SbarroOutbackSteakhouse

Thanks, I was actually hoping to hear from you and planning on writing a personal message at some point. I saw a lot of your posts from a few years back about your car and they were really helpful when first looking into what's going on with my car. Is yours still alive and kicking? I'm not really sure what this means, since all of this is completely new to me and I'm just trying to learn as I go. On my car, I'm pretty sure that power was being directed towards the back in some way before I put the FWD fuse in, because there was a noticeable increase in acceleration and power afterwards, even on flat ground, but especially going up hills. I'm guessing that by putting the fuse in and completing the circuit with the solenoid, that's what's telling the car to keep all the power with the front wheels- and that's why I was worried about it potentially going bad, from being in the circuit constantly.

Thanks for the input. There's no ATF dripping, and it looked plugged when I got a look under there. Today I did the diagnostic for existing problems with the Power light and it just flashed at quarter second intervals (can someone clarify that this means everything's normal? ), and now the car doesn't seem to do the 16 flashes on ignition... Doing the check for previous problems, resulted in a 24 code: duty solenoid C. So it can't go bad when the rear drive is disconnected? What about the clutch parts?

After a long hunt for a well-taken care of Subaru with low miles and devotion to regular maintenance, I bought a 1993 Legacy L Wagon. 4EAT, EJ22. This is my first car, so I tried to educate myself the best I could and took it into a shop so a mechanic could look for anything wrong before buying. He gave the green light. But shortly after I found out the guy was way off: he didn't notice that the front struts were leaking oil, and steering bellows were completely separated. On top of that, he didn't notice that the rear drive shaft wasn't even present. I talked to the old woman who owned the car for 22 years and got ahold of her regular mechanic, who told me that the transmission was replaced two years ago. Her mechanic said that when the transmission was replaced, the car was shuddering (torque bind?). It was supposed to be a compatible transmission (likely not the exact same model though) but something in the rear wasn't matching up right. Under the guidance of the Subaru dealer down the road, they decided to remove the rear drive shaft since it was an easy remedy, plus she had no need for AWD since she rarely drove. This explained why the car seemed a bit sluggish, especially up hills, because a lot of the power was being diverted from the front wheels to the back, which couldn't even receive it. So I put in the FWD fuse the other day and there was an unmistakable increase in pep and power all across the board, especially on hills. From what I understand, replacing just the rear drive shaft probably won't get the AWD working smooth, and replacing everything in the rear drive would potentially work to get the car AWD again... But I don't have much need for AWD and would be fine with this car being FWD permanently. So my main question for the experts is: do I run any risks with keeping this car in FWD mode without the rear drive shaft? I know plenty of posters have done this temporarily when repairs were needed, and some folks on here drove like this for 35k or 40k miles as of 5 years ago, or alternate between seasons (some, even with the rear drive shaft in place). A lot of those threads are old though.. Are you guys still putting along fine? Did you have to do anything else to make this work? I've read many threads on use of the FWD fuse/removal of the rear drive shaft and understand that the duty solenoid C isn't designed to be in the circuit constantly. Is voltage still delivered when the car is off, say, overnight? I thought that the fuse only acts when the car is on (hence, why they shouldn't be towed even with the fuse in). Would removing the FWD fuse on occasion or installing a toggle switch serve as an acceptable remedy to this, to "give it a break," so to speak? If the solenoid goes bad, will FWD fail? I've also read that the wire to the duty solenoid C can be cut, but puts undue stress on the clutch pack that it wasn't designed to handle. Is this the same as if there were a toggle switch? I haven't yet been able to get ahold of the PO to ask if she always drove with the FWD fuse in, or just left it out and drove with the decreased power. Sorry for the information and question overload. I've combed the web for similar situations and to learn as much as possible but this is all new to me. It would be great to hear from people with experience. This is a great car that was taken care of meticulously, and I don't want to subject it to unnecessary stress or damage, but I really need to know what to do since I don't have the money to just start replacing whole systems left and right and have a very big cross country trip planned for work. Thanks for any help!