turn a 96 Legacy into a rear wheel drive car with a AWD 5speed whats it take, ? whose done it ? thanks

Edited June 10, 201015 yr by Scott in Bellingham
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Drop the exhaust unhook 02 sensors first, pull the rear driveshaft and carrier bearing. Punch out the rollpins on the shifter, pull shifter off of tranny. Remove tranny crossmember and mounts. Undo the 6 or 8 12mm head bolts holding the transfer housing on to the tranny. Tap, pound, and pry to get the transfer housing off of the back of the tranny, do not drop the center diff there's nothing holding it in there.

 

Remove the big snapring that holds the center diff together and thoroughly weld the rear output to the case. Preheating the diff with a torch for a while makes the weld stronger, but harder to move the hot diff around while working on it. Clean all the weld slag out. Reasembly reverse of removal.

 

While you have the tranny crossmember out, pound out the rollpin and remove the right front inner CV, you can pry the tranny to the side and get the CV to pop off the splines. The tranny is held up by the motor mounts and the pitch stopper, so you just twist the whole package in the engine bay. Pull the boot off of the outer CV, wear eye protection, and take a cold chisel to the cage inside the CV. Once you smash the cage up, pull out the balls and the axle, clean all the grease out and let it be. Supposedly you can get the axle to pull out of the center of the CV, rotate the center and pop the balls out, but I've never had luck with getting the axle to pull out of the center, there's a pop ring that holds it. Try that first, you may get lucky. Otherwise resort to hammering.

 

You only need to remove one front axle, it's an open diff in the front and no torque will be transmitted to the wheel that's still hooked up.

Pull drive shaft, drive backwards. Done and done

center diff together ........ and thoroughly weld the rear output to the case. up.

 

so basically just weld up the center diff correct?

if you can find a transmission with torque bind just use that one, it's essentially "pre-welded". i know folks that have done that before to make a RWD subaru. maybe someone on here has a "bad" 4WD manual trans that has torque bind?

 

or weld it of course, you're obviously good at that!

 

when you remove the axle(s) you'll need the outer axle joint stubs mounted to the hubs to protect the bearings.

if you can find a transmission with torque bind just use that one, it's essentially "pre-welded". i know folks that have done that before to make a RWD subaru. maybe someone on here has a "bad" 4WD manual trans that has torque bind?

 

or weld it of course, you're obviously good at that!

 

when you remove the axle(s) you'll need the outer axle joint stubs mounted to the hubs to protect the bearings.

 

indeed. he could have mine if he were close enough to pick it up, but, alas, he's on the other side of the continent.

 

i 'spose i could send just the center diff, which has failed. i'm currently in fwd-only, rather than awd.