lolsvx
12-15-2015, 01:47 AM
Okay, not really woes. I bought a 1999 Legacy anniversary edition last year for $400 on Dec. 7th, and I beat the piss out of it in the woods and in rivers and it's still going strong. Had 157k, now up to 163k. All I've had to do in maintenance was one oil change (but lots of new oil. It changes itself slowly) and 4 spark plugs. Due to learning experiences, I had to replace the ECU and the transmission, but we don't count that. It was the river's fault. Anyway, since I owned it, it's had the same, odd issue. It should be said that BOTH transmissions have caused the same issue as well, ruling out the actual transmission itself being the problem.
When I'm on a flat surface, the car will accelerate and I can get to highway speeds. It takes a little while, but it gets there. It doesn't have much torque at all though. Cruising is pretty easy for it. I drove it to New York from Pittsburgh and it did just fine. Going up hills, however, almost kills it. I have to FLY towards the hill going 85mph and can barely squeeze out 45mph at the crest before hopefully getting a flat stretch. It just feels odd, like it has no torque whatsoever. It will also go into an overdrive (tq locking?) in each gear, even if I manually select the gear, which makes going up hills even harder. It will be climbing at 3500, then smoothly drop down to 2900 and make it harder on the poor thing. As it climbs, it just seems to slow down no matter what I do with the gas. It feels like I'm pressing the clutch in slowly on a manual to make it slip, but the rpms go down, not up. It also shifts weird, usually 4-2-3 really fast when I give it about half throttle. On my old transmission, this SLAMMED into gear, but it's smooth on the new one, but it still does it. Now, when we did the tranny swap, my original trans was paired to my 2.2, and the donor trans was from a 2.5 so it had a different size torque converter to match the slightly bigger flex plate of the 2.5. We were short on time and resources and had to reuse my old torque converter since it was the only thing that matched up to the flex plate. Was this a no-no? I put fresh and clean fluid in it. I do remember being able to shake it while holding it, and it sounded like there were loose pieces inside, but I didn't know if that was normal or not.
Does this sound like a TCU issue or a torque converter issue? It's not internal to the transmission since it's duplicating the exact same results both times. I'm just trying to see if this has happened to anyone else and if there is an easy fix. Hopefully it's as easy as the TCU, cause I really don't want to pull the trans again... Also, for what it's worth, the car did this with the baby oem 195 65 15's and does it with the current 225 75 15's and feels the same. Pic for reference. His name is Paul.
https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2015/12/12298825_1643003309306772_1588768860_n-1.jpg
When I'm on a flat surface, the car will accelerate and I can get to highway speeds. It takes a little while, but it gets there. It doesn't have much torque at all though. Cruising is pretty easy for it. I drove it to New York from Pittsburgh and it did just fine. Going up hills, however, almost kills it. I have to FLY towards the hill going 85mph and can barely squeeze out 45mph at the crest before hopefully getting a flat stretch. It just feels odd, like it has no torque whatsoever. It will also go into an overdrive (tq locking?) in each gear, even if I manually select the gear, which makes going up hills even harder. It will be climbing at 3500, then smoothly drop down to 2900 and make it harder on the poor thing. As it climbs, it just seems to slow down no matter what I do with the gas. It feels like I'm pressing the clutch in slowly on a manual to make it slip, but the rpms go down, not up. It also shifts weird, usually 4-2-3 really fast when I give it about half throttle. On my old transmission, this SLAMMED into gear, but it's smooth on the new one, but it still does it. Now, when we did the tranny swap, my original trans was paired to my 2.2, and the donor trans was from a 2.5 so it had a different size torque converter to match the slightly bigger flex plate of the 2.5. We were short on time and resources and had to reuse my old torque converter since it was the only thing that matched up to the flex plate. Was this a no-no? I put fresh and clean fluid in it. I do remember being able to shake it while holding it, and it sounded like there were loose pieces inside, but I didn't know if that was normal or not.
Does this sound like a TCU issue or a torque converter issue? It's not internal to the transmission since it's duplicating the exact same results both times. I'm just trying to see if this has happened to anyone else and if there is an easy fix. Hopefully it's as easy as the TCU, cause I really don't want to pull the trans again... Also, for what it's worth, the car did this with the baby oem 195 65 15's and does it with the current 225 75 15's and feels the same. Pic for reference. His name is Paul.
https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2015/12/12298825_1643003309306772_1588768860_n-1.jpg