93 legacy wagon no reverse

[cw2]

Need help here for a friend. 93 AWD legacy wagon has 185,000 miles on it. Last January it started the dreaded binding in driveline. It almost quit binding after it was driven awhile. So they kept driving it. Now it has no reverse. I finally got to take it to a subaru dealer mechcanic and he put the fuse in it to take it out of AWD. It stopped binding. It goes forward and shifts fine. Just does not want to back up in reverse,it will go into reverse and back up only when its on a flat road. Also when you stop and put it into park its like everything in the driveline is tight untill you shut off the engine. Then it just feels like everything in the driveline releases. I have a good feeling that the binding of the transfer clutch is what is makeing the tranny fail. Do you think there is any hope for this car as they might be wanting me to take it off there hands for free. I found a tranny for 400 dollars with 127.000 miles on it. Just not sure yet if it would be worth fixing . Its had regular oil changes at every 3000 miles and the motor runs great. I never owned a subie before, and the owner will probably want it back if i do all the dirty work. What do you think i should do with the sweet legs i c.

[Spazz698]

sounds like the tranny is having problems from the binding, but Ive never heard of it just losing reverse. If they give you the car free I'd pick it up, you shouldnt be spending half the car's worth on parts, just remember you'll still need to deal with the torque bind after you swap the tranny. I'd take it to a good shop and get a thurough diagnosis on it and go from there, many places will do the diagnosis for a fee then deduct it from the actual work done on it. Dont know if youre doing this yourself or not but I would take it to a shop to get looked at so you dont end up doing the "replace this part and see if this works" deal, it can get spendy.

 

PS if you do pick it up and fix it, make sure you get the paperwork done on it before putting money into the car. Then if the guy wants it back tell him it'll cost him the amount you put into it, and another couple hundred for being the middle man

[cw2]

Thanks Spazz for your reply, i have looked for this type of problem in the forums here and did not see anything about just loseing just reverse in here either. Thats why i was wondering if it might not be the tranny , or just something easy to fix on the tranny. The tranny doesnt make any noise, just doesnt back up in reverse. Could a broken axle do that. Just guessing.

[Legacy777]

Your tranny is probably going south. I've heard of others loosing just one gear/reverse. Eventually the problems will spread.

 

Your probablem is more then likely in the valve body. You could try having it flushed....maybe something got lodged in there.