Wife is unable to engage reverse on our manual Legacy without crunching it most of the time (in fairness, it requires some patience, something she has little of). The car is used for city driving, so there is a lot of crunches.

 

Has anyone has experience with similarly handled high-mileage Legacys? How much damage does this treatment cause, how long before repairs are needed, and what would repairs involve?

 

Also, is there anything I can do in the meantime apart from regularly changing transmission fluid? (No, retraining the wife does not work.)

 

Thanks,

After you push down the clutch, put the tranny in 3rd gear and then over and down to reverse.

I have similar advice.. Put the tranny in 2nd gear before putting it in revers.. Its a habit I got into years ago to avoid grinding reverse on my saab(its actually recommended in the saab owners manual!).. works on my soob too.

That sounds like a good idea, why didn't I think of that? Mine does the same thing. It's not bad, it's just that the synchro's on reverse are worn. I usually push in the clutch and wait about 3 seconds, then put it in reverse. This lets the gears in the transmission slow down enough to engage reverse without grinding. But the 2nd -3rd gear idea makes a LOAD of sense Which explains why I didn't think of it :brolleye:

 

ScoobySchmitty:banana:

You might very well have found a new Peter's (Not sure I have the name right) principle Schmitty : the more sense an idea makes the less one is likely to think of it Would apply to me at least on some mornings and ends of day...

I don't know about Subie's, as my 97 OB is the first one I've owned and it's an automatic... but...

 

On my 88 Honda Civic, this started happening around the 8 year mark. I was told the clutch was going. I found that hard to believe, as there was no slippage occurring. That's what I had experieced with prior manual cars. As it got worse, it started crunching while downshifting into the lower gears as well. Indeed, replacing the clutch solved the problem.

 

I can't fully recall, but I think the pressure plate was failing. The clutch was not disengaging 100%, hence the grind trying to get into reverse.

 

Just a thought.

 

Commuter

and you can get around it for a while using the syncro trick. On older cars where you could do clutch adjustments you could sometimes adjust it out of this.

Originally posted by Commuter

On my 88 Honda Civic, this started happening around the 8 year mark. I was told the clutch was going. I found that hard to believe, as there was no slippage occurring. That's what I had experieced with prior manual cars. As it got worse, it started crunching while downshifting into the lower gears as well. Indeed, replacing the clutch solved the problem.

 

 

This seems very odd, my reverse will grind, but not horribly, and I just replaced the clutch a few months ago!

Originally posted by ScoobySchmitty

That sounds like a good idea, why didn't I think of that? Mine does the same thing. It's not bad, it's just that the synchro's on reverse are worn. I usually push in the clutch and wait about 3 seconds, then put it in reverse. This lets the gears in the transmission slow down enough to engage reverse without grinding. But the 2nd -3rd gear idea makes a LOAD of sense Which explains why I didn't think of it :brolleye:

 

ScoobySchmitty:banana:

 

These have synchros on the reverse gear? I thought only the forward gears were synchroed on Subarus.

Actually, I just guessed that there are syncro's on reverse. It would make sense, to prevent this grinding problem. Still, does anyone know if the dog gears on reverse spin in opposite directions, instead of the same direction as with forward speeds? If the dog gears for reverse spin in opposite directions, then synchro's would make a whole lot of sense! I know the basics of a manual tranny, but no specifics on Subaru's design.

 

ScoobySchmitty

Yes, folks, I know how to engage reverse without crunching, my wife does not. And she does not want to either.

 

Back to the question: how much long-term damage does this cause and would anything apart from frequent transmission fluid changes mitigate the effects?

 

Cheers,

yeah I am pretty sure soobs have no syncros on reverse, do you have pedal covers, they may be preventing the cluth pedal from going down all the way.

I follow the TwinTurbo.net Nisan 300ZX forum, and have done so for several years. Every couple of weeks someone will ask what to do about his manual tranny grinding while going into certain gears. Everytime it is suggested by more than one person to change the tranny fluid to Redline MT-90. Likewise, every person taking the advice comes back to rave about how it dramatically made the tranny shift much smoother AND cleared up all, if not almost all of their grinding gear issues. I haven't had the reason to try it myself on my own 300ZX, or Subaru for that matter, but it certainly sounds like it would be a worthwhile experiment to cure the problem versus a tranny rebuild.

its always been my understanding that no manual transmission have syncros on the reverse gear. syncros are needed to change gears while the car is moving. since the car should be stopped when changing from forward to a reverse gear, there is no need for a syncro (the output shaft will not be spinning).

CSMOLE: Very little damage. The reverse cogs have straight-cut teeth, which is the strongest type of cut. The sound is horrible, but the actual action behind it isn't that violent.

 

It only takes half a second for the layshaft to "spin down", but it sounds like that's longer than the War Office will wait

Hello people!

 

Since reverse gear is not in constant-mesh, it cannot possibly have synchromesh.

 

The input and layshaft each have a straight-cut cog, too small to reach the other. Engaging reverse moves in a third cog that facilitates a reversal of the output, by conecting the two previous cogs.

 

The sound is made by cog teeth bashing it up, since the third cog is not moving, and the input cog is still spinning down. Don't confuse this sound with the crunch of synchromesh teeth on the forward gears.

and bus trannys, but maybe ten automotive. I have never seen any kind of syncro on reverse.

If they have been crunched in to first and reverse (if first is non-syncro) the teeth on the gears are pretty beat up. Tiny chips out of the teeth is the usual, but sometimes you have to change them.

They get pretty noisey after a while with damage to the teeth.

A new transmision in a few years will probably be cheaper than a divorce.

If you change the clutch in a short time it may be cheaper still.

I think you can put a million gallons of redline oil in the tranny and it still won't help a dragging clutch.

Yes - reverse has no syncro - at least not in a Subaru tranny. In fact, reverse makes terrible whining sounds because of the straight gear teeth. Most all cars do this - can you imagine if they used straight teeth for the forward gears? (Yes - they used to do that WAY back in the day).

 

GD

Tell the wife to hit the streets and raise enough money to fix it if she doesn't like it!!!

 

Tiny:headbang:

tHERES A tsb FOR DODGY CLUTCH SLAVE CYLInder and related parts. Dealer just did mine and crunching a thing of the past.

are certainly a good thing to check. I was trusting that they were checked first, but maybe not.

My symptoms were that the clutch pedal stayed on the floor till you pulled it back, not crunching.

I changed the hose and slave, but still did not have adaquate volume, and so changed the master.

Do we know that this Legacy has a hydraulic clutch?

One way to tell if it is master, slave, or air in the system is to measure the movement of the arm wahile some one presses on the clutch pedal.

The TSB is on this forum somewhere. IT decribes your symptoms exactly and has the list of replacement parts

supply the numbers of the parts I bought from the TSB when I am at home.

here's the tsb...

 

APPLICABILITY: 1995~2002MY Legacy;

1997~2003MY 2.5L Impreza; and

1998~2003MY Forester Vehicles.

All models have Manual Transmission.

SUBJECT: Clutch Pedal Sticking (revised)

INTRODUCTION

In the event you encounter a customer complaint of the clutch pedel not returning completely

after being engaged, or has a spongy pedal feel or a light feel in the shifting pedal while

shifting, the following repair method should be followed. This condition may affect certain

manual transmission vehicles with a hydraulic clutch system under certain weather conditions.

PROCEDURE

To correct this condition you must replace the parts in the chart that match your vehicle using

the following procedure:

For Natural Aspiration models with hydraulic clutches

1) Remove the intake chamber from the backside of the intake manifold.

2) Remove the clutch hose and the clutch operating cylinder. In this procedure it is not

necessary to remove the master cylinder, the clutch pipe and bracket.

3) Replace the clutch hose and the clutch operating cylinder with new parts as listed in the

chart. Note that two pieces of gasket (P/N 114130151) used on the connector of the

operating cylinder must be replaced with new ones when replacing the clutch hose.

Tightening torque of the bolt is: 37 ± 3 Nm (3.8 ± 0.3 kgm) or 27± 2 ft. lbs.

4) Bolt the operating cylinder onto the transmission.

5) Add brake fluid.

6) Bleed the air from the system.

7) Install the intake chamber.

8) Check the following items:

a) Insure there is no leakage from the line, check whether fluid leakage occurs after

the clutch pedal has been fully depressed.

Check whether the clutch performs normally.

Page 2 Bulletin Number:03-52-03R; Date: 07/15/03

For Turbo models

1) Remove the intercooler.

2) Remove the clutch operating cylinder hose. In this procedure, the clutch master

cylinder, clutch pipe and bracket are unnecessary to be removed.

3) Replace the clutch hose that was removed with the new one listed in the chart. Note

that two pieces of gasket (P/N 114130151) used on the connector of the operating

cylinder must be replaced with new ones when replacing the clutch hose. Tightening

torque of the bolt is: 37 ± 3 Nm (3.8 ± 0.3 kgm) or 27 ± 2 ft. lbs.

4) Add brake fluid.

5) Bleed the air from the system.

6) Install the intercooler.

7) Check the following items:

a) Insure there is no leakage from the line, check whether fluid leakage occurs after

the clutch pedal has been fully depressed.

Check whether the clutch performs normally.

 

 

MODEL * Clutch Operating Cylinder * Hose - Clutch * Gaskets for Hose

02MY~ WRX (5MT) * Unnecessary to replace * 37251AA003 * 114130151 X 2

Legacy (5MT) * 30620AA042 * 37251AC001 * 114130151 X 2

Impreza (5MT) * 30620AA042 * 37251AC001 * 114130151 X 2

Forester (5MT) * 30620AA042 * 37251AC001 * 114130151 X 2

 

This change was incorporated in production after the followning VIN numbers:

Legacy All 36*00000 Beginning of the 03 MY

Impreza Sedan 26529238 April 10,2002

Impreza Wagon 26835444 April 10,2002

Forester All 36713250 April 10,2002

NO, no, no, NO! You all got it WRONG!! Tell the wife who won't learn to hit the road....permanently! Next best is what TinyClark said.