steering went tight

[RH45]

I have a 1997 legacy wagon that my daughter usually drives, and last week I was going to take it to work but I couldn't turn the steering wheel. At first, I thought it was locked, in the column, but, I found that if I turned really hard, I could turn it. I had just driven it the night before.
After a few days of troubleshooting, I found the problem in the coupler that's between the steering column, and the steering gear. According to one of my local wheel alignment shops, it's a pretty common problem with Subarus.

[Huffer]

First time I've ever heard of it.
Exactly what broke?

[dankoneon81]

No kidding. The rag joint(I know thats not the real name) went bad? pic?

[RH45]

Nothing actually broke yet, but, when the temp. drops below freezing, the coupler, that looks like two universal joints with a short rod between them, gets so tight that I can barely turn the steering wheel with both hands.

I thought that maybe moisture got in to it, but, I had a hair dryer pointed at it for hours, and it didn't help once it got cold again. The theroy I got from a mechanic is that one of the bearings is going bad and shrinks up just enough when it's cold to bind up.

[RH45]

My new steering coupler showed up yesterday and even though the temp last night was about -40, with the wind chill, it turned fine today!!

[Wiscon_Mark]

Yeah, it's cold up here.

Good to hear you got it solved. I'd never heard of that being a common Subaru problem either.