Missing drive shaft

[bvh56]

Hi all. I just bought a 1996 legacy with 148k miles on it. The car was very clean and runs good. So after driving it home 20 miles I put up on the lift to change oil and give it a better look. Well to my surprise the rear drive shaft from the center bearing to the rear dif is missing. I don't know how I missed it when I was looking at the car but I did. So my question Is what would be the reasons someone would remove it? The trans shifts and downshifts like it should and there is no lights on the dash. I did run the car in drive up on the lift and the rear front part of the shaft was spinning. Thanks for your help. The car has a automatic trans.

[Legacy777]

There's two reasons I could see someone would remove the driveshaft. The first is that they wanted to improve the gas mileage....which doesn't really work since all the components are still spinning. The second is if there was torque bind or some issue with the AWD system in the trans.

I have a spare back section of a driveshaft that is supposed to be from the second gen legacy. It may work with your car, depending on whether you have the older or newer style rear diff. If you look through my 6spd swap thread, I list the lengths of the driveshafts (front and rear). Compare that to what you need and let us know.

Here's my 6spd swap thread.
http://bbs.legacycentral.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=49917

[bvh56]

Thanks but I got lucky and found one from a guy not to far away. I Put it in the car and have learned that someone had put a fuse in the fwd socket. I also realized that the auto temp gauge was flashing 16 times after start up and was told that was a code for duty solenoid C. So looks like I will be replacing that as well.

[Legacy777]

The flashing of the auto temp light 16 times is the default indicator of an issue, it is not the specific code. Here's a little background info related to the 90-94 legacies, http://www.surrealmirage.com/subaru/trans.html

I would suggest checking the 95 service manual to see what the exact procedure is for checking the TCU for codes.

http://www.main.experiencetherave.com/s ... egacy_FSM/