legacycentral bbs

I just bought a 92 L wagon with AT and it doesn't move. I had it towed to my house after the seller said he was driving it on the highway and all of a sudden, it coasted to a stop and wouldn't move in forward or reverse. The motor is fine, it just won't move at all. My daily driver has a good 4eat in it and I was planning to pop that one in there and be good to go. But IF this is a simple fix, that would obviously be ideal because my back has been pretty stiff lately. I would assume lack of line of pressure might cause this. Could it be a dead TCU? Valve body stuck? Linkage that drives the ATF pump? ATF looks good, but seem a bit high. What would be a good place to start after verifying line pressure? Thanks.

BTW this is my first post in about 5 years. I can't even remember what my handle was the last time around. Elninoalex on the SVX.net. I have a 90 sedan to go with the 92 wagon and these are my 9th and 10th Legacies and 18th and 19th Subarus that I've owned.

What does the fluid look like?



It most likely needs a full tranny overhaul. The fact that it won't move at all means big things. If the pump is toast, the tranny should get worked over. If it somehow roasted the forward and reverse clutches, same deal. Taking the vave body out, tearing it down, cleaning it, and putting it back together is half the labor of rebuilding the tranny itself, so no point in pursuing that by itself.

There is not much that can suddenly stop them working at all. They will operate without the wiring plugs plugged in at all. They will have a little drive in some gear unless every clutch pack has burnt out and that doesn't happen instantly.

It could have broken the flexiplate.
The older ones used to have a fault where they broke a shaft.
The flexiplate can be seen through the hole is the top of the bellhousing.
The other fault...

4EAT - No Movement In Any Gear
If you encounter a 4EAT that will not
move in any forward gears or reverse,
and all your pressure readings are good,
you may be looking at a broken reduction
drive shaft. If the shaf breaks
behind the reduction drive gear and
may not be visible until you remove the
gear. The gear is splined to the shaft and
held in place with a snap ring. When the
shaft breaks, the gear can be removed
but the shaft will remain in the transmission.
In most cases, you can remove the
broken shaft with the transmission still
in the vehicle. If the shaft is too tight to
get out, the transmission will have to be
removed and the input shaft removed
from the front of the transmission (the
tapered end of the input shaft fits into
the front of the reduction drive shaft).
Then, using a long drift, it can be pushed
out the rear of the transmission. The
worst case scenario is that you will have
to disassemble the transmission to
remove the shaft.

Thanks for the info guys. I'm going to get into this tonight. I did check that the flexplate is still connected to the crank and TC. I was hoping. The ATF looks as good as any I have seen in a car. My money is on the RG shaft. Oh well, I've done about 8 4eat swaps before, but still not looking forward to it. Thanks again.

Steve

Never really figured out exactly what the problem was. But at least I got the other tranny in there without any issues. Except one of the harness plugs popped out and felt like the car was coming apart as it drove. The rears and fronts were spinning at different speeds. Luckily it was wet and the rears were just bucking and spinning. But, it's all good now. I've owned at least a dozen cars with over 200K on them and this one feels the best by far.

I agree, old ass subbies feel much more solid than other old ass cars.

Well, I had some spare time so I opened up the rear of the tranny and can't find anything wrong with the reduction gear. Any other possibilities? TC? Tranny is on the floor of my garage now.