just bought a legacy gt, notice that the passenger front side whenever it hit a big crack, pothole or something would make a loud thud noise. is my strut out? how would i check this. also my abs light on the dash would come on everyone once in a while for some reason.

yep, sounds like classic strut.

 

as for the ABS there's tons of info on here about pulling your own codes and deciphering what's going on. spend some time reading that.

 

off the top of my head some early legacy's had a recall or known problem with an ABS fuse or relay or something. i think it's an easy fix too, i'd look for that and see if it applies to 96 GT's. otherwise normally all you need to do is clean the sensors, they are just magnets and get really dirty/contaminated. or replace any that are warn. they should have a very thin narrow tip to them, that gets warn down sometimes and they need replaced.

 

hopefully your blown strut isn't so bad that the ABS tone ring isn't cracked, that's a possibility.

would i be replacing the damper strut

 

http://shop.oreillyauto.com/ProductDetail.aspx?MfrCode=MON&MfrPartNumber=71443&PartType=49&PTSet=A

 

never had to do a strut job, just not sure which part needs to be replaced. i'll take a look at the obd2 readouts and see why it's throwing the abs light thanks

Other possibilities are a bad ball joint, inner or outer tie rod end, or worn sway bar bushings.

1996 you probably need all 4 struts. Bounce on each corner of the car, it should stop in 1.5 bounces.

 

 

 

nipper

i bounced on all 4 corners, back ones bounced about twice front one's bounced just once

I would say replace all 4. I had a blown one in the front but it always passed the bounce test. I would bet they are all original and very very tired.

 

How many miles on this car?

 

nipper

the cars got 110000 miles, i'm gonna put it on ramps this later on tonight. not sure how to inspect it to see if it's bad though

Ya put it in the air and shake the wheel looking for play. With my 93 that had original struts. Even after I put 02 wrx suspension turned out to just be the balljoint. They can be had for only $30. ONLY go OEM.

 

It is a easy replacement, but rust sucks. Get some really good rust penetrating spray and spray the crap out of everything and let it set. With mine it was so rusty that I had to heat up the balljoint to the point where it exploded, luckily it did not hit me

 

Would not hurt to check the top hats as well, meaning like removing the little cover and tightening up the jesus bolt, although I doubt that is the issue.