frag

According to Haynes it's the model designation not a fault code. It means your car has a manual trans and is a California model vehicule. Good news ! Wont cost you much to repair that :santa:

Same problem here and the fact that I always have to park at the curb side in tight spots grealty lowers the probability that a new paint jop would last very long. So I'm looking for something like a black rubber coating that could be sprayed on both bumpers (a more elegant version of Gravel Gard) and that could be touched up easily. Not found anything like it for the moment but I'm still looking.

If you do a search here with «fuel gauge» you'll find lots of threads on this subject. An this Re: Fuel guage probs on 1990 Legacy I copied this from somewhere. Maybe the Archives. I have just done this over the weekend with success on my 93 Legacy. I took my time...around two hours. Saved a lot of cash. I would check the fuel pump side first.Here it is. Could be of some help. «Since I have seen lots of complaints posted about the fuel gauge senders for '95 Legacys of all types failing (check out how many at dejanews!) and have not seen any posts about how easy it is to fix, I thought I would post my experience. I had to get a car last weekend (broke my left foot, can't use the clutch in my usual car...) and got a '95 Outback wagon, in part because it is very similar to my wife's '97 so anything I learn from it has double application... The only thing really wrong with the car, I got it pretty cheaply, was that the fuel gauge was not working right. First of all, kudos to Subaru for making it so easy to get to the senders! On most cars I would have to drop the fuel tank, but this has plates screwed down in the luggage space that open to uncover ports in the top of the tank. (There is one sender on each side of the car for the AWD cars, where the tank goes up over the drive shaft so has a low spot on each side, just one on the right side for the FWD models. The one on the right has both the in-tank pump and a sender, the other just a sender. The two senders connect to an electronic box that averages their output.) After you open one of the ports you can take out the sender pretty easily: The one on the same side as the pump has to be unscrewed from the pump to get it through the port: Don't drop the screws in the tank! Once the sender (the two are almost identical) is out on a bench you see a standard float on an arm, moving a contact along a resistor pack on a ceramic printed circuit. The problem turns out to be the The connection between the moving contact and the wire off to the outside world. The wire connects to a thin brass piece, that has a phosphor-bronze spring pushing against it, the other end of the spring pushes against the moving contact piece. Between the brass piece and the moving contact should be less than 1 ohm, was infinite on both of my senders no matter how I wiggled the float arm around. The metals had just gotten oxidized. The float is held in by a push-on nut. It might be possible to get that off peacefully, but I was afraid of damaging the mechanism so I hit it with a Dremel and took it off. It is then pretty easy to disassemble the float and contact assembly: Look out for a small plastic pivot piece that the float arm goes through, you not only need to be sure not to lose it you also have to either keep it in position in the plastic body or else later on you will have to rotate it to drop exactly in to place. I used fine silicon carbide paper to clean the surfaces of the two brass pieces (moving contact's arm and connection to outside world) and also the two ends of the spring, put it back together, good connection in all positions of float. The only remaining problem is to hold it together: If you were able to remove the push-on nut you may be able to reuse it. I got a roll pin at the hardware store, one of those little pieces of steel that is not quite a tube because it has a slot down one side, designed to be driven into a hole. It has a 5/32" outside diameter, was about an inch long, and the inside diameter was just too small to fit over the float arm which is about 0.1" diameter. I cut a little ring off of it with the Dremel, forced the ring over the float arm just like the original push-on nut had been, and it was all done but reinstallation. I did both sides, the gauge works perfectly. This car has 90K miles on it. If I need to do this every 90K miles that will be OK. A more permanent fix would be to take some very flexible wire, e.g. litz wire, and connect it between the two sides so that it flexes with motion of the float. It will have to live in gasoline, so don't use wire with much insulation but rather route the wire so it can't hit anything it should not connect to. I think this would be pretty easy, should last longer than the resistance element would.» Bob Wilson

It's often stupid, when something happens right after something else has happened, to think that the first event is the cause of the second. I shut down the engine of my Loyale when in an automatic car wash. Unable to restart. Have to push the car out. I presume the wash is responsible for the no start condition (wetness somewhere in the ignition system). I replace the distibutor cap. the rotor, the ignition wires, the plugs, the coil. Finaly find out it's the coolant temp sensor: the car was refusing to start not because of the damp conditions of the car wash but because the engine was hot while the ECU was being «told» it was cold = flooded engine. Nice lesson I learned there.

Dont laugh Skip. You already know i sometimes happen to have some bizarre ideas. What would happen if one cut through the fire wall just where the core is, replace it and epoxy or weld everything back. Just a crazy idea that came to me lately when the same thing happed to a friend and that made me think of all the options if it ever happened to me. Maybe someone could try it on a parts car... OK, OK,

Am I blind or am I right in finding they have no axles offered on their page for a 96 Leagacy AWD ?

Alias, could you specify what ought not to be done when replacing rear bearings? What in your opinion is mainly responsible for rear bearings not being properly installed? Thanks in advance.

Like Goat Boy says, look under the car in the morning. My Loyale did'nt burn much oil, but it was leaking from almost everywhere specialy the cam covers. At the rate you're loosing oil, if it was all burned by the engine you would certainly see blue smoke coming out the the tail pipe.

My 96 does'nt have an EGR system. Just adding to the knowledge bank.

Were'nt those ECVT trans offered only on the Justy?

And manual trans is more reliable than auto trans. What do you think 777 ?

One simple test you could do yourself. Put your multimeter at Volt AC and connect the positive lead to the Alt output and the other one to ground. If you get more than .5 volt AC it's a sure sign the alt rectifier (diodes) is failing. It's often the diodes that fail first (I think) in an alternator. But consider that if this test is OK it does'nt mean the rest of the alt is OK. Just one easy test you can do.

Thanks for the relply Renaissance Man. Wish i had access to a place like yours. Lincoln makes a «portable» tig welder I'd like to get my hands on if I could find a used one. Very expensive. But it can weld as low as 9 amps. Do you hear me Santa? :santa:

One of my fellow worker did it successfully on his son's Mazda with a substandard spring compressor (told me he did'nt like ithe feeling at all) and he's more of a carpenter than a mechanic. I think that with a safe spring compressor ( the one loaned by C Tire seems to be of that kind: two different parts safely hooking the top and bottom coils of the spring on each side) and with reasonnable care, this is not something foolhardy to do by a competent do-it-yourselfer. But I guess that's subjective.

In case the internal email system does'nt work, I'd be interested in knowing more about your tig welder. Make, price, amp range. Satisfied? Strenght and weaknesses (if any)? Also what kind of milling machine you used. Thanks in advance.

If i read you correctly, you have trouble removing not the stud (part of the joint that goes thru the lower arm ) but the head or ball of the joint (part that fits inside the knuckle). All I can tell you is what I did when I had that same problem (once with my Loyale and once with the Legacy) Beside what you're already doing, 1) find something heaftier than a screwdrive to open that part of the knuckle that holds the joint. I used something resembling a small crow bar. 2) take a metal chisel and use it with a medium size hammer to hit downward on the part of the joint that's already out of the knuckle. In my case, it was a mixture of things like these that finally succeded. Good luck?

1)Costs: go to this adress and find what they're asking for OEM struts for your car. This will give you a price for comparison. https://www.1stsubaruparts.com/ 2) Doable by a shade tree mechanic? I think so, I'm one myself and I'm ready to do them on my Legacy the minute they give any sign of failing. If you have access to a good spring compressor (look for a thread on this page titled «borrow tools for free) and at least to a Haynes manual, it's not a very difficult repair. 3) I would wait for the struts to show some signs of wear before replacing them. They give advance warning and this give you time to order the parts and prepare. My car is a 96 (200,000 kilometers) with what I was told are the original struts and they are still working perfectly. My 2 cents.

Inquired recently about a spring compressor to remove and install springs on struts (will be doing this on my car). They had three available. Same system Snotrocket wrote about: you pay for it and they give you back your money when you bring it back. No need to buy the parts there.

Right for no reservation. But in Montreal, at the store near where I live, they almost always have a full selection of loaners.

Canadian Tire store offers the same service.

Strange that you guys seems to have more trouble removing the stud or tail of the joint from the lower arm and less with the pinch bolt holding the ball of the joint. In my case, it's always the reverse. No problem with popping the tail or stud but mucho aggravation when the pinch bolt turn comes. Two times I had to drill thru the pinch bolt and replace with a longer bolts with lock nut.

Beware of the pinch bolt. Often rust welded (water and salt can get in there at three different places). Mucho penetrating oil and heat may be needed. These bolts break easily if you apply too much pressure with a «breaker» bar... I already had to drill thru two of them one on my Loyale and one on my Legacy. But maybe rust has thrown a curse on me. :boohoo:

...and torsion bar bushings. Thanks subu luvr, i also have a clunk and can use some help in completing my list of possible causes.

The cigarette lighter hot wire is probably the easiest to tap.

I dont know how that compares to after market but you can order an OEM pump (91 Loyale) online at 1stSubaruparts for 65$ USD. Did business with them twice and am very satisfied with the prices and shipping speed.