MailManX

Thanks, Josh. Maybe I'll just go visit him for a weekend and help him with it. I'm assuming the weak lifter hasn't caused any other damage.

I've researched this on the forum. But I still have two unanswered questions: 1. Will a weak lifter that is ignored for several months cause any damage to the valve train? 2. Since my son (who owns this car) is not mechanically inclined and I'm not near enough to help him, what should it cost in "labor" to have a mechanic replace lifters on one side only? As for the cost of parts, I found EJ22 lifters online for $20. He's had the car for several years and it has always had one weak, slightly noisy lifter. But regular oil changes with good filters always kept it quiet. He replaced the timing belt about a year ago and had the oil pump resealed at the time, so all is well in that area. But I think the one weak lifter is finally giving up on life. It ticks all the time now. He just told me on the phone that he's let it go that way for a couple of months. Grrr!!! I don't want him to damage the engine, so I'll probably send him money to get it fixed since he doesn't have much money. But I'd like an idea of how much a legitimate mechanic should charge. And, unless it's true, I don't want some over zealous mechnic to tell him that he needs a complete valve train overhaul. Thanks! Michael

Welcome to the forum! Hopefully you will become a regular visitor here. Michael

ROFLMAO!!! Turns out that comparing apples to oranges may not be a valid strategy anymore: http://www.improb.com/airchives/paperair/volume1/v1i3/air-1-3-apples.html Michael

There's a wrecking yard in or near Seattle (possibly in Seatac) that specializes in Subaru parts. I once bought a Legacy door handle from them. Unfortunately, I don't live there anymore and can't remember the name. It might have been have been Big Bear Auto Salvage. If you can find the yard through a search, I'm sure they be willing to ship the part to you.

UPDATED: Scroll down this page to find a chart that gives a bit of Subaru history by year. It shows that Subaru went 100% AWD in 1997. Legacies and Imprezas could both be purchased as FWD before that. Probably others, too. http://www.cars101.com/subaru_archives.html

I unexpectedly sold my '93 Legacy AWD 5-spd yesterday, so I probably won't be visiting the forum much after this. But I wanted to say thanks to all of you, especially the moderators, for making this such a terrific online community! I'm happy to say that my Suby went to a good home. That's important to me because I kept her in great shape and, even with 208,000 miles on the odometer, she has a lot more good years left. My wife got a new car for Christmas. Since then, I've been driving her old car, a '95 Toyota Avalon and I found that I liked not shifting a manual any more (afterall, at the age of 46 I just became a grandpa, so I'm kind of an "old fart"). That means my poor old Suby wasn't getting driven much. Even so, I wasn't planning to sell her. However, it's funny how some things work out for the best... I made a call yesterday morning to an old friend whom I worked with for years. He moved about 200 miles away last year, but I've stayed in touch with him. During our conversation, he told me that his old car just lost it's transmission on Friday and it wasn't worth fixing. He said he'd looked at some used cars, but there just wasn't anything in his price range that was any good. I offered him my car and he jumped all over it. He knows I've kept it in good shape over the years. My wife and I didn't have any plans yesterday, so we delivered it to him and he was really grateful. I'm glad the car is going to someone who will appreciate it. It's a blessing for both of us.

The 195/75-14 should work just fine. I, too, have the 16" WRX wheels and tires on my 93 Legacy. They fit with plenty of room left over in both diameter and width. Here are some size comparisons that I got from tirerack.com that should help you make the final decision (the sizes are averages and may vary slightly between brands): 185/70-14 (stock size): 24.3" dia, 7.5" section width, 5.7" tread width 195/75-14 (snow tire): 25.6" dia, 7.6" section width, 5.9" tread width 205/55-16 (WRX tire): 25.0" dia, 8.6" section width, 6.5" tread width As you can see, the width is a non-issue. The snow tire diameter is only slightly taller. It will fit, but your speedo will be slightly slow. No big deal. Michael

Funny, I just read somthing about that on the ClubLexus forum this morning. Here's what the guy on that forum said: "I was able to remove those awful looking airbag warning stickers from my visors. Just get a corner of it started, then pull gently and slowly. Follow up with some automotive interior fabric/carpet cleaner. Looks much cleaner now. I hadn't noticed how much it distracted my vision, until they were gone." That's my highly non-technical answer. Tell you what - you give it a try and let us know if it works! If it doesn't, we'll know not to try it!

This thread is three months old, but I decided to chime in. My '93 Legacy has 208,000 miles and my son's '93 Legacy has 214,000 miles. Both are daily drivers and both are completely reliable and even still look good. The engines are original with just the normal maintenance. Out here on the left coast, we don't have to deal with salt on the roads, so rust isn't an issue. These cars have held up extremely well. They are tight and quiet and the paint is in good condition. Even the interiors are in good shape. We are very happy Subaru owners. I haven't taken any pictures specifically of my car, but here's a picture I took of my house that has my car in the picture. Michael http://preyerplanning.com/images/houses/ours/24-house-from-lower-terrace.jpg

That was hiliarous!

I agree with all above suggestions. But I warn you not to get your hopes up of seeing a Huge improvement. Subies are not known for being overly miserly on fuel consumption. My son and I both have '93 Legacy AWD's with 5-spd manual trannys. We keep them tuned up and run synthetic and we tend to get an all-around average of 24mpg. The best I've done on a trip is 28mpg. Although that's respectable, my wife's old 1995 Toyota Avalon with a pretty powerful V6 and automatic transmission gets better milage than my Subaru. But then her car is only 2WD, so it's a tradeoff. Michael

Subie Gal, your car is beautiful! Kickson, my wife's Lexus has the clear bra installed on it. We purchased the car used with 50K miles and the protector was already installed, so I cannot comment on price. But I CAN comment on the fact that you can't see it till you are really close, like Subie Gal said. There are no chips or dings on the front of the car, so I think it has done a good job. Since I personally hate the look of the strap-on car bras, I'm all for the clear stuff. Michael

If you or a friend have a Costco membership, they have a very nice Crescent 148-piece "professional" tool set for $59. I purchased one for myself just to keep in the trunk of my car all the time, but it's so nice I may get another one for around the house. It's got both metric and SAE sockets (including deep well sockets) in 1/4, 3/8 and 1/2 inch sizes with a ratchet for each. There's also a great selection of "real" screwdrivers, wrenches and pliers. Here's a picture of the kit along with a list of all the tools included: http://www.coastaltool.com/cgi-bin/SoftCart.exe/hand_tools/crescent/148_tool_set.htm?E+coastest I did a quick search on Google and it seems that people on other forums have purchased this set and really liked it. I've seen the same set on other websites for anywhere from $79 to $109. Michael

Make this a third vote for alternator. Both my son and I have '93 Legacies and both have replaced the alternator once. A bad alternator definitely makes the dash lights start acting really funny. Among other things, my parking brake light started coming on all the time. The nice thing is that the alternator for a '93 Legacy is quite cheap and REALLY easy to replace. I purchased an aftermarket alternator from Autozone for about $50 and replaced it in 10 minutes right in their parking lot then took the core back into the store. Michael

Shuttle2Moon, chances are you already know this. But just in case... All the discussion so far has been front to rear power transfer. But if your car has the usual open differentials (not limited slip), then you can still loose traction side-to-side from one wheel on EACH axle. Under the right (or wrong) conditions, your AWD could become 2-wheel drive with power to only one wheel up front and one wheel at the rear. Still, it beats the heck out of the 1-wheel drive that a 2-wheel drive car becomes when it starts slipping!

Hi LDDV86, Thanks for the info. But it got me to doing some more research which produced some conflicting info. I looked up the tire manufacturer's specifications for 225/50-16 tires which say they will fit on a rim width of 6" to 8". The stock WRX 16" wheels are 6.5" wide, so it's within the range. Then I went to some WRX specific forums and a few other Subaru forums (i-club, clubwrx, nasioc & scoobymods) and found numerous posts about 225/50-16 tires on stock 6.5" WRX wheels. Every one of them said the tires fit fine on the stock rims, looked good and handled good. So, even though I value your opinion, I may just give it a try anyway. Michael

Wow! You put an American Legacy amp into a Japanese Legacy car. Won't that cause some kind of corrosive electrolisis due to the close proximity of dissimilar countries? But hey, the car ought to be worth a grand just based on the bling, bling hubcaps. In fact, why are you even selling such a one-off custom collectors item?

I've had the 16" WRX wheels on my '93 Legacy for a couple of years using the WRX stock tires (205/55-16). Those tires are worn out now and I'm ready for new ones. Since 225/50-16 is a +0 size with the same diameter, the only issue I have to worry about is the additional 3/4" of tread width. It appears that I will have enough clearance for the fenders and strut towers, but I thought I'd see if anyone else is successfully using the new size tires I'm considering. Thanks! Michael

Ick! I'd rather let someone else do the dirty work for me.

I already took the car to my favorite mechanic. He said that everything is OK. The thief was apparently hoping to get away with using my car as his new daily driver, so he didn't abuse it. When the cops pulled him over, it was the middle of the day and he had just pulled out of a mall parking lot. In fact, that add's a little bit more to the story. After I drove the car home from the impound lot, I found a $50 mall gift certificate in the glove box and a brand new 17" LCD computer monitor in the trunk. The stuff wasn't listed on the impound paperwork or the police report. So, since the police signed the car over to the the impound yard that way, and the impound yard signed it over to me that way, I kept it. At least I gained a little something back for the $1,500 worth of stereo equipment that the thief ripped out of my car. I'm starting to think about him being with the hairy dude in prison again.... heh, heh!!

My 93 Legacy (the one stolen in another post today) has a "whirring" noise in the transmission. It does sound a lot like a turbo spooling up (but my car is non-turbo). The noise is most pronounced in 2nd and 3rd gears. I first noticed it about 10,000 miles ago. Based on feedback I got from this forum back then, I determined it was the clutch bearing. Since I have other vehicles I can fall back on, I decided to ignore the noise until I need to replace the clutch. In the past 10,000 miles, it hasn't gotten any worse. My car has 207,000 miles on it and still runs better than a lot of nearly new American cars. I maintain it well and hope to see it go past 300,000 miles (that would be a first for me). Good luck with your car!

I loaned my '93 Legacy to my daughter for a while over in Las Vegas (I live in San Diego). She came home late one night and left her garage door open for about 5 minutes while she unloaded some stuff out of the trunk (multiple trips into the house). While she was doing that, she left the keys hanging in the trunk lock. Some crook with big brass ones drove the car right out of the garage while she was in the house. I'm glad she wasn't out in the garage when the arse-hole wondered in. Two days later, the cops pulled the car over for being driven without plates. The thief had taken the CA plates off, but put a license frame on from a Las Vegas dealer hoping a cop would think it was just purchased used. Naturally, he couldn't provide the registration and his "story" wasn't holding water, so the cop searched the car. My plates were found in the trunk. The cop arrested the guy. As part of the arrest and search, the cop found drugs (I don't know what kind or how much). The guy was put in jail pending arraignment. He couldn't afford bail, so he had to stay in jail. Last Monday he was arraigned. He pleaded innocent, but the the judge said there was plenty of evidence against him, so he's being held for trial. I'm stoked. It was awesome just to get my car back. But to have the ba$tard caught is even better! Unfortunately, he stole the stereo (a nice one with amps and subwoofer) and tore up the dash trim getting the head unit out. My car is so old that I don't have full coverage on it anymore, so I'm screwed on that. But I gain some happy thoughts of revenge hoping that the thief has a big, hairy, disease-ridden boyfriend in prison.

Bad CV joints in the axles can make a clicking sound, but usually only when turning (unless they are REALLY bad). Maybe your front CV joints don't like the stress of breaking and it causes them to get noisy. It's a long shot, but it's all I can think of.

Heh, heh! Good response! Now I wonder how many people will have to look it up?