AWD AT -- 95 Legacy LSi

[tugger]

hey all,
So I just bought my first Subaru a week ago, and it runs great, nice and tight, and
that's with almost 200K on the odometer. Was very well maintained, and I'm going
see the mechanic in the morning for the smog ck and arrange for the tranny swap.
Car drives great, going forward, but no reverse gear. I have to be REAL careful when
parking.
My plan is to have the shop install a JDM trans. I had a recommendation for a place up
in the Seattle area, Foreign Engine. They quoted me $595, including shipping. Got the rec. from a member over on soobymod.com. I may have actually hit a link to this site
while on Soobymod.
I'll try to pay attention to postings referring to electirical glitches and offer any advice I can. I gotta familiarize myself with Subies. so I'm gonna track down factory manuals and stuff. if anybody needs electrical diagrams pre-1989, I probably have it my old Mitchell mnauls. Jeez, I never sell anything!

wil...burr
aka tugger

[SubiFlow]

Welcome! passing smog should be no problem, when I bought mine in Cotati we took it down the street to smog it, and it passed no sweat. when I had the seals replace the mech said the one of the plugs was not in all the way and had been shorting the plug wire on the block! these are great cars.

[Huffer]

You could always fix the tranny. JDM auto trannies aren't that great.

Probably just a broken lever or shifter linkage of some kind. Wouldn't take that much work from a transmission shop?

Oh well, welcome.

Crack open the old g-box when the new transmission is in. I want to see the innards.

[SubiFlow]

Also you might want to check the SF Craigslist, seems to be quite a few cars to pick from.

[tugger]

yeah, my initial guess was that it was probably something that wouldn't require the complete rebuild or replace, but going uphill from a dead stop I get some shuddering noises. I'm running on borrowed time with it right now I think. I don't have my shop anymore, so I don't have the area, and really the time, to play around with it. I miss my garage. :evil: I'll try to get a picture of the guts when I get a chance to crack it open.
haven't really found any parts and stuff I need on CL (other that the car itself of course), but eBay has been, well, eBay. smog was a piece of cake.
I've got some pictures of some of my old iron I used to have as well as some that I've worked on. I'll try to post a few.

cheerz, tugger

[Wiscon_Mark]

I think you should manual transmission swap :D

[tugger]

hmmmm....5 speed would be that much closer to perfection. what are the perils of doing that? :?

[Wiscon_Mark]

the perils are time (if you do it yourself) and/or money (if someone else does it...

I'll see if I can dig up the AT--->MT swap DIY guide up for you.

[Huffer]

AT/MT swap not worth it unless you're upping the power - swapping to a WRX/STi engine/drivetrain.

Too much fabbing around for so little gain.

Legacycentral has a pretty good write up on the AT to MT swap.

xcntrk75 did one, but he also converted the car to an STi.

[tugger]

yeah, I kinda ruminated upon this last night, and while tempting, it's just not practical for this car and my best use of it. especially without dropping in at least a 2.5 with some oomph. whileit runs great and has all the goody options (leather, sunroof, alloys, goods sound) it hasn't led a gentile life. fortunately though it was very well maintained, and I met the regular mechanic for the past five yrs yesterday, and I'm sticking with this guy.

thanks for the feedback y'all!

tugger :twisted:

[Wiscon_Mark]

IMO, the EJ22 is a better block than the EJ25, but that's just me ;)

From a performance aspect, an manual isn't that much of an advantage, but its a heck of a lot more fun! :D