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01 Forester vehicle speed gear stripped


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Hey has anyone seen/fixed the drive gear for the vehicle speed sensor on a manual transmission? The car is a 01 forester. I was getting a vehicle speed sensor code and there was no spedo. replaced the speed sensor... still no spedo. swapped in a couple used ones...same result. Then I noticed that every time the drive gear was in the same position. stuck a screwdriver in it and it turns. I checked a couple transmissions that i have on the floor and the gear won't spin. Seems like a stripped gear to me. thanks

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Yeah that little gear is plastic and runs off the pinion shaft.... I'm sorry to inform you that you have to split the case to replace it. It is impossible to change the driven gear from outside of the transmission.

 

It can be done on the auto's - but the 5MT is a different animal and that little $10 gear requires about $800 in labor to replace :o

 

GD

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best and cheapest to replace the trans with one from a junkyard. Should have a 30 day warranty from most yards so if that speedo unit is bad in it too, keep trying til you get a good one. Make sure you keep the ratio right for the rear diff.

 

Or you can buy the parts for about 45 bucks and split the case yourself and be done.

 

the drive gear is is about 30 and the driven gear about 10, well those are prices for the automatics, but the manual is bound to be somewhat same for price.

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guess its not your case, but if its any help for others...

 

in my gen 1 legacy, what i thought initially to be a stripped gear turned out to be the short flex cable not engaging. the small rubber washer under the threaded plastic plug had swollen and pushed the tongue out of engagement. the short cable was very difficult to turn too and needed tons of spray grease, WD40 , etc to get free again.

 

simply mounted it all back lubed and without the rubberized washer and it worked fine again.

 

TG

 

PS - this sure reminds me that i better lube that short cable in my new gen 2 ASAP as preventive maintenance!

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nice surprise indeed!

 

as my car has a mechanical rather than digital mile counter, was sure the drive would be by cable but instead, yep! there's an electronic sensor indeed in place of a cable at the G'box exit....

 

must wonder why foresters where fitted with a cable five years later.

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95 legacy's have vss's instead of a cable. They're actually a great year. Roller rockers with hydraulic lash adjusters in the heads, dual port exhaust, and non-interference. They're also OBD-II compliant so a modern cheap scan tool works with them, but OBD-II exempt from emissions inspection because the monitors reset every time you shut the key off.

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95 legacy's have vss's instead of a cable. They're actually a great year. Roller rockers with hydraulic lash adjusters in the heads, dual port exhaust, and non-interference. They're also OBD-II compliant so a modern cheap scan tool works with them, but OBD-II exempt from emissions inspection because the monitors reset every time you shut the key off.

 

96 is exempt too because the monitors reset improperly. Although not exempt from tailpipe testing if your state does that crap.

95 annoys me because the wiring is weird/different from the rest of the 2nd gen legacys, and I really dislike HLAs...

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nice that people are knocking off 2nd gen 95' legs, but still, the german TUV reliability site gave that model 4th place ranking of ALL cars in the german market at the time :) , better than any gen 1 and gen 3.... (and you can trust that site on getting their statistics right and that's up against plenty of Mercedes and BMW out there)

 

http://www.anusedcar.com/index.php/tuv-model/subaru-legacy

 

see 95' models towards bottom of the page ;)

 

in any case, good to know that i have no speedo cable to lube!

 

TG

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  • 2 months later...
You could also use an aftermarket cruise control speed sensor pickup to do the same job. They attach to the rear driveshaft. Get the pulses per turn right and the speedo will be accurate again.

 

does anybody know how to do this, my VSS is wack on my 98 5MT,

 

got a code for both VSS when checked. hate to throw money into a sensor and it be in the tranny.

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does anybody know how to do this, my VSS is wack on my 98 5MT,

 

got a code for both VSS when checked. hate to throw money into a sensor and it be in the tranny.

 

Take the sensor out and look if the thing is turning in the transmission.

If it is, it's probably the censor or wiring.

I actually just got a VSS today for $15 at a local yard, they don't fail often. So used is a good route.

 

Are you getting a p0500? I had this issue, and wrote a fix for it.

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=119744

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i read that before and actually tried it on the P0500 but no avail...

 

i get the P0500 and P1540...

 

and i have no idea on how to try to get that sensor out...

 

Start by PB blastering it every day for a week.

Those suckers are in there tight, and a crappy place to get to with the transmission in the car.

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what works the easiest on breaking it loose after the pb blaster...

 

A 17mm wrench. Unless someone has a better decision.

If you don't care about destroying the censor, you could always just grab it with vicegrips and rip it out.

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any idea what color wire the vss is in the wiring harness.....i've noticed a single white/ black stripe wire in the underdash harness that isn't attached to anything, like its been ripped out

 

Does it have a single pin connector on one end? Often there are diag connectors under the dash, I'm not sure on that car what colour it would be, etc.

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