john in KY

My 95 has one fusible link in that box near he battery. May want to check it.

Have owned an 85 XT turbo and a 90 turbo wagon. Never had a bit of problem with either. Drove the turbo wagon 100K before selling it.

Wonder if something (HEI type) from a 4 cylinder GM product could be made to work. Wondering because I bought an ER27 a few years back that was modified for an aircraft install and it has a GM HEI distributor. Asked the seller about it when I bought the engine and he told me all he did was to replace the gear at the bottom of the shaft. He used the stock Subaru gear so it meshed with the camshaft gear.

Do you have the 4EAT transmission? Thinking that makes a difference.

Where are you located?

Friend has a 97 Legacy with the 2.2 and wants to know if the HG can be replaced without pulling the engine. I've never done it. Any tricks involved? I'll pass on whatever is posted.

Three axles and all have the same problem tells me the problem is not with the axles. Failing bearing comes to mind.

But he posted there is no spark from the coil. That made me conclude there may be 12 volts running through the coil but there isn't enough voltage produced at the terminal to generate a spark. The on/off flickering light tells me the distributor is doing its job. But the coil has been replaced and no change. Just a mystery to me.

Don't know. Sorry.

This to me indicates a very weak coil. Just pull a coil from about anything at the wreckers and swap out yours.

Subaru offered a hi-lo FWD only transmission?

Thing circled looks like a condenser. Old style distributors with points required them and I think they were also used to suppress radio static. Don't know if your Subaru came originally with a points distributor.

Steering shaft U-joint?

Have someone look at the rack itself. Chance the mounting bushings may be worn or the rack is just loose.

Just charge the battery and disconnect that main wire on the alternator and let it sit overnight. If the battery has a charge the next day than there's your problem. Don't believe you have a wire short anywhere. Every short I ever had caused the shorted wire to melt.

My money is on an alternator diode has failed.

Never looked inside an old Subaru distributor but guessing it has points and therefore a condenser. If the points don't open, no spark. If the condenser is bad, no spark. If the coil is bad, also no spark. If you manually open the points with the key in on, the coil will fire. This is just a test for the points.

Did you remember to plug in that igniter thingee on the firewall?

Easy way to test the coil is to pull the coil wire from the distributor and crank the engine. Hold the end of the coil wire from a metal ground and a spark should jump 12mm. A good coil will not fire if the points are not opening and closing and if the condenser inside the distributor is bad.

Check for spark with a timing light. Also check the quality of the spark. Should jump 6mm or more.

The XT6 control arm takes a larger bolt than the XT so that tells me the XT and XT6 do not share a common bushing.

Has spark and fuel and ran before you replaced the distributor. Appears to me you screwed up reinstalling the distributor. To use a timing light, connect the red lead to the positive side of the battery and the black to ground. The unused lead gets clamped around #1 spark plug wire.

Did some research on my own also. Transmission was removed from a 96 Impreza Outback with the 2.2. My research suggests the 96 should have the A4AB. The A3BA was used in the 95 Impreza so I'm guessing the 96 got a left -over 95 transmission. Guessing the A5BA is a 97 transmission. Thanks for all your help. John

What if the "2" is a "3"? Asking because the spare 4EAT I have has A3BA as the last four.

Don't know beans about a Subaru manual but once 40 years ago rebuilt a Muncie 4-speed. If you can't rotate the main shaft in neutral the only thing I can think of is the transmission is locked in 2 gears.