95LEGOBW

I'm changing the horn. Is there already a relay in the circuit? By the way, this car came from the factory with just a single dinky horn. It's located next to the ABS pump, right forward.

Does the gas smell go away after driving for awhile? I get the same 19-20 MPG in short trips around town on 10% ethanol regular gas, plus a very strong gas smell on start up. Gas smell goes away after a minute, so I've never worried about it. It does smell toxic at first, though. My MPG improves to 22 mpg on trips at 75mph with AC off. Absolutely no codes. All new ignition parts. It's just the way this car is with an AT. I'd replace the car with something with better MPG, but I don't drive it a lot of miles, and just the sales tax on a new car would buy a year's gas.

This is good advice. I have had the same experience on other engines - smoke, oil in the airbox, black spark plugs, all of which went away when the plugged PCV was replaced with new. On my Subaru, is the PCV the metal device screwed into the intake manifold, just to the left and toward the firewall side of the distributor (on a '95 2.2)? If so, mine was mostly plugged and didn't seal well. I cleaned it up with brake cleaner and a little bit of scraping. It will now click when I moved it back and forth in my hand, and the spring has behaves just like in new ones. After the cleaning, I could easily blow through the PCV in one direction, and just barely blow through it in the other. Since it threads into the manifold on just one end, there was no risk of installing it backwards. I also found that the pipe connecting to it was partially closed by accumulated crud, as was the T-connector just below it. The crud was pretty crusty, and broke down and came out easily. The car has 180K on it, and doesn't get driven a lot, so that's probably been contributing. I have had a slow oil leak for about a year - the bottom of the engine always has a film fo oil on it, but there are no drips in the garage & the oil level doesn't drop measurably between oil changes. I don't know if freeing up the PCV has helped this, though. Have to wait and see.

Sorry, no. I don't know the code. I did get a perfect match on my 95 factory alloys, however, with a Dupli-Color silver "high performance wheel coating" rattle can. There's no number on it, just a cap color that is medium silver/gray with a little sparkle to it. It's not glossy.

Thanks for this pic, Porcupine. Saved me some time. Nicely done.

Thanks in advance to all who help with input on this board. The seats are in & the belts are set up. I am summarizing my findings here for the benefit of future forum searchers. The Installation. I just put a pair of Forester seats in the front of my 95 Legacy Wagon. The old seats were held in with 5 bolts. The new seats had just 4 mounting points, which matched up perfectly. I moved the seat belt latches from the original seats to the Forester seats. In both cases they attach to the seat frame with one bolt. On the Legacy, the bolt is already attached to the seat. On the Forester, there is a nut attached to the seat, and the seat bracket bolts to that. To fasten the latches to the Forester seats, I had to buy bolts to fit the threads in the existing mounting points. The bolts are 7/16" with #20 fine threads. Yes, these are standard sizes, not metric. Maybe this note will save someone the frustrating time I had at the hardware store trying to figure out why none of the metric sizes fit! One-inch bolts worked perfectly. The Legacy had plastic covers on the rails in the passenger area. The Legacy covers do not fit on the Forester rails. If you want the rails out of sight and the greasy parts covered, you'll need to source some Forester covers. New ones are available from dealers and not terribly expensive. Using the Seats I like the seats. They are much more comfortable then the seats they replace. There are two adjustments for tilt of the squib, plus a lumbar adjustment, so I can dial things in to fit my long frame. There are some drawbacks, howerver, that future seat swappers should know about. The seat itself sits higher off the rails, plus the foam is quite firm. This all results in the driver sitting significantly higher than when on the stock seats. For a taller driver, this can be a problem. I am 6' 1" and my line of site out the front is now well above the middle of the windshield. Looking straight ahead is not a problem, but my view of the sky is pretty much cut off. I am looking through the windshield just below the factory tinting. The other drawback of the new height is the position of the shoulder belt relative to my shoulder. As my shoulder is higher, the belt now goes forward to get over it. When I sat lower, the seat belt direction was more down than out. The result of the new position is that I now have constant pressure & friction from the belt on my shoulder. Neither of these would matter to a shorter driver, especialy one who did not keep the shoulder belt slider in its highest position. My 12 year old likes the new seat height. For the first time, she is tall enough to use the visor to keep the sun out of their eyes. Peace to all.

Wow, four fleet feet, you have an amazing memory! But yes, as someone pointed out, I am looking for information about the front seats. And to the other point, I must be mistaken on what year Forester these seats came from. In any event, they will bolt right in, once I figure out the seat belt buckle attachment. Thanks in advance for any answers from The Collective to my questions above.

Anyone? How do seat belt buckles fasten to the seats in a 97 Forester? Is there one bolt? What prevents the assebly from rotating, a rivet?

Legacy777 - you understood correctly - I just want to tighten up the play that will have developed after so many years. I have done this on other cars and it was easy: Simply loosen the lock nut, gently tighten the slack adjustment until resistance is felt, then loosen just slightly, then lock the nut. It would be easy to do if I could reach it on my rack. I can't see it from the top or the bottom, but I know it's there! If I can get to it with a wrench, I will try it.

Hello Sooby-doobies, I had the good fortune to pick up a pair of front seats from a 97 Forester. The driver's seat is adjustable in several ways, and will be a welcome replacement for the bagged-out original seat in my 95 Legacy Outback Wagon. The seats are going to bolt right in. Unfortunately, there is a complication. The Forester seats did not come with seat belt latch assemblies, so I am trying to use the ones off from the 95 Outback seats. The trouble is that they don't bolt up cleanly to the Forester seats. For both cars, the main mounting point is a single bolt on the seat frame (Actually, the Forester takes a bolt, but the Outback uses a nut on a stud welded to the seat frame, but that's no big deal.) The important difference is that, on the 95 Outback, a short pin on the seat frame keeps the bracket from rotating around its single mounting bolt. There is no such pin on the Forester. The Forester latch assembly must be a different shape, and be held in place in another way. I can force-fit the Outback assembly to the Forester seat, but it won't be at the right angle, and will be able to pivot on its mounting point. Has anyone dealt with this? What are my opitons? Can anyone post a pic of the seat belt latch on a Forester seat?

Legacy777, do you think I'm putting something at risk here?

Help!! So I'm lying under the car, in the rain, trying to find the adjusting screew and the lock nut on the steering rack. I have a flashlight to help me spot the bugger. All I find is a bolt head going into the rack opposite where the steering column enters. I don't see any kind of lock nut, just the head of a bolt. Anyone been down this road before? I am ready for your input. It's a 95 Legacy Outback Wagon.

frag, Thanks for your comments. I have learned a lot from this site as well, including the tidbit about the two u-joints on the steering column between the rack and the firewall. Good information, that. All the information about bushings as a contributor to steering play is helpful, too. Today's topic is the play adjustment. Who's done it? From below the car? SS

Thanks yohi. From your good information, I see that there IS an adjustment for steering play. Now, some questions for the Collective: 1) Has anyone here ever adjusted the rack play? ( rack-slack:lol:) 2) Where is the adjustment screw on the rack, and can I access it from under the car? I see from the pdf that it's in the vicinity of where the steering column comes in, but I can't get the orientation figured out in my mind. That area of my car is grimy, so it's really hard to see anything. Thanks, gang.

Where is the rack & pinion backlash adjustment screw on my 95 Legacy Outback Wagon? I know it is near where the steering column comes into the rack, but I could use some more instructions. I am finding all sorts of things loose from wear and age, and want to check out the slop in the rack. Thanks for any tips on where to look for the adjustment screw.

Just passing this along. It may help someone. Purely be chance, I discovered that my throttle was not opening all the way when the gas pedal was fully depressed. There was a lot of slack in the cable, so I moved the cable tension adjuster. All fixed. I will have to train my foot to tip-in slower when leaving a stop. Now that the slack is gon the throttle starts opening as soon as the peddle starts to move. The cruise control cable was even looser, which explains why my speed would temporarily fall off when I set the cruise speed. It took awhile to sense the slowing then re-apply the throttle & take up the slack. Very nice to fix that after all this time. My 95 Wagon has an automatic and has been slow since I bought it a couple years ago. I figured it was simply what you get with a 3300 lb car, 135 hp, and AWD rolling resisitance. Now that the throttle opens all the way, I can probably do 20 second quarter miles!

Thanks for all the good advice, y'all. What a great message board. I was wondering about the tint, too, so thanks for that comment. I should have clarified, I'm right here in the dark rainy moss-covered Pacific Northwet (don't move here, it's terrible). I would like to find a windshield in the Portland, OR area. For those who have had problems with new windshield installation, what were they? What kind of mess do they leave? My windshield is intact. Will they break it to remove it? I don't want glass rattling around behind my dashboard for years!

My 95 Legacy needs a new windshield. What is a fair price to pay for a professional installation that will look good and will not leak? Are there chains that specialize in windshield replacement? What else do I need to know? I will be paying for this out-of-pocket. Insurance is not applicable to my situation. I want a brand new shield, not one from a breaker.

Good advice: Always look for the siimple solution first! Contact cleaner - a great invention.

I am experiencing the sticking ABS relay problem as described by others on this forum, such as here: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=81161&highlight=abs+relay It has occured just twice in 4-5 months, and a quick tap with a screwdriver stops it immediately. My question: Rather than buy a new relay ($$ is tight) is my relay repairable? I'm thinking that if it is just a simple mechanical problem, such as worn contacts, or something crudded-up, there may be a simple fix, especially since the relay is not totally bad. What do you think of fixing the relay? I know, the best thing to do is to buy a new relay. But $$ is tight, so it would be helpful to postone that outlay for awhile. Thanks, oh gurus!

The Freudian symbolism here would make this an effective Viagra commercial.

[see update at top of thread.] The saga continues . . . . . After good advice on this board, we determined that the 2-pot front brakes on my 95 Legacy Outback Wagon were similar, or the same as, those on the 94 Legacy Turbo. When I tried to order a set of rebuilt calipers from our friends at the OEM parts houses, 1st Subaru and Genuine, I'm told that the caliper part numbers for the 94 Legacy Turbo are the same as for the non-turbo version, as well as for the 95 Legacy models. So now I don't know what parts to get, and my wife wants me to go back to driving a Mazda. Would you students of Soobies take a look at the calipers in my PHOTO GALLERY and recommend what I should do? Maybe the part number confusion has to do with the 95 being the intro year for Outbacks, where some features, such as ABS and 15" wheels were included, but other features, such as the raised ground clearance, didn't come out until '96. Mid year changes probably add to the confusion.

Very helpful. My bracket is similar to the upper one in your upper photo, Jamal. And, my caliper is not at all like the caliper in your lower photo. Mine has a lot more metal on it.

You're very helpful, Jamal. :banana:I measured my rotors and yes, they are 276mm X 24mm. The 276 is considerably larger than the official Subaru spec of 260mm for the 95 Legacy. Apparently the brakes on my 95 Leg OB Wagon were upgraded at some point in the past. My guess is that the prior owner had some brake work done, and the brake shop ordered in the full set of rotors and calipers for an Outback, but got the 96+ 2-pot hardware. I wouldn't be surprised if neither the shop nor prior owner thought it was strange to go from 1 to 2 pot. [update: these brakes were OEM. See first post.] I think I'm going to go ahead and order calipers for the 98 Outback & see what I get. If those aren't right, then I'll try the calipers for the 94 Turbo. Too bad it's impossible to see what I'm going to get before the parts come in. It takes a couple days to get the part here, and I need to get the car on the road asap. I hate to lose more time if the first set is still not right! Jump in with suggestions, anyone!

Thanks Jamal. So to get the correct rebuilt caliper, do just ask the parts guy for a caliper for one of the cars on your list?