Red92

What is the circumstance that you now need a water pump? If the pump failed and the car was overheated, then the mechanic's "don't fix it" advice may be due to the risk of having more hidden damage elsewhere. Beyond that, I would absolutely fix it. You are in pretty much the ideal situation, actually. * You have another car for regular use, so you don't have to fix this one ASAP * You've had this car a substantial amount of time and kept up on maintenance (ie: the rest of the car is in good shape) * You will be needing another used car (or two) in the near future for the kids Is there a reason why you say you can't do the water pump yourself? The car isn't worth much as scrap, and won't sell for much in a non-running condition. If you're at all handy, you could give it a try. Even if you totally fail, the car will still be worth the same amount. Alternately, now would be a great time to involve the kids. I bought my first car when I was 15, and it didn't run either. Making it run again was a fun father/son project and a great learning experience.

There are a handful of recalls to check up on. One was for the front strut springs rusting out due to paint defects, and another was to remove the tow hooks as they could hit speedbumps, curbs, etc, and cause the air bags to go off!

True. The reason I asked though is that I know of a junkyard with an SVX. It's a bit picked over, but if any of the parts will swap, I can grab them next time I'm out there.

Yep, I was just going to mention maintenance. I looked at a Legacy once that this young couple had for sale... They had owned it for a couple years, and the guy was really trying his best to sell it by talking about how cheap it was to maintain. He remarked that the whole time they had owned it, they had only replaced two brake pads and "topped up the oil once" when the light came on. There were no service records with the car, because the previous owner "hadn't needed to do anything either". I can only imagine what the oil must have looked like... I didn't even bother to pull the dipstick.

Bummer. :-\ Thanks for the pics of the tray though! It's a lot smaller than I had expected! Is it the exact same box, and do you know if the bracket would mount to the bottom of seats that didn't come with the box originally?

Kudos on saving a rare one - sounds like it needed just about everything! zzz I had to look it up again to remember what was on the Ti: Did you get the bike attachment for the roof rack? Also, would you be able to take a photo of the engine skidplate and the passenger seat storage tray? I haven't seen any of the three before. Sweet pic of the L, by the way.

Yes, but the secondary jets, accelerator pumps, bowls/floats, off-idle circuits, chokes, etc, were all in place well before emissions tightened up.

Do you have any links to examples of them on cars? I can't imagine that they would work very well at all in practice. Auto and Aero engines have very different usage and operating conditions, and their intake systems have different designs because of it. When you think of how ridiculously complicated automotive carburetors were, I'm sure that the auto engineers would have jumped at the chance to use a carb with just two moving parts if they could have. Pretty much every item on the "no xyz to worry about" feature list for the AeroInjector is/was present on the automotive carbs to solve a specific need.

I've been more than happy with the GR-2's on both the vehicles I've used them on.

Ok. Both of the first-gen Legacies I've had have been the raised-roof... the '92 VZ Type-R in NZ, and the '94 GT here... both roof racks have been the same, so I didn't know there were so many varieties... I'll try to get a picture of it when I have some light.

What do the rear end pieces of the long rails look like on yours? On my '94 GT, the rear rails end in a piece that has a small pop-off cover. On the '96 OB in the junkyard, the rear rail ends are completely smooth.

So it turns out that it wasn't actually that low on coolant after all... I just wasn't seeing it right. I had looked into the filler quickly with a flashlight and not seen any coolant, and figured it must be nearly empty. But when I went to fill it up, I checked it again (in the daytime), and realized that the filler has that 90-degree bend in it. D'oh! So I just started adding coolant, and it only took a small amount to make it rise up in the filler neck again. I'm just too used to cars where you can look straight down into the end tank I guess. So I filled it up and bounced the car until the bubbles stopped, and then filled up the overflow tank to the mark. After driving it a bit, I had to add about another two inches worth to the overflow tank, and it seems to have stabilized there. So that is a relief.

Quick question- Can anyone confirm whether the low-profile cross pieces from a 1996 Outback factory roof rack will fit the rails on the factory roof rack for a 1994 Legacy? The rails themselves on the cars seem to be slightly different (I know because I was looking for one of those plastic covers for the rear, and the Outback didn't have 'em)... but I'm not sure if the spacing or the rail shapes are any different. Thanks.

So I picked up a pair of lock cylinders for the rear hatch today to get an assortment of wafers. After aligning the wafers so that the cylinder would turn, I tried to pull the inner part out the back, but found out that it wouldn't come out that way. I was able to get it out through the front though by pulling the crimped-on chromed part off... but it didn't come off without a fight. zzz For the next one, any tips on how to get it apart without destroying it in the process? Also, does anyone have any tips or procedures for how to pull the lock cylinders out of the front doors? There was one car in the junkyard that had its door panels removed, but the glass was still in the way. I'm also wondering if the lock cylinder can come out without removing the whole latch mechanism from the door? Thanks. :cool:

Haha. My experience at the u-pull yards is that the cars are stacked directly on top of each other, crushing the roofs, with the bottom car forcefully planted down into the mud. Not a chance of pulling an exhaust on any of them! A lot of yards are really sloppy when they pull the cats too... chopping the exhaust off wherever it looks easiest, even if it is on a different part (header, etc). Your yards must be better...

Should have reset the trip counter 222.2 miles ago.

... but I see that you keep adding more. If you get rid of the spare, you can also get rid of the jack and the lug wrench. I'm not sure how much the stock wheels weigh, but I bet you could find lighter wheels too. You could install electric engine block heaters, to help the engines get up to efficient operating temperatures quicker when it is cold out. Going more extreme, can the Forester be converted to 2WD, to eliminate the driveshaft, rear (and center?) differential(s), axles, etc?

I'll just go ahead and re-use one of my old posts for this.

The fuel could change whenever your filling station gets their tanks refilled. So even at the same station at the same pump, you could be getting different gas than the last time you were there.

Winter-blend gasoline? Seems like too big of a change for just that though...

But that's not what you'd get... you'd combine two good running cars to make one GREAT running car! I'd keep the Loyale. Beat up high-mileage Legacies are everywhere, but clean mechanically sound examples of the older cars are getting harder to find. At least out here they are.

5x205! The same lug pattern was used on the Porsche 356, as well as some 40s-50s English Fords (Popular, etc). There are tons of cool aftermarket wheels in that lug pattern. Steel, aluminum, magnesium... 13" through 17" diameter, crazy widths too.

Those are the wide-5 VW wheels.

We had a thread just like this a few weeks ago. The end conclusion was, if you have the space and time, strip it down to a bare shell. Almost any of the extra parts can be re-sold, so each extra part you grab off of it is extra $$ in your pocket. :cool: //edit: Here's the other thread: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=127587