dave833 Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 I learned a hard lesson over the weekend about jacking/lifting my '95 Legacy AWD 5 speed. AVOID jacking or putting jackstands under the ear or bracket right in front of the rear wheel that connects the front differential mount or crossmember to the body of the car. It's near the rear jacking point, and looks like a good, solid spot to put a jackstand or floor jack, but it's easy to bend the edges of that bracket up so they touch the metal of the diff crossmember. Normally these two pieces are isolated by a rubber bushing, but if they touch, you'll get all kinds of weird, disturbing noises transmitted from the diff through that bracket and into the body of the car, which acts as an amplifier. It sounds a lot like various bearings going out- rapidly! Fortunately in diagnosing the problem, I stumbled on this thread: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=69753&page=2 If I hadn't, I'm sure I'd be replacing wheel bearings, or axles, or the rear differential this morning (to no avail!) and never would have noticed a problem that took about 20 minutes to fix and ZERO dollars. Thanks USMB! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cougar Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 "Using the USMB board to save you time and money,... priceless!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porcupine73 Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 Glad you found the problem. Good point. I had used it in the past for jacking (with the jack cup inside the ears though so nothing bent...yet). Will try to avoid it for that purpose in the future! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idosubaru Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 AWESOME! cheers to an easy fix and working center diff hotdog! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skip Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 I guess what has me corn-fused (country bumkin speak) is how this solution solved this?? Dave said "I can also hear the noise faintly with the car stopped, out of gear, with the clutch released. When I put the clutch in, I can hear the sound 'wind down' and stop." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave833 Posted June 18, 2007 Author Share Posted June 18, 2007 Okay... ya busted me on that one. It's a separate sound- probably the TO bearing slowly wearing out. I got to thinking it was probably there before the big, nasty, whirring, wheels-falling-off-the car sounds appeared. Still, the metal-to-metal connection of the bent bracket amplified the slight winding-down-bearing sound, too. It corn-fused me at first until I determined they were two different sounds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skip Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 thanks Dave -- that es'plaines it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finsol Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 I just jack it up from the body lip right in front of the rear wheels and right behind the front wheels, no bending or tweaking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave833 Posted June 18, 2007 Author Share Posted June 18, 2007 Sure, jacking is not a problem, but if your floor jack's on the body lip or jacking point, and you want to place a jack stand, you have to find another spot for it. I just jack it up from the body lip right in front of the rear wheels and right behind the front wheels, no bending or tweaking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilroy Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 I am hoping and PRAYING that this is the source of the vibration I am getting from decelerating! Thinking back, my vibration may have started after jacking the rear of my car up as well. It was months ago and I have been living with the vibration, but I will check it first thing after I get up in the morning (around noon). :-p EDIT: I now recall that the vibrations started as soon as I picked up my car from AAMCO. Perhaps they f*cked it up when lifting it on the hoist, but I have also found info that says it could be the torque converter which they say they replaced. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finsol Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 Sure, jacking is not a problem, but if your floor jack's on the body lip or jacking point, and you want to place a jack stand, you have to find another spot for it. true but who's to say you can't put the stand right next to the jack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
srs_49 Posted June 21, 2007 Share Posted June 21, 2007 Heck, I can go you one better. My son decided to jack up the front of his (my) '87 BMW up to look at some damage he thought had happened when he went into a snowbank. Anyway, somehow he was under the impression that the oil pan was the right place to jack. Yep, the jack punched right through the oilpan. He sure knows where not to put the jack now! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave833 Posted June 21, 2007 Author Share Posted June 21, 2007 I've been there too. My first car as a 16-year-old was an AMC that had a couple of broken motor mounts, which I broke driving over some railroad tracks where there was no crossing. This caused the engine to crash down on the crossmember, supported only by the oil pan. The pan was cracked and leaking, so, I decided I would jack up the engine to investigate the leak, and ended up placing the jack on the oil pan. It didn't puncture the oil pan, but when I lowered the jack and started the car, it made a terrible banging noise. After some investigation, I determined it was the crankshaft hitting the bottom of the now-collapsed oil pan! My solution? Drill about two dozen holes in the oil pan, pull out the dent, and seal it all up with silicone! It was definitely a dodgy fix, but I drove it for a few years afterward like that. Oh, by the way, Finsol, the bases of my 6-ton jackstands are about 8-10" wide on each side, so it's not that easy to just put them next to the jack, which is 6"-8" wide itself. That means the support shoe of my jackstand and the support cup on the jack have to be at least a foot apart. The jacking point on the body lip is only 3-4" long. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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