Ravenwoods

I got them from Rock Auto, an online business. Are they considered reputable? Anyway, yesterday afternoon after work, my car had been plugged in for 8 hours. Standard winterization here is an engine oil heater and a block heater. Some cars also have a battery warmer and and heater for the Automatic Transmission fluid. So it started nicely at -38 F with no misfires. It had been plugged in for 4 hours before I started it yesterday morning. So it seems to like the 8 hours of plug-in time much better. So I plugged it in last night for about 8 hours. No misfires this morning. Also it has warmed up to a balmy -30.

Yes, installed in 2019.

Thanks! I'm not sure where the check valve is or the booster line. Will this require bleeding the brakes? My plugs are the standared NGK plugs recommended for this engine (BKR6E-11). Are those the copper ones you suggested?

Here in Fairbanks, Alaska we are currently "enjoying" some cold weather down in the negative 30s. My 95 Legacy (AT) with 191,000 miles runs great when it is warmer that -30, but at this colder temperature the brakes frequently will act like the engine is off, and then suddenly be near normal. This does not seem to be normal even at this temperature. I have to press real hard and there is little braking. Fortunately no close calls yet. At warmer temperature when it is warmer than -20 it will do this first thing in the morning and then be normal the rest of the day. I'm also getting a misfire code for cylinder 2. A few weeks ago when we had our last cold snap I got a misfire code on cylinder 3. The plug wires looked old so I checked the resistance and one wire was real high so I put on new NGK wires. Last summer I put in new NGK plugs. At warmer temperatures I don't get this misfire. At 2500 rpm the misfire appears to go away but at idle it comes back.

The manual for my 1995 Legacy L has a section called: ”Towing with front wheels raised off the ground.” It then says to “Never tow manual transmission AWD vehicles with the front wheels raised off the ground.” Then it says: ”If your vehicle is AWD with automatic transmission put a spare fuse inside the FWD connector located in the engine compartment and confirm that the Front-wheel drive warning light comes on. Release the parking brake and put the transmission in neutral. The Ignition switch should be in the ACC position while the vehicle is being towed.” Under using the spare tire section it doesn’t mention FWD at all.

Three months ago I got a 95 Legacy wagon with AT, my first Subaru with AT. Now that I’ve finished fixing it up (new struts, new tires, timing belt kit, replaced most fluids, fixed hole in exhaust pipe, new climate control switch, replaced blower motor, new spark plugs) the car is running great with 188,000 miles. I looked in the manual to read instructions on the FWD option. It only mentions it in regards to towing the car. I had read on the web some places where people suggest you should use it if you have the spare tire on. Some people suggest it would be harmful to the car if you put it in FWD for the summer for improved fuel economy. So what is the truth about using the FWD option? It seems the manual would give explicit instructions about this if it could be detrimental to the differential.

Well we took the car into a mechanic that specializes in Subarus to get this car sorted out. They said it was a weird interesting case. After a couple hours of labor they determined that it was an electrical problem. They surmise there is corrosion between the transmission and the engine causing a voltage drop. The ground cable from the battery goes to the transmission. So they put on a “bandaid” short ground cable from the transmission to the engine. My daughter reports the car is now behaving normally and appears ready her upcoming road trip from Fairbanks to Anchorage in about a week. Thanks everyone for the advice and suggestions on diagnosing this. I learned a lot more about working on our five elderly Subarus (95-98) as a result of this frustrating problem. It should help me in the future keeping them all going.

Okay thanks.

Ok, I haven’t had time for a few weeks to try and sort this car out. My daughter has been using my spare car in the meantime. So today I started looking very closely at all the vacuum hoses to see if I missed something. The hose that goes to the PCV seems a bit loose on one end. Could an air leak there cause major misbehaving? If so it might be able to explain the intermittent nature of the problem. Maybe it seals there sometimes and then other times not.

What about a fuel pump relay? If the fuel pump relay is going bad where would I find it?

How do you go about checking the TPS? What kind of scope does one use? I did a 6 mile test drive this morning and it drove perfectly. So I had my daughter pick it up and she said during a short drive it was not entirely symptom free.

I replaced the belt and tensioner today with no improvement. I had already swapped out the MAF with a 95 AT Legacy which did not seem to help. So today I took a different MAF from a different 95 AT Legacy and neither car has any bad behaviors with the swapped MAF sensors. All the MAF Sensors have different numbers on them. Very strange how the problem suddenly disappears from time to time.

Our 96 Legacy starts well, not at all like this video.

Swapping the ECUs only causes neither car to run. It seems the ECUs are different.

Here is the 2D ECU

I finally had a chance to swap the ECU from a 95 Legacy into the 96 Legacy. Our problem car, the 96 now doesn’t start at all. The 96 had the 8D ECU. The 95 has the 2D ECU.

We have four Legacies in our family (95-96). I picked up one recently as a backup car that I can fix up. It has a knock sensor trouble code so I pulled the knock sensor today and discovered it has a different connection than the other cars. A big connection just like our 98 Forester. I had ordered a replacement sensor and was going to put it in today. So are the connections not Standard? Should I get a knock sensor for a 98 Forester?

So we want to check the timing belt to make sure the lines and marks are all aligned correctly?

No. How do you flash the ECU? How do you check the timing? I looked at live data with the OBD2 code reader and It says Ignition Advance is 14 degrees when the engine is warm and idling in contrast to the other Legacies which read 20 degrees.

We installed new NGK plugs six months ago. New wires too.

My daughter’s 96 Legacy Brighton (MT, 119,000 miles) has been acting up for months now. There are no trouble codes. I looked at live data with the OBDII reader and noticed Ignition Advance is 14 degrees when the engine is warm and idling. So I Looked at live data from two other Legacies (1995) and their Ignition Advance is 20 degrees when warm and idling. Is this a clue as to what the problem is? Swapped out the following parts from our 95 Legacy to try and find the fault but nothing helps: MAF, Coolant Temperature Sensor, Knock Sensor, Camshaft Position Sensor, Crankshaft Position Sensor, Fuel pump. The problem is rather intermittent. Sometimes real bad and other times hardly misbehaves. It stalls out while driving but the engine doesn’t usually die. It jerks etc. It acts like either suddenly there is no fuel or no spark in all cylinders.

I swapped the fuel pump and there is no improvement.

We replaced the coolant temperature sensor but there was no improvement. We still don’t have any trouble codes. So I swapped out the following sensors from a 95 Legacy one at a time with no improvement: Knock sensor, camshaft Position sensor, crankshaft angle sensor. Now I’m planning on swapping the fuel pump too. Any other suggestions?

Thanks everyone for the help and advice. I jacked up the car today and the left cv was broken. I put in a old functional cv axle to test the car out and it drives normally. I bought it for $425. The engine is strong. Check Engine light is off but I attached my code reader and there are 4-5 codes, such as cylinder misfire. I’m assuming new plugs and wires will sort that out. Our family now has three 1995 Legacies, a 96 Legacy, and a 1998 Forester S. So this new Legacy will be the backup car for when one of the others needs work done on it. The Forester needs work now so it’s going to be sitting around for a bit.