My First Subaru, '91 Legacy Wagon

[klunder944]

Hello everyone, I just got my first Subaru that is going to be used as my winter beater so that I can keep my real driving joy (An '84 Porsche 944) safe in storage.


http://tinyurl.com/3opyp7o

I bought the car for $500, its N/a AWD with an automatic transmission, and 192k on the odometer. Nothing really special, paint is in distress along with small part of the body. But everything is intact.

Now I've got a few questions for you Subaru Gurus, is the AWD always engaged, or is there a switch to toggle it?
What are some things I should know about this car? And is there anything you recommend doing immediately to make driving the car better/more fun?

Thanks

[lucas]

sick man!!! welcome.

[kimokalihi]

The awd is always engaged and i believe 1st and 2nd is 50/50 split and 3rd and 4th is something like 70/30 front bias. I could be wrong though. I would be bigger swaybars on it. Cheap and easy and itll take some body roll out of it. Check the sticky in the suspension section for what fits your car.

[Legacy777]

Welcome to the BBS.

As kimo mentioned, the AWD is always engaged. Under normal staight-line driving, the power split is 90/10. It will vary to 50/50 as needed based upon driving conditions. Moving the gear selector into the 1 position does alter the AWD maps to be more agressive towards 50/50.

I would recommend draining and refilling the automatic trans fluid unless you know it has been done recently. You will not get all the fluid out, and when you refill, the car needs to be running at normal idle, parked on a level surface, and the gear selector cycled from P to 1 and back to P again to check the AT fluid properly. There is a mark on the AT dipstick (driver's side of the car) for both "cold" and "hot". So you can check the fluid when first starting up.

As for other things, I'd suggest routine maintenance, fluids, plugs & wires, etc. These engines like NGK copper plugs. If you replace the thermostat, only use a Subaru thermostat, you will have issues with non-Subaru thermostats. From the pic, looks like your lights might need a little help. Check out this thread.

http://bbs.legacycentral.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=739

Also, check out some of the sticky compilation threads and stuff you need to know forum for commonly discussed issues/questions.

[klunder944]

Thanks for the information everybody! I've got to wait until I get back from travel to be able to work on it.

Are there any good sites that supply plenty of replacement and upgrade parts?

[Legacy777]

It depends on what you want. You can get subaru parts through one of the many online subaru dealers at a discounted price. As for upgrade parts, there's not much that is directly made for these cars. People usually will use stuff meant for the Impreza or other Subarus. Most to some of it is a direct bolt on, while other stuff requires a little bit of modification.