So I suspect the viscous coupling's gone south on my '95 Legacy L AWD 5 speed manual- I'm getting terrible binding when I back up and turn sharply out of a parking space. I can feel the wheels skipping sideways and then the car stops completely like there's some kind of resistance. Now it's starting to do it in forward turns, too.

 

Does replacing the differential/viscous coupling require dropping the tranny? I've dropped/replaced 4EAT diffs, which DOES require pulling the whole thing, but the manual tranny in my Legacy looks like it's divided up differently. Where is the viscous coupling located?

Its the rear most section of the trans. I don't think you'd have to drop the trans, but the exhaust and driveshaft for sure. You should have enought clearance to get around to everything in the tunnel.

wow you've replaced front 4EAT diffs or are you talking about the rear transfer clutches? i'd love to hear more about that if it's the front diff.

someone has FSM info and lots of trans info posted somewhere, that may help if you need that, but i'm not sure where it is.

hey, check out the bottom left of this page right now...no need to click anything. at the bottom left corner is an automated "search" function that shows similar threads to the current one you're viewing. one of them in that list has some very good information in it, including someone saying that their mechanic said replacing the viscous coupling was "easy". check those out.

I 'normally' work on SVXs and bought one a couple of years ago with a 'bad transmission' (4EAT). Turned out there was a huge crack in the front diff case which either caused, or resulted from, the front diff gears detonating. So I dropped the tranny and swapped out the front diff with a known good one and everything was good! (well, it wasn't quite that easy, but the tranny worked fine after that).

 

wow you've replaced front 4EAT diffs or are you talking about the rear transfer clutches? i'd love to hear more about that if it's the front diff.

someone has FSM info and lots of trans info posted somewhere, that may help if you need that, but i'm not sure where it is.