Hi, all, I'm new to the board. I see there's a whole lot of WRX and impreza talk flying back and forth, but maybe some of you guys out there are experienced with the first gen legacys. I just bought a 1990 with 138k on the clock, and the auto tranny kicked the bucket on me shortly thereafter. The dealership naturally wants a small fortune to replace it. What should I do? I could go to a junkyard and try to get a tranny, and have Aamco install it - or would it be possible to get a rebuild done? Are there any other suby trannys that would mate to the 2.2L 4cyl in this car? I would love to just throw in a manual! I love my Legacy, and I'd like to keep it. The cheapest option wins! If you guys have any info, let me know. Thanks!
Zach

 

I experienced the same problems about 6 months ago, and found myself asking the same questions.

A settled for a secondhand auto, the same that came out, and it set me back $1,500 (Aussie dollar) for the box alone, on the condition that they got my od one. It was over $2,000 for parts to repair my broken one.

To fit a manual you need to fit pedals, master cylender, flyweel, hoses and a few other bits and pieces and you have to 'fool' the ECU to think the car is in neutral (or it won't start) and the cruise control to think it's in drive. (or no cruise control)

In my case there was more things wrong than just the gearbox...
My driveplate fractured at about 70 km/h, heating up the tourque converter to the point of shattering, destroying the driveplate, gaskets and bending the shaft into the gearbox. As the car was still moving at the time the bent shaft spun inside the box, destroying everything inside. With the amount of damage caused I basically had to replace everything from the driveplate backwards to the diff. The repairs took over 4 weeks to complete, and numerous calls to the local dealership and the closest subaru wrecker and importer. (400km's away) I didn't take it to the Subaru dealer - It would have tripled (or more) the costs of it.

Aparently this is a somewhat common problem with 1990 libertys (they are not called legacys over here) and could be caused by a design fault. (but there is no hard proof of that - but even the dealer suspects it)

From my pricings it is cheaper to stick with an auto (I'd love to convert mine to a manual too, harder to break!)

 

Wow... that's some story. I ended up taking it to AAMCO, a chain of transmission specialists, and they said they could fix it for 1200, plus the cost of a torque converter if I needed that as well. Well, I can't pay that, so I've decided this car is going to have to find a new home. Unfortunate, but it makes the most financial sense. It's too bad, but what can you do? Thanks for the advice anyways, though. Enjoy your liberty!

 

My first thought was to sell the car as well, as I didn't have that kind of cash handy.

I spoke to my bank and had the costs of the repairs added to my already existing loan, as I really love my Subaru (although I'm thinking of switching to an RS Impreza) and I'm just going to take an extra couple of months to pay the loan off. My mechanic also offered to let me pay it off over time (as I have taken all my cars to him for the last 8 years - I've had the Subie for 6 of them, so he knows that I'm good for it) you may find that AAMCO may offer a similar option (probably with interest on it - we don't have them out here so I don't know)