Anyway, I'm new to Subarus - some of which might show with how I did my work.
I've got a '93 Legacy I got for cheap, and now I'm fixing it up to be somewhat reliable. I gotta make it last a few years to get me through school.
Thar she blows... Rusty, complete with dents. It's okay though, I'm not looking for high fashion with this car - just want it to get me to school + work and back.
The engine runs fine, cruise control works, A/C, power windows, all that is great, but I noticed the clutch is slipping when driving up not so steep hills, so I figure a new clutch is in order. I chose to drop the tranny from the car, replace the clutch, then button everything back up. Before doing this, almost everyone advised me to pull the engine while keeping the tranny in the car... Looking back, it may have been a little bit easier doing that instead, but this still worked.
Anyway, first thing's first. Remove the exhaust manifold, don't forget to unplug the O2 sensor first. Also started on draining the transmission while I got to wrenching. *rusty bolts are rusty*
Then, the prop shaft/drive shaft. (Sprayed all the rusty bolts down with WD40 rust formula first)
Now, undo the axles. Subaru uses roll pins to keep the axles in place - this is something new to me. Oh well, they came out easy with the proper sized punch.
Now, I went ahead and removed the transmission mounting bracket.
Next up, I disconnect my shifter linkage and supported the tranny with a jackstand. I started to pound the pin but then immediately realized I could just unbolt it to get it off. So I did that instead.
Finally, I went on to unbolt and unplug everything that was connected to the transmission from the engine bay. (Starter, speedo cable, wiring harness, a couple ground wires here and there, and finally, the bell housing bolts [technically there are only 4 of them! I'm used to seeing like 7. Good news is good news.])
Also, when separating/lowering the tranny I was able to fully pop off the axles. This was nice because I didn't have to completely remove them from the knuckle.
I spent the better part of an hour trying to split the tranny from the block. Huge pain in the ass. Ugh. Anyway, finally got it off and pulled it out. Here it is: 5 gears of AWD glory. A first for me! (I've only done FWD cars up to this point)
After the tranny was out, I went in to look at the old clutch. I had expected a bit less life in it, but still it looked rather beat up. The flywheel had a LOT of scoring on it, many of the imperfections I could feel with my fingers.
With the clutch + flywheel out of the way, I went to inspect the rear main seal and the oil separator plate. Turns out I had a metal separator plate all along (whew). The rear main seal looked like it was leaking a tiny bit, so I went ahead and replaced it with a new OEM unit.
This is where I called it a night. It took me about 6 hours to get to this point, mostly because of old rusty bolts that wouldn't come off, AND because I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to Subarus.
Anyway, the next day I decided to grab a new flywheel and put everything back together. With the new flywheel, I had to install the inner bearing (don't know the name of these things). I've done them before on performance (lightweight) flywheels, and it was tough to get it in. My last car I had to heat up the flywheel to get the bearing to fit. This time, the bearing hammered right in. Just used my Crapsman 15/16" socket with a 3lb sledge. The socket was a PERFECT fit. Easy peasy.
The new Exedy clutch looks pretty nice as well.
Popped in the new throw out bearing. The old one was NOISY.
And here is the new hardware all plugged in. Torqued down 55lb-ft for the 14mm flywheel bolts, 12.7lb-ft for the 12mm pressure plate bolts.
Now, I noticed the the shifter was really sloppy, so I went ahead and got to replace 2 bushings that were damaged. Pounded out the pins, cleaned it up, put it all back together. Feels MUCH better.
Installation was reverse of removal, of course, but let me tell you - it was a HUGE pain in the ass to get the tranny plugged back into the block. SO tedious!!! After spending plenty of time lining it up and moving it in, it pretty much got stuck. It took over an hour of me pushing and shaking the shit out of that thing from under the car to FINALLY get it in enough to begin threading in the bell housing bolts. The bolts squeezed it in the rest of the way. Hot damn. That was hard.
In the end, I put everything back together successfully, but it appears I somehow broke my MAF sensor doing it...? The car starts up, idles smoothly for about 4 seconds, then dies. Unplugged the MAF sensor, it idles just fine (although with a CEL). Without the MAF sensor I can't really drive it, as it's running like total garbage when you press the gas. Anyway, that's another story yet to unfold.
Thanks for reading!
