i'm giving my age away here, although i was in my late teens). anyway, i used a helicoil but in the back of my mind i was never satisfied that it would hold! i ended up tapping out the hole to accept a bigger diameter head bolt from another, later model ford engine. i think that i also had to make the bolt passage through the head wider to accept the beefier head bold. worked great in the end....but i wasn't working with aluminum in the head or the block. a beefier bolt, if you can find one, might be a way to go. you are already tapping out the head to accept the helicoil. mark

mdjdc, thanks for the reply. lok for a message on your usmb account.

been to the dealer. they said that the recall was only for outback! so my original question... will the front coils from a '91 legacy front wheel drive sedan fit on my '96 awd legacy wagon?

Thanks for the tip. I'll give that a check but think that the dealer may laugh at me..... it's a 13 year old car with 310,000 kilometres on it. back to my first question if the recall tip doesn't work. anyone know about the interchangability of the springs? mark

i have a '96 legacy awd wagon, brighton edition with a 2.2 and automatic. the roads in my city are awful and while replacing a ball joint, tie rod end and wheel bearing on the left side, i remove a broken part of the coil spring. i also noticed that both ends of the removed part were jagged, so it's been broken before. the wrecking yards want to sell a complete strut to me and there don't seem to be any available aftermarket. the dealer is not an option as dealer parts here in Canada are a lot more than in the U.S. there is one wrecker here that i might be able to talk into selling just the spring to me. unfortunately, the subaru he has is a '91 legacy sedan. does anyone know if this will fit? i don't want to put a lot of money into this car as i want to sell it and upgrade to another subaru. any help is appreciated. mark

my manual said NOT to compress the tensioner in a vice and that it should be done in the verticle position. as i didn't have a verticle press, i used my floor jack and the lower control arm with the tensioner in between. i may have used some wood shims on each end to protect the tensioner too. went very slowly and it workek slick. easiest part of the whole timing belt job! regards, mark

just had to share this with other subaru enthusiasts. unbelievable as to what this driver can do with this car. http://video.kenblockracing.com/flash/small_player/preloader.swf?vendor_id=2 04&media_id=9183&bgcolor=FFFFFF&autoplay=0 sure makes my 96 legacy brighton wagon look benign. mark

this was a newly rebuilt caliper. when i got the car about a year and a haly ago, i flushed the hydraulic brake system when i did the front brakes, so the fluid was fairly clean. when i disconnected the hose from the old caliper, some of the fluid dripped from gravity. it looked clean and clear.... not stained dark like old fluid. i think that i just got a poor rebuild. new one arrives monday, but it won't be till wednesday till i get the chance to install it. regards, mark

here's an update....got a rebuilt caliper, put it on and bled the system. so, new brakes in the front with the passenger's side having a new rotor, pads and a caliper. a day later i had occassion to take the car on about a 30 km. ride to the golf course for some late season golf. at about 3/4 of the way i got that awful smell of a burning brake pad. once i got to the course and parked, the right front whell area was smoking. you could feel the heat and the smell was awful. so, i guess i got a poor rebuild. i've never seen this happen before but i'm told that it does happen. the piston is not fully releasing when i take my foot off the brake. had to drive it home like that after golf when it was cooled down. expected to find the same when i got home. big surprise... it wasn't hot. took it out again later that evening and found that when i arrived back home it was a little warm compared to the driver's side. called the parts store and they ordered another. also said that they would warrant the pads and rotor if any damage was done. i haven't had it appart yet but am getting frustrated over what was to be a simple job.

i gave them a call. this will be a good resource to remember for future projects. they quoted me $52.96 plus tax and shipping. very reasonable but they needed mine to rebuild as they didn't have one on the shelf. called a local auto supplier, maslack here in sudbury. they had one for $60 plus taxes with exchange. much better than canadian tire who wanted considerably more. will be picking it up tonight on the way home from work. regards, mark

thanks for all of the replys . i did put new pads and calipers on when i got the car a year and a half ago, by the way this has benn a great car! the rotor on the bad side did look good when i took it off. the pins also were free, so maybe the caliper is sticking. it did go back into the bore easily when i pushed it back with a c-clamp, i've got it back together now. i'll put it on a jack stand apply the breaks and try to turn the wheel with the tranny in neutral. i assume that if its sticky, it will be hard to move. it it free wheels, i'll just keep all the new parts in and lube every thing up well and see how it goes. if i find a problem, i'll post again tomorrow on this thread. thanks for all your hrlp. this is a great board and subaru is a great car. regards, mark well, put it altogether, went for a short ride, lifted the front end and spun each wheel separately. the left side felt free while the right seemed to be sticky. guess i need a caliper. will look for one locally tomorrow. preliminarily they are $120 new online from a cdn supplier http://www.bestpricecarparts.com/ and $25 from a nearby wrecker. thanks for the help. mark

hope that someone on this board can help me diagnose the problem... car is a 96 legacy, brighton wagon with 2.2 and auto tranny. it has about 295,000 kilometres on it. it seemed to me that i had a warped rotor. i could feel it when i braked hard, but it felt a little different every time. thought it was the right side and when i disassembled the wheel i was right about that, but maybe not about the rotor being warped. the pads on the right side were worn down to the bottom of the wear groove that runs through the centre. these were semi metalic pads that were about 1.5 years and 18,000 kilometres old. the worn pad looked funny. didn't seem all that solid and wasted away when i put a wire brush to it to examine the material more closely. so obviously i got new pads. when i took the other side apart, the pads were hardly worn and the pad material looked much different from the worn side. i had no trouble taking anything apart on both sides. the pins were lubed and appeard to be able to slide as needed. anyone got any ides as to whats going on here? most of my experience is with vw's and when this happens, it's usually a seized slider. this is a different system. the caliper doesn't float like a vw's. i'm at a loss. any help is appreciated. regards, mark

sorry... may be a bad link. try this one.... http://www.infomedia.gc.ca/AllContent/articles/unrestricted/2007/09/all20079630211532_16.htm

another good reason to drive a subaru! the article is from a canadian newspaper. for those of you that don't know the reference to david suzuki .... think al gore! cut and paste the link into your url bar. http://www.infomedia.gc.ca/AllContent/articles/unrestricted/2007/09/all20079630211532_16.htm regards, mark

i was a vw guy. had lots of them. still have an 82 scirocco that is my toy. i also have an 01 golf automatic with 135,000 kms on it. that's about 85,000 miles. i am not happy with the quality or engineering in this car. it sure isn't as good as the ones built before 1992. if you buy a mk3 vw (1993-1998), i think that you will be dissapointed and may be looking at some real maintenance issues. if it's an automatic, i would highly recommend against it. the autos are sealed units with supposedly lifetime fluids. when you do go to change the fluid, and you should, it's not an easy matter. the fuild is about $30 a litre canadian and you need a computer scan to do the job. power steering fluid as well as some of the bulbs in the car are propriatory items (vw specific). ps fluid is $35/litre. this is just some of the bs that you'll have to put up with.... coil packs are another costly problem area. i tell my wife that if you are going to own a newer vw, you should have a city transit pass and a code reader. if you want to research for vw mk3 issues, check out www. vwvortex.com. on the other hand, i love my 96 legacy wagon that has 293,000 kms. once i changed out a few sensors and did a few other minor things, it's been bullet proof and the awd here in northern ontario is areal bonus. my daughter has been driving it for a year and all i've had to do is oil changes and a ball joint. it's been very easy to work on and this bulletin board has been very helpful. regards, mark

i'm in sudbury ontario. i do occassionally get parts from http://www.pythonparts.ca out of toronto. prices are decent but the shipping is heavy. i do get the parts overnight. alt. from them for my car is about $250 exchange plus shipping. better to get a rebuilt locally. regards, mark

if it were me, i would bring the alternator to one of your local shops for a rebuild. i heve established a relationship with a local shop owner and he rebuilds starters and alternators, usually overnight, for me for about $60. if you do order from thwe states, you should insist that they ship via the u. s postal service. if they use a courier, you can expect massive taxes, duties and brokerage fees and storage in their brokerage house that will delay delivery. for my orders from the states, i use liberty subaru in new jersey... parts@libertysubaru.com they have treated me right and are one of the few dealers that i have found that will ship via the post office. most insist on a courier service. regards, mark

1996 legacy brighton wagon with auto tranny. bought it last spring for next to nothing and did only a few minor repairs to it. currently has 283,000 kms. (175,000 mi.) on it. i am/was a vw/audi guy and this car just amazes me. so much so that i had thought that i would like an a4 audi turbo 5-speed but am now reconsidering. who needs the headaches to keep that car on the road when i can get an impreza 5-speed and spend more of my time enjoying it rather than repairing an audi.on my legacy, all that i've really had to do was a number of engine sensors, plugs and wires, a fuel filler tube and a bit of body work. all i need now is a little bit of snow nere in norther ontario so i can enjoy that all wheel drive feeling. regards from the great green north, mark