AWD & 5MT Swap Journal
Return to Swap Intro
Donor car tear down
Start of work on my Legacy
Transmission Installed
Swap Completed
Tweaking the bugs out
It begins. I started tearing the donor 1990 wagon apart today. I had the rear crossmember & differential member out in
about 2 hours. The gas tank, and transmission were out in another 5-6 hours. I think most if not all the bolts were 10,
12, 14, 17, or 19mm. So with just those sizes, you can take apart nearly the whole car. Air tools helped dramatically!!
We had some issues with the driver's CV axle. The roll pin would not come out of the axle. We ended up leaving it in the
transmission and lowered everything down. I've got all the bolts pretty much accounted for except for one small bolt and
nut. Not bad, considering there is no drivetrain left in the car.
One thing I did notice so far is that the rear differential mount is different then the current WRX STi mount. So I'll
either need to buy bushings, or I may look and see about drilling new holes in the crossmember.
Next on the list: I still need to pull the flywheel and some other miscellaneous parts off the donor car. I'd like to
get the wagon out of the garage, so I have some room to clean the parts up, and continue working. Once I have things
organized and setup for the swap into my car, I'll bring my car in and start tearing it apart. I'm planning to finish
swapping the gas tank, rear crossmember, and differential member before I mess with the transmission.
I've got some of the issues worked out. The rear differential mount issue: There are apparently three different types of
rear differential bushings. For the 1990-1994 Legacies & 1993-1994 Imprezas Subaru used a bracket that mounted to the
differential and crossmember. From 1995-2001 the bushings were in the crossmember itself. In 2002 Subaru went back to the
bracket, however it's a different size and shape then the old bracket. Since Rallispec
said they would have to order the correct bushings (they don't sell the bracket for the older models) from Japan.
I opted to just leave the stock mount alone for now. I need to have the rear axles rebuilt. However
Cvaxles.com does not have any rear axles in stock, so I have to send them
mine to get rebuilt, and hope that they are rebuildable.
Lessons learned: Even if you think you're not going to use a part don't go banging on it with a sledge, use a block of
wood! I marred up the end of one of the axles. I had to grind down the end so the axle nut would fit over. Not a big
deal. However, I did mess up one of the wheel studs too.
Well I finished pulling all the stuff out of the wagon. There may be a few little things here and there, but it's ready to get out of the garage. I think I figured a way to get it out since it has nothing in the rear end. I'm going to get two furniture dollies and build a little deck out of 2x4's to fill in the hole in the middle. Then set the jack stands on there and push the car out. I'm hoping to get it out on Friday, then on Saturday I'm going to clean up some of the parts and probably straighten things up a bit in the garage before I start putting some of the performance parts on the parts I took off, and eventually start work on my car.
8/12/2004I didn't mention it yesterday, but I ran into an issue with parts fitment. There is a fuel separator canister on the AWD cars that is mounted on the inside of the right rear fender. It is however different between the sedans & wagons. This presented a problem, since I needed it for my swap. However upon closer inspection, and talking to some people today, it looks like what's going on is there are two vent lines coming out of the top of the tank. They go into the bottom of the separator, and the third line is tied to the charcoal canister, which sucks vapors from the top of the separator. What I can do is just use a brass T or manifold of some sorts and tie those three lines together. It shouldn't affect things at all. I just need to make sure to keep the height of the T as high as I can since there is a possibility of fuel going up the vent lines if you fill the tank very full. I've got some pictures of the separator and lines in the pictures section.
8/15/2004I spent Saturday cleaning things up a bit. I cleaned up all the parts I'm going to be using for the swap as best as I could as well as cleaned up the garage. It was quite a mess. I also moved the donor car out of the garage. That was a little interesting, since there was no rear end in it. A buddy came over to help. We used furniture dollies and jack stands. I'm hoping to get all the miscellaneous parts this week, and am planning on starting the tear down of my car next weekend.
8/17/2004I did some work on the rear hubs today. I removed the abs sensors, which were rusted in there. I pounded them out with a punch & hammer. Then took the tone wheel off. I had to cut them in half with the Dremel to get them off, since I didn't want to remove the hub. Why do this? I don't have abs, and I just didn't want them on there, hah! I took apart the parking brake assembly. I will probably leave it apart, and use the best parts between my car and the donor setup. Another plus, I don't have to swap parking brake cables. I pressed out the bushing on the hub with a 2-jaw puller (think that's what it's called, there's a picture of it in the pictures section). I am probably going to chisel off the shroud of the backing plate because I will be upgrading to the B4 rear vented rotors, and will need them off anyway. I took some pictures of the performance parts I'm putting on as well.
8/22/2004I started tear down of my car today. I removed the rear crossmember & fuel tank. It was pretty straightforward since I had done this before on the donor car. Tomorrow we start the assembly.
8/23/2004Let's see here...it's been one hell of a day. Let's start with the parts issues before I get into what happened today.
I ordered Whiteline subframe lock bolts & differential bushings over 2 weeks ago. I called the vendor today and
apparently there hasn't been a FedEx scan since the 11th. So they're "investigating" as we speak. I however need
those parts NOW. So I had him overnight me the parts. Of course it was on my dime. Assuming FedEx lost the package,
I will be calling and reaming someone a new asshole, and get them to refund or comp me some of my shipping money.
Next issue, ordered struts from Tirerack, got them Friday. The one
strut in the front was obviously installed before, or had tried to be installed. The strut was scratched up, and parts
were out of the little baggy. I called Tirerack up, and they were going
to send me another one. This isn't too big a deal, but still another thing to deal with.
Today...bushings...Oh do I hate bushings. They can go straight to hell!! I spent some time last night, and a good
portion of the morning trying to get the STi trailing link bushings in the hub. I was able to pop the stock one out
with my jaw puller. The STi ones wouldn't go in at all. I ran around to several different places, including the Subaru
dealership. The brilliant techs there told me I had the wrong bushings. I finally found a buddy who recommended me to
his buddy at a Dodge dealership. He said to put the bushings in the freezer. So I did that. I left them in there for
about 2 hours...no go. I'm going to leave them in overnight...if they haven't shrunk, I'm just going to take them to
him, and let him do them.
I found a machine shop that would do the front trailing link bushings. He said they were a major pain in the ass!
He spent 2 hours on them, making fixtures and such. They cost me 60 bucks to install, but I don't car at this point.
They're in!
This evening I was trying to keep busy, so I was going to work on the struts. Well smart me figured...."Hey I'll cut
the bump stops a little since I have lowered springs." Well the top of the bump stop is what keeps it at the top of the
shaft, so now it won't stay up...argh. Now I have to find another one. I'm hoping someone in town has one. I get to do
that tomorrow too...yay!
I just can't wait for the differential bushings...I bet those will be loads of fun. Not sure if the polyurethane
bushings will be any better/easier to work with then the Sti ones.
I hate bushings with an utter passion!! My suggestion to you is pay the money for the pieces that come with the
bushings already in them.
On a plus side...I got the gas tank from the AWD car in mine. It's all piped up, and I got the correct sedan fuel
separator installed as well. A buddy in Utah found one for me.
I also got the rear crossmember bolted up. However I don't want to torque it down without the subframe lock bolts.
So I can only go so far with that project. Plus the hubs need to be there so I can get those in along with all the
rest of the crap...it's just causing a major hold up in things.
I also trimmed the backing plates, so they're ready for the B4 rear rotors when I get to them. That's it for today.
Hope to make some progress tomorrow with things. If I get the hub bushings installed in the morning, and find a strut
boot, I'll probably start bolting up the rear crossmember, links, rear differential front member, and rear differential.
I'll just work on the small miscellaneous stuff when I get the remaining parts.
Well as much as yesterday sucked, today was pretty productive. The bushings were a no go. The guy who said to freeze them tried, and couldn't get them in. He said they are too tall in diameter, and too narrow in width. We put the old ones back in with relative ease. I have checked the hub design with a WRX, and the bushings are the same. I believe the issue is that you need a special tool to install the bushing. Anyway, got the subframe locks, put the differential, and entire rear suspension/drivetrain in. I also put the drum parking brakes back in. I hate drum brakes. I'm going to pull the automatic transmission tomorrow afternoon, and hopefully be able to put the manual transmission in on Thursday if I can find help.
8/25/2004Pulled the automatic transmission out of my car today. Wow that was a pain in the ass!! That thing is huge compared to the manual transmission, and weighs A LOT more. We bent one of the engine studs. I've been informed that I can use a pair of vice grips to get the bent one out. I don't think it's bent too badly, but I've got straight ones I can snag from the donor car, so I might as well.
8/26/2004I'm not sure what was more a pain in the ass, pulling the automatic transmission out or putting in the pedal system.
WOW!! I spent all day, 8-10 hours on the pedals. I took the front part of the car's interior apart, and also took
the automatic transmission's shifter out.
A little aside: I'm using a turbo Legacy transmission. This transmission uses a hydraulic clutch setup. All first
generation Legacies besides the turbos used cable operated clutches. In 1990 they did not offer a turbo model.
Soooo, the holes were not already drilled in the firewall for the clutch master cylinder. Also, from what I found out
today I think they modified the chassis's mounting bracket for the clutch pedal system. It shouldn't be an issue though.
Ok, back to today's work. I pulled the old pedals out, as well as the booster and brake master cylinder. I had to
lower the steering column just to get the new pedals in, and cut back the insulation. However I couldn't get things
lined up so I could drill the holes. So I pulled out the pedals, and made a template. I used this template to drill
out the holes for the clutch master cylinder. I was a little surprised that the holes were dead on. I'll probably
transfer the dimensions to AutoCAD or paper and make a little drawing and post the template for my final write-up.
Anyhoo, I got the pedals lined up and put in the single stage booster I bought. Got everything bolted up, installed
the brake & clutch sensors, and clevis pins. That was about it for today...really not all that much got done today,
but it was a hell of a lot of work.
Well I got the STi short shifter in today, along with the Exedy lightweight flywheel, and stock WRX clutch & pressure plate. I'm basically ready to put the transmission in, however I'm waiting for the clutch fork, so I can put it together. Hopefully it'll be here tomorrow. I'd like to get the transmission in this weekend. All I'll have left then is a few odd mechanical and electrical issues. I started looking at the electrical today, but I really need to test the wires and do some continuity tests...and that'll be a lot easier with the car on the ground. So I'll wait.
8/28/2004Not too much happened today. I was expecting the clutch fork to arrive. Of course it didn't, we won't get into that though. I adjusted the parking brake and put the rear brakes back together. I also got a new bolt for the shifter linkage. The stock Legacy one is too small, and will allow for movement/slop in the linkage. Rather then purchasing the bolt from Subaru, I bought a 2 1/2" long 3/8" diameter bolt that will fit more snugly in the bushing. The STi short throw & newer shifter linkages have a smaller diameter hole at the top of the linkage. So I had to drill that out to accommodate the larger bolt. The bolt hole on the bottom of the linkage piece was fine. I tested everything out, it fit well, and there was no slop at all.
8/29/2004I finished up a few small jobs today. One of the rear roll pins for the CV axle was stuck half out. I didn't have the
right size punch, so after getting the correct punch, I wailed on that for a little while. Some how it got bent up.
So I put a new one in. I swapped my front springs from the old GR2's to the new AGX's. I added some
"coil quieters" to certain portions of the springs. I may add one more. One thing I did notice was that the front
right GR2 strut seemed not to extend all the way, and didn't have much resistance under compression. So I'm pretty
sure the strut is blown. Next project was the clutch slave cylinder. I bought a generic stainless steel braided line
with AN fittings, and adapters to go back to banjo brake line fittings. The new fitting however is thicker then the
old one, so I had to grind away some of the metal on the slave cylinder. Not a big deal. I will have to probably look
into buying new bolts, because with the wider fittings, and washers I don't think there will be enough thread left on
the bolt to properly secure it. Last little project was to check out the starter. It's common for the solenoid
contacts to go out, especially on the automatic transmission starters. Well I looked at the manual transmission
starter, and it looked pretty good. I buffed out the copper plunger a little bit, and the contacts with some
sandpaper. They weren't worn too badly. I opened up my automatic's starter for kicks. When I put the new contacts
in, I apparently didn't level the contacts and they were only hitting on one side. Granted I did that job in cold rainy
weather under a carport before I had my garage...It doesn't surprise me that didn't turn out too well.
The clutch fork should be here tomorrow, and with any luck, I'll have the transmission in Tuesday night, or possibly
tomorrow night if I can find someone to help. I'm also in search of some Valvoline 75w90 gear oil. It's been rather
difficult to find.
Transmission is IN!! A friend from work came over to help me put it in. It really wasn't too bad in comparison to the automatic. I did learn a little lesson. The throw-out bearing should not be installed on the pressure plate before putting the transmission back in. It needs to slide on the snout of the transmission, then the fork needs to be put through the access hole, and the pin securing the fork installed. After you get the transmission together, the throw-out bearing snaps into the pressure plate.
9/02/2004Well the front struts are in, driveline is in, and I've got the clutch slave cylinder on and bled. I was waiting for the banjo bolts from Baker Precision, the place where I got the stainless steel braided brake line. Well they weren't too much longer, so I had to find thinner washers. That still didn't leave as much thread on the bolt compared to the stock setup, but it was enough. The clutch feels decent. I think there may be a very small amount of air in there, or I might need to adjust the linkage. Either way, I'll get it tweaked. I'm hoping to get the brakes bled tomorrow, and work on the electronics part of things.
9/03/2004I'm working on the home stretch now! Got the brakes bled today with the help of a friend. I didn't get any air out
of the rear, and only got a little out the front. More then likely I'm going to have to bleed everything again when I
get the car together and can run the car while I bleed to get some added force behind the fluid to move all the air to
the calipers.
I started on the electrical stuff today. A few things were throwing me off a little. First, I was
going to test the neutral and reverse switches, but they wouldn't test right for some reason. I don't know if they
ground through the chassis, because when I tested them on the car by sending power through them, they worked fine. I
spent a little while digesting some of the electrical diagrams to figure out what to do. First thing I did was snip
the AT/MT identifier pin on the ECU. The neutral switch for the inhibitor was hooked
up to the ECU, however its behavior for the manual transmission is different. If I just hooked it up as is, it would
not have worked. So I had to snip a wire, which led to the "N" position light on the combination meter. The light is
fed by 12v, and was back-feeding through the sensor. By snipping that, you don't back-feed any more, and the sensor has
the appropriate signal for the ECU.
I hooked up the reverse lights, that wasn't a big deal. For the starting system, I snagged the manual transmission
starting relay out of the donor car, as well as the one set of connectors. I made up a wiring harness, and then
plugged that harness into my car. This forces you to depress the clutch to start the car. Since I did it this way,
I had to jumper pins 11 & 12 on the AT wiring harness in the engine bay. I spliced the MT & AT harnesses together
for the pins I needed, and just plugged everything in. It was a nice and neat installation.
Only thing that is left is the cruise control. I need to run a wire over from the cruise clutch switch, and then
change the harness on the relay. That shouldn't be too big a deal. I started on it tonight, but cut my thumb, and
took that as a sign to call it quits until tomorrow.
Barring any unforeseen major issues the car will be running tomorrow. I may hold off on the cruise wiring and focus
on putting the exhaust back on, and all the other engine components back together so I have time to get the car
aligned. I can then finish up the last little odds and ends, and hopefully take it out for a little drive tomorrow night.
It's DONE!! I finished up things today. Finished the cruise wiring, putting the exhaust back on, and tightening down
the rear suspension. I ended up cutting off the heat shield on the mid-pipe because it was rattling. However the
catalytic converter shield was still rattling. The mount rusted off the converter, so I cut a slot in the shield,
and put a screw clamp around it to pull the shield tight against the mount. The guy who put on my muffler tried to
weld the rear portion of the shield to the pipe, but ended up putting a hole in the mid pipe. So I put this muffler
wrap stuff on to seal it. I really need to learn how to weld.
Once I got everything together I took the car to the alignment place. So how does the car drive...pretty good.
There's a few rattles/issues I need to look after. The clutch pedal needs some adjusting I think. The shifter is
rather notchy however. I'm not sure if it's because of the new synchros, the fluid, or possibly something else.
It might just be a "Subaru" thing. I may look at the linkage under the car as well. Other issue I saw is that the
select monitor freaked out when I turned the cruise on. So there may be another wire that needs tweaking. I am also
swapping in a 1992 legacy ECU, which should improve the idle and how the car runs due to the fact the ECU's in 1992
were the same for manual & automatic transmission equipped cars. The car definitely is noisier due to all the stiffer
bushings. I need to get a custom-made shifter boot, and find a good shifter knob.
The handling is really crisp. I'm quite impressed. I'm not sure what one component affected things the most, but
the AGX's are very nice, and really didn't alter ride height. They may have given me a slight increase in the rear,
which improved the stance of the car.
The brakes feel really good as well due to swapping in the single diaphragm booster. Pedal feel is very linear,
and feels much better. I will probably need a new booster vacuum hose. I stretched my current one, but it should
probably be replaced.
Overall, I'm happy with the results, and need to do a little tweaking. Now I just need more power ;)
Today I worked on two of the issues that I had last night during the drive...not big ones, but little. I did some
testing with the cruise control, and even though everything showed up correctly diagnostic-wise with the select monitor,
the cruise didn't work. Vikash, off the Legacy Central BBS,
mentioned the cruise computers were different between MT & AT cars. So I snagged the one out of the donor wagon, and
sure enough, the cruise worked beautifully afterwards. Other issue I tended to was the rattle I was getting in the
clutch mechanism when there was no pressure on it. From what I gathered there was a little play somewhere in the
linkage to the slave cylinder. So I adjusted the clevis pin out a little bit to take up that slack, but not put any
pressure on the clutch fork. After making that adjustment, the noise was gone, and the pedal does not have that dead
spot at the top. Those were the two issues I wanted to look after. There's some miscellaneous rattles and stuff I'd
like to find, but oh well. I did notice the rear strut boots were bunched up and sticking a little bit. I may need
to get rid of them. We'll see how they behave in the next few days/weeks. The shifting has also gotten better, so
hopefully things just need to be broke in, and it'll get better as time goes on.
I was doing a little looking at the electrical diagrams, and the MT cruise relay is a normally open relay, while the
AT cruise relay is normally closed. That is the only difference I could see. So the computers must correspond to
that difference. If I would have used the AT relay and just hooked up the clutch switch, it probably would have worked
without swapping the computers.
I adjusted the clutch clevis pin again today. I think there is a spot in the stroke of the clutch master cylinder
that once you push the piston past that point, it does not allow fluid to back flow into the master cylinder. I
found this out because I think I had it too far adjusted, and when the car & fluid warmed up it was possibly putting
pressure on the clutch fork. I took one turn out of the clevis pin, and that seems to be the right combo. The pin
on the slave cylinder is not resting on the clutch fork. I am able to push it back in, and I'm not getting the rattling
I was initially, as well as the dead pedal feel at the very top of the stroke. So I think I found the magic spot.
I've also been trying to hunt down this rattle. It only happens when the motor bogs down. I have no idea what it
is. It sounds like it's coming from under the dash below the combination
meter/steering wheel. However I've zip-tied all the relays up there, and have practically taken apart the entire
dash. So I'm running out of ideas.
Today I learned something very interesting. As I may have mentioned I was planning on putting a 1992 Legacy ECU in.
Two reasons. One I swapped in a set of 1992 balanced & blue printed fuel injectors a while back. Ever since then my
mileage was horrible, and car just didn't seem to run as well. I figured it was an issue with the fact the injector
types were different and the ECU was tweaked to run the specific injectors. Second reason I wanted to swap ECU's was
because the 1992 ECU's were the same for both MT & AT equipped cars. Which meant there was no differences in ECU's
and the car would probably run better in a situation like mine where I've done a transmission swap.
Well I got the 1992 ECU today. Normally the MT/AT identifier pin that tells the ECU whether the car is has a MT or AT
goes like this. If the identifier pin is grounded (0 V) the ECU knows that the car is an automatic. If the pin is
not grounded (5 V) the ECU knows the car is a manual. That is the way the factory manuals identify things, and was
how my 1990 ECU worked. When I plugged in the 1992 ECU it seemed to run ok, but the idle was a little high. I hooked
up the select monitor, and saw the ECU thought the car was an AT. I got to thinking if the identifier pin was wired
backwards for the 1992 ECU's. I reconnected the identifier pin, which grounded it. Started the car back up and checked
it with the select monitor. Worked perfectly. The ECU was identifying the car as a MT, and the idle, timing, knock
correction, and other values came back in line with what they were supposed to be. I do not know if all the 1992-1994
ECU's are like this, or if there are just a select few odd balls. For what it's worth, my 1992 ECU part # is
22611AA931F. I also got a brake booster vacuum hose that fits better with the single diaphragm booster.
Another project that wasn't swap related, but that I did today was fixing the HVAC buttons that don't work all the time.
The issue is the plug in the back. The solder on the pins end up cracking and doesn't make connection all the time.
So I tore apart the dash to get the unit out, and re-soldered the pins that the solder had cracked. I think there were
three or four that were like this. I didn't do all of them because I am a horrible at soldering, and didn't want to
mess anything up. Here are a few
pictures of the HVAC project.
Well I spent most of the day cleaning up the last bits of the mess from the swap. I took everything out of the garage and cleaned the floor with some good degreaser. It got most of the stuff off, however there are still some blobs of undercoating. Oh well. I also washed the car; she was in need of a good bath. I reset the ECU this evening, and I must say it idles perfectly smooth. I did notice that the clutch noise I initially heard is back. I think I just didn't hear it before because the windows were down. I'll probably have to play with things some more, and will probably bounce some ideas off of a few Subaru techs I know. I was also researching gear oils a little, specifically Neo Synthetic. I've got to wait a little longer I think, but I would like to switch the gear box over to something else, to hopefully improve the shifting. On another note, I'm driving out to San Antonio tomorrow, so we'll see how the car handles a long trip.
9/18/2004I Zymol'd the
Legacy today.
It really needed a good waxing. I've still got some issues with the clutch pedal. It needs to be adjusted
like a quarter turn. I'll just have to keep playing with it. The only other issues I have are the one rattle behind
the dash, and a new one has developed around the center console. So I'll be taking apart the dash again to try and
figure out where they are coming from. I still need to make a template for the shifter trim piece so I can get a
custom shift boot made.
The trip to San Antonio went fine. The car drove quite nicely. There was more noise in the cabin compared to
before. I expected it, so no biggy. The higher RPMS due to the gearing in the manual transmission, and the upgraded
to performance bushings all added to the increase in noise.
I finally figured out where that damn rattle was coming from. I forgot to tighten the bolt that holds the pitch stop mount to the firewall. I loosened it up a little to get the transmission out, and must have just overlooked it. Anyway, that rattle is fixed, the dash is put back together, and the interior is clean. All that is left outstanding from the project is to get a shift boot made.