PostalLeggy

That would be awesome if you could get me some part numbers! I don't mind ordering parts from Aus if it comes down to it. The jeeps people out here use tend to either be RHD or LHD with a conversion kit on them that takes the steering and pedals over to the right. I personally own a 1995 Jeep Cherokee that was imported (repatriated!) Back to the US from Japan. I've had multiple "jeep guys" offer to buy it off me or ask me where I got it just because they like the novelty of a RHD jeep. The newer jeeps are very likely just pulled right off the line for your market or possibly the UK or Japan. Mine is pretty broken at the moment, once the Subaru is all squared away I need to start digging into all of the jeeps problems so I can have it as a backup rig. The Subaru gets about twice the mileage that the jeep does, and we get paid pretty generously for our mileage (around 81 cents per mile last I checked) so the better the economy the more money we can pocket. Surprising to hear that you guys don't have LHD vehicles for your posties! I guess you guys have some pretty strict emissions laws and stuff out there, I imagine that importing a USDM vehicle is probably a nightmare. We certainly have carriers out here who deliver out of a left hand vehicle. I know a couple who sit in the middle, operate the pedals with their left foot and the steering with their left arm while delivering out the right. Scary stuff!

One thing it doesn't do very well is nice deep ditches. Oops! That's what I get for pulling forward away from a mailbox while looking over my shoulder for oncoming traffic

My daily work rig that's needed basically everything replaced. Harmonic balancer, crank pully, transmission, ECU, TCU, door latches, window switches, hood, a door... The original steel wheels on it were so rusty that they had large chunks of steel missing from them! Don't ask me how the underside isn't solid rust. Seems like it has low compression on a cylinder, it's probably destined to not have power steering for the near future, I've been unable to get the cruise control to work despite my best efforts... But at the end of the day I love it and I can't help but throw various little odds and ends at it whenever I get the chance. Hopefully I am gonna find a nice clean white facelifted car at the junkyard someday soon so I can grab some facelift fenders and lights! Already have the turbo bumper and a facelift grill, but the car I was pulling parts off of had pretty rusted out fenders... Would also like to put forester suspension in it to help with delivering to those hard to reach mailboxes. The 16's gave it a little more height but a couple more inches would be amazing.

Thanks for diggin' around for me Bennie! I ended up having to slap the rack back together (with copious amounts of grease) without resealing it as I need the car for work the next couple days. I think right now I am going to continue driving it without power steering until I work out a better solution. I have a buddy with a machine shop and I am considering having him make me a new custom retaining gland that fits the larger seals so I don't need to do this wild goose chase for the correct seal every time I need to reseal the rack. I can just have him copy the two piece design that the LHD racks use but in the slightly smaller dimensions that the RHD rack calls for. In any case I am glad that some sort of important research has been done here. It's really sad that Subaru doesn't make these parts anymore, as these cars are still extremely valuable assets to rural mail carriers all around the nation. Even the people I know driving brand new Jeeps and such tell me how much they miss their subarus...

Total time to get it out of the car and get it torn apart was probably an hour, not long at all. Once you know how they come apart it goes pretty easily. I did spend a good three or four hours last night looking at various RHD racks out of later models and i'll be darned if they don't look like they have the same mounting setup as the earlier ones, and I have seen some chatter about people being able to swap 2000's racks into their mid 90's cars, so there is hope there. I am not entirely convinced that the rack that I am currently dealing with isn't one out of a later model car or something like that. It's entirely possible that in this car's 200k miles of mail delivery this isn't the first time it has needed a steering rack! I believe that the rod diameters are all just a little bit different between the two, just enough for the seals to not fit quite right between them. I was planning on going out today and seeing if I can find any auto parts stores that sell seals that might work for me. What a headache! I've seen a few RHD racks up in Canada that look like they will fit and I am honestly tempted to drive up there (around 5-6 hours) just so I can compare them to mine and see if they would work. I'm a little desperate at this point! Is there a difference between the 89-93 and the 94-96 steering racks? The car I pulled the junkyard rack out of was a 94 and that does sort of make me wonder if the early 90's racks are just different? But if that was the case you'd expect that I should be able to find a reseal kit for them, yeah?

Importing stuff is always an option but as you said it's just the dollarydoos. Our import laws only let us bring in vehicles that are 25 years and older, so a 1997 is the newest vehicle that could be imported. A lot of mail carriers do that, in fact. I work with someone who is in a Japanese land cruiser. The gen 1 I have is sort of special because it was built for the USDM and has spent it's entire life here in the states delivering mail. I already have a lot of money sank into the legacy so it's sort of a sunk cost situation with me wanting to get it squared away. Gonna see if I can find out what the heck this rack is and get me some seals for it, if not importing a rack might be my only other option.

Making a new thread on this for visibility. I just tore apart the steering rack on my 1991 RHD Legacy to find that the internals were quite different from the LHD version that I pulled a junkyard rack out of. Unfortunately this means that the reseal kit I bought is useless to me and I am now trying to figure out if this RHD rack is maybe out of a different model of Subaru and was simply reused for the RHD version? My car was made for the USDM if that helps... On the right is the seal and its retaining gland that I pulled out of my rack, and on the left is the one out of the legacy rack I pulled from the junkyard. As you can see they are quite different and it's got me scratching my head on how I can get this rack resealed and put back together in time for work this weekend and not have to bite the bullet and put it back together without resealing it. I would hate to have to get it aligned only to have to tear it all back out again in the near future.

Unfortunately the parts are all different between the two racks... right down to the point where the reseal kit I purchased won't work on my rack. I'm now in a bit of a predicament as I have work in 4 days and a rack that is completely torn down with no way of me resealing it. Attached are some photos that show the difference between these racks. I'm not sure if I can even buy a reseal kit for it, or if it's something I would need to import. Even the Teflon seals are a different width.

True, true. Updated my profile to reflect that I live in the former.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply Bennie, it's awesome that I now have a contact of sorts in Australia! The key difference that I have seen between the early Legacy/Liberty racks and the later model ones is that the later ones appear to have spots where they slide onto studs, and the early ones have brackets and bolts that attach them to the crossmember. I can certainly understand that shipping things across the ocean can quickly get very expensive, especially something as unwieldy as a steering rack. Even with the tie rods removed they are big long bastards. Looking at the two links you provided, the first one doesn't appear to have any gen-1 Libertys in stock, but the second one does. They have three of them, but none of them appear to be in Geelong unfortunately. I've started slowly disassembling the LHD rack that I got from the junkyard out here, and maybe at some point this week if I am feeling brave I will remove the rack from my car and take it apart as well. Was the first gen of the liberty just not that popular out there? It is really a headscratcher to me that LHD steering racks are available but RHD (which is the cars default layout...) is not available new. Certainly strange.

Hey Bennie! If there is a speed sensor on the back of the cluster, I didn't see it or see any connectors for it at all. Is it a part of the cluster itself? My speedo is just a cable going into the transmission above the right hand CV axle. The only reason I have went with the OEM cruise control is because I saw that my car had all the connections for it and what little I read indicated that it was 'plug and play'. I have tried cruise computers out of a 91 and a 93. Currently have the computer out of the 91 installed, so the exact year that my car is.

I bought a seal kit and as far as I know all the seals are the same. Guess we will find out soon, as I just picked up a LHD rack from the junkyard today. Gonna start tearing into it soon and get some experience taking one apart before I dive into the unreplaceable one that my entire job currently depends on... No pressure.

Looking at those writeups, I honestly feel like I might be able to swap internals like I am thinking. I can sort of picture those parts just working in either orientation.

One other thought is that I have done the 4WD lockup switch modification, and every time I start the car it throws a TCU code 16 via the "power" light. I'm wondering if cruise control won't work if the car detects any latent transmission faults? Might go quickly undo that mod just to see if that resolves the problem... Still scratching my head over this one.

I as well as another postal carrier I know have RHD Gen 1 legacies that are in need of steering racks that just don't exist anymore. I have very little experience with steering racks in general but one thought I had was if the internals on them are the same, I can purchase LHD racks and repair RHD ones. Mine just needs a reseal as far as I know but the other carrier has a large dead spot in hers and has had the car parked for years because the rack is basically "unobtanium". Even searching auto parts retailers in Australia and New Zealand, I can't seem to find anyone selling racks for this car! Another thought was maybe trying to adapt the rack out of a newer RHD Subaru so it fits. I am not afraid of welding and fabricating mounting hardware if it comes to that. If anyone has experience in this department I would love to hear about it! I'm going to try to convince the other carrier to let me tear into her RHD rack after I pick up a used LHD one from the local junkyard.