kimokalihi

Yeah, I've been wondering the same thing about my 90 legacy wagon. It's an auto and the first auto vehicle I've owned but I drove my moms auto voyager minivan for like 6 months or so and I don't remember it shifting like my subaru does. It doesn't matter if you're only giving it barely any gas either. From 1st to 2nd gear is just kind of rough. Not real bad, but more than I would think it should be. The rest of the gears shift smoothly. Plus I think it engages a bit slow from a stop. When I come up to a stop sign and begin to go again it takes a bit longer than most automatics to engage and it's really annoying me. It's probably normal but I have been driving a 5 spd toyota pickup for the last couple years and so maybe it's just going from manual to auto? I don't know but I hate it and can't wait to get rid of my car.

Yeah I already talked to them and the only thing they're willing to do is take the tranny back in exchange for another one that I would have to pull again and install, AGAIN. Oh well, I guess that just means that from now on, anything I can stick in my tool bag is going in there and not getting paid for. Jerkoffs.

Went to the junkyard today. I checked the car that I got the tranny out of and sure enough it's 3.90 and my car is 4.111. I guess you really shouldn't say anything unless you are sure you know what you're talking about. The junkyard isn't going to do anything about it. The only thing they'll do it let me bring back my tranny and get another one. What if I had paid for it to be installed instead of having someone else do it? Would they pay for that? That sure as hell should. There's no way in hell I'm taking it back out again and putting another one in. Especially since that was the only decent milage tranny they had. Those bastards shouldn't have told me it was the same ratio if they didn't know for sure. I hate those punks, well mainly just that one guy who's always at the counter. The younger guys are really nice but he's a total wongleflute all the time for no reason. I hope he looses his job. So I have to buy a rear end with 3.90 ratio. Another $60 bucks wasted so I can sell this POS.

Damn that sounds like a good price! I have a 90 legacy and I called a parts store in town and they wanted something like 110 a piece. At the junkyard it was 18 bucks for the whole hub assembly. I went that route and swapped the hub assembly myself and saved a ton of money. Works great. I have no idea what the labor would cost you but I would imagine like 75 bucks an hour. (dealer)

OK well I called the Subaru dealer and they told me they have 3 different gear ratios for the automatics. 3.90, 4.11 and 4.44(turbo). I will go to the junkyard tomorrow and look at the car I took the tranny out of because I think they're different. My rear end is making noises now and it feels as if it's fighting the front diff. That's why I put the FWD fuse in. None of this was happening with the old tranny.

Yeah the idle is not right, I have a 90 and it idles at around 700. I'd definately fix that vacuum leak because it can cause all sorts of problems. You can check the codes without a scanner by looking up underneath the driver side dash. There should be a couple of black connectors that mate together. Hook those up to each other but I wouldn't push them in until they click all the way because it's a major pain in the rump roast to get them apart again since it's really hard to get both hands up there comfortably. You can put them together most of the way right before it clicks and that should be fine and then it's easy to pull apart with one hand. I'm thinking about adding wire to those to make them longer because I have had to check the codes so many times and I probably will in the future as well. Here's a more detailed page I just found that actually goes a lot deeper than I knew about... http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/80s/specs/ecucodes.html Good luck! I bought my subaru legacy wagon L 90 auto for $400 bucks and have spent like $700 fixing one thing after the next. I'll never buy another subaru unless it's at least a 2004 or newer. But that's what I get for 400 bucks. Thing is, I don't think I can get the money I put it into back if I sell it now...

I have a 90 Legacy Wagon L Auto It's full-time 4WD and the tranny went out in it. I put a tranny from a 94 legacy wagon auto. I thought I saw on the rear end of that car 4.11 but I can't remember because I was in that junkyard like 20 times in a week for various things including a rear end that I ended up taking back. Long story. So I have 4.11 in my rear end. What I was wondering was if the 94 had 3.90? Does anyone happen to know if for some reason they changed the gear ratio? I have the FWD fuse in right now just in case, or until I can find time to take another trip back to the junkyard and take a quick look for myself. But right now I have school and work and stuff so I don't have time. Oh and also, sometimes with the new tranny, it won't start? Nothing happens, it's as if it's in gear so it disengages the starter. If you put it in neutral it will start up. It only does this once in a while but it's not a very good selling factor (I want to rid myself of this horrible car ASAP). Could it be that I need to adjust the shifter cable because it may be off with the new tranny and partially in reverse? Never had the problem with the old tranny.

Oh man, talk about wheel bearings. I just bought a 90 legacy wagon. Just about everything went out on it within the next week or two. The tranny was one of those things. Major pain in the rump roast. But also, both the driver side wheel bearings were SHOT. But the passenger side bearings seem to be fine...why would that happen? The timing belt snapped because whoever owned it before me was very neglectful with the car and it had something like almost 120,000 on the belt. The motor has been replaced with a jap crate motor I think. Mine is the 2.2 but I believe it's leaking oil from both heads. Not sure about the HG but it's got oil all over the bottom of the heads and it's running down the oil pan and stuff. Not very happy with the guy who sold me this thing and said it ran like a champ.

I'd have to say that adding a K&N filter on your car is a waste of money. They dyno those things in import mags and stuff but the difference is so minimal it's not worth the money. Not to mention those companies pay the magazines to do good reviews on their stuff so I wouldn't believe half the stuff they say anyways. In my auto class that I took last year both the mastertechs there told me you will NOT get an increase in hp with a K&N cone filter. I will believe them any day over a company trying to make millions off teen drivers. They'll tell you anything to make money. We live in a capitolist world and you have to watch out. Think about it, if putting that filter on the car made as big of a difference as those companies say it does, don't you think they would do that out of the factory? Increased fuel economy!? Increase in HP?? They're all about Fuel economy!! Plus, when you put a one of those short rams on your engine it takes air from the engine bay instead of out of the fender or behind a headlight where it usually is stock. That air is much hotter so you will actually get LESS fuel economy and HP. Which is why I'm not suprised that you are experiencing less MPG. Just my 2 cents. Passing on what they taught us at my AutoTech class. It wasn't a high school class either, it was a seperate technical school. My instructor told us this after visiting the Honda facility where they design all that stuff and they told him all that stuff. Good luck with the filter.

Timing belt was just replaced 3 weeks ago and that was pretty difficult. Everything is really crammed in there. There's no room to do anything in the engine bay. The fans pretty much needed to be removed just to get your hand in there. I think the main thing is that it's horizontally opposed. If you want to change a head gasket or do any sort of work on the internals you pretty much gotta pull the engine or it's gonna be a major pain. As soon as this thing runs again I'm selling it. And I just bought it 3 weeks ago.

Got the tranny today. It was a hassle. One of the bolts on the torque converter stripped out on my car and one also stripped out on the one in the junk yard making it impossible to get off. Maybe if they had designed it with some room to get your wrench in there that wouldn't happen. I broke both flywheels after that to get the torque converter loose so now I'm out a flywheel. Progress is haulted until I get one. Hopefully tomorrow I can go get one. I say again, subarus are so difficult to work on. My friend told me right when I got mine that they're the easiest car he's ever worked on. I need to find him and tell him he's full of it. I'd say toyotas are much much easier to work on and more reliable as well.

The axles look new. I was told by the previous owner that they were replaced with new axles and sure enough they look pretty new.

I got the car to my friends house and it's in his garage. I checked the fluids and they are good in both the diff and the tranny. I got all that stuff off and I'll say it wasn't easy. I still have one bolt that doesn't want to come out of the torque converter and it's really pissing me off. Horrible design. I swear subaru insists on making all their stuff super hard to access and work on. I pulled a hose off the tranny cooler while it was running and there was flow so I guess the tranny oil pump is functioning. I'm not sure what's wrong with the tranny but I'm just going to replace it.

Easy way to test several parts is to just disconnect one of the 2 oil lines that connect to the radiator. ATF will be pumped out with the engine running if the transmission's internal oil pump is working. No flow means either the pump has failed or the torque convertor. That's what they told me on another forum. I didn't mean the oil pump on the engine. I am waiting for my friend to get home and then I will be towing the car over to his place and I'll look at it over there. Right now the car is at another friends house where it died so I have not gotten a chance to check fluid level yet.

Well this is going to sound bad but I haven't looked at the car at all since it happened a couple nights ago. The car is sitting at a friends house where I coasted it back down the hill to at almost 1AM. Then I got a ride home and haven't had time to go pick the car up yet. But as soon as I get it home I will check it out.

The other night my 90 Subaru Legacy Wagon L Automatic died on me. Well not entirely, the engine seems to still be running alright and that part of the car never died. Something in the tranny (I think) went out on me. I was coming up a hill at about 20 degree incline at 55mph and all of the sudden it revved up to about redline and I let off the gas. Then I gave it some more gas to keep my speed up and that's when I realized that the engine was no longer turning the wheels at all. It's making a high pitched whir sound from the rear of the engine where the tranny mounts up or perhaps in the tranny itself. I was told that maybe the torque converter went out or the oil pump in the tranny is out. The oil pump alone wouldn't stop the engine from giving power to the wheels right? So lets say the oil pump did go out, what would that cause to quit working? Everything? lol. Engine revs freely Zero power to wheels(won't even attempt to budge) Strange noise from tranny Any help would much appreciated. Thanks.