Sorry for a second thread about struts.

 

So I pulled a pair of rear struts from a '90 Legacy Wagon and the top hats of the struts seem to be slightly different from the ones I saw on a '92 Legacy earlier, and look closer to the old ones I just pulled off, but slightly... bent or angled on the top. Both top hats of the new struts we pulled of the '90 Legacy Wagon appear to have this "bent" or slightly angled top where one side of the top hat is above the other two very slightly.

 

Just want to see if anyone knows anything about this before I put the new struts on, possibly find out they don't work, and have to swap in different ones.

 

The ones being pulled off are the factory ones, and the ones I am replacing them with are the "KYB GR-2" ones.

 

Cheers

Edited December 19, 201213 yr by Raindrop

So it appears that I wasn't careful enough about which car I pulled the struts from, and it was a FWD, which I think has slightly different top hats.

 

So now I have to swap the new top hats with the old ones.

 

At least I figured out the problem and it appears the struts should still work.

 

Cheers.

There was a change in the rear struts I think in 91 from conical springs to straight ones. Different strut caps to match, but the struts themselves should be the same.

The main difference is between the 90-91 MY's and the 92-94 MY's. The parts book lists different part #'s between the rear FWD & AWD top hats, but I ran AWD rear top hats on my Legacy when it was FWD, so I couldn't tell you what is specifically different.

 

Edit: Saw your reply over the BBS indicating they are different. Yeah if you can take some pics, that would help out other folks as well.

 

Thanks

Edited December 19, 201213 yr by Legacy777

The struts are not the same. The shaft tip that mounts into the top hat is different. You can also back and fourth like I said near but the rewrs will knock and squeak because the strut shaft does not sit right in the top hat. I have heard of some people using washes to sandwich the hats into the shaft but haven't tried it. I just listened to the noise till I sold the car