dan, you have nothing to lose by trying the FWD fuse. it may lessen the effects of the bad parts what ever they may be. lots of time the fuse will eliminate issues in the drive line. relaxed u-joints or whatever may act differently than those under pressure / tension.

 

you can remove the rear section of the drive shaft, but that will not really help unless the u-joint in question happens to be on it. there is one other and the carrier bearing and you can't remove them without ATF pouring out on to the ground. (in an emergency you could maybe use a rubber glove and a lot of duct tape to ''cap off'' the end of the trans so you could get home , i have not tried it.)

Well I will try the fuse but since I am getting this under deceleration too I am not expecting much. Is there a writeup somewhere that describes exactly how to remove a driveshaft or part of it? I have never done this

When dealing with cars of this time period there is NO SUCH THING as a Rwd Subaru so just get that thought out of your head. It's either FWD or AWD.

 

AWD will have a rear driveshaft, FWD does not.

 

 

 

Automagic transmission AWD cars you can remove the rear half of the driveshaft and drive around no problem for eternity. This is quite often used to diagnose bad u joints as well as torque bind problems

 

thanks for the info. i am accustomed to older cars i was not aware of this.

Well I will try the fuse but since I am getting this under deceleration too I am not expecting much. Is there a writeup somewhere that describes exactly how to remove a driveshaft or part of it? I have never done this

 

subaru autos don't free wheel under deceleration they actually slow you down so removing the power to the rear drive shaft will help with deceleration also

the heat shield is in the way. it is a long piece about 18 inches wide with 6 - 8 - 10 small bolts which may be rusted.

 

once this is out of the way there are 4 bolts with nuts at each end of the rear section of the drive shaft. the rear section is a straight pipe with a u-joint at each end. easy peasy.

 

the front section is held in place by 2 large bolts through the cross member up into the chassis. this holds the carrier bearing which is the middle support for the entire shaft. remove these 2 bolts and then just pull the drive shaft to the rear away form the trans. done.

 

(but now fluid can pour out of the trans when the engine is running. the rear seal of the trans output shaft ''seals'' to the front piece of the drive shaft. i'm not sure why it is designed this way, but it is.perhaps to keep the splined output shaft from rusting.)

 

if you are removing the whole thing you may be able to do it with the rear section attached to the front section by disconnecting the rear end and then doing the middle. but with the exhaust in the way i would do it in sections.

 

re-install the heat shield.

 

this is not a hard job.