Dan's $600 dollar 2002 Legacy GT Limited Sedan

Hello all,

I picked up a 2002 Legacy GT Limited earlier this summer for $600 dollars.



Motor was blown, high mileage, rust, it's a basket case. Good thing I like working on subarus.



Bringing it home (I dropped the driveshaft to dolly it home)

Got it home and took some pictures of the initial damage;



Rusty trunk



Rusty inner door area



Rusty fender

Dented front fender



Day 1 did a tear down of the center console area and parts of the dash. It was filthy:



Gross switches:



Cutting up the rusty inner door area:



New metal welded in:



Sealed with chassis saver and waiting for a sanding and OEM color match spraybomb:



Dumped in a motor I got off a friend:



It runs:



Upon install, we noticed someone jacked the car up by the transmission oil pan. This is bad. It bends up and crushes important shift things inside it.

First drive of the car, motor was great, but the car was stuck in third gear.

Drop the trans pan!



Broken solenoid.



Bought a new one from the dealer and threw it in. The car had gears, but was bang shifting and staying in high gears. WTF

Pulled the codes and had a throttle position sensor issue. Swapped the throttle body off my dead ej25 that came with the car and the trans was sorted! Yay

After that it's chasing down the three check engine lights I have left. All of them evap related. I was told it was probably the filler neck, so I replaced that and the fuel valve.



New one painted with chassis saver:



Filler neck didn't clear the codes, but from what I've read on here, it's possibly an electrical connector near the charcoal box. Doing brakes and fixing that this weekend.

All that's left is:
CEL's
Brakes
Get the new tires mounted
Alignment
State inspection

Now the reason I picked this car up is to build it as a new daily driver. I'm comfortable working on subarus because of all the slaving away I've done on this:



My 2002 impreza RS.

The car is getting gutted and a roll cage once the legacy is done, and the plan is to run stage rally with it!







Thanks for reading.

good work so far!

Tires showed up in less than 24 hours from when I ordered them from tire rack. Getting them mounted this week. I also put in the comments section of my order "can i have free stickers lol".

Got a huge manila envelope in the mail full of stickers, windshield banner decal, etc etc.

So reading online, I found on legacygt most people had issues with evap shit due to terrible factory wiring, so I went looking.





Strip the wiring loom off the solenoid valve stupid evap thing and found this:



Yep, there's your problem.

Fixed that, get in, clear codes. BAM. Three CEL's killed with one wire.

Fixed all the brakes, then time for a lunch break.



Ripped the rear bumper off to fix some rust and paint stuff.

Took the car for a 20 mile drive.



Car is going for state inspection next weekend. Can't wait to see what they say I need to fix next.

Also, this thing is slow as shit. 0-60 in 11.25 seconds according to the Torque app. Good thing I don't mind. I can't drive wrx's because I have little self control, my RS is borderline too fast.

haha nice work dude! I love working on them too but that thing was rrrrrusty. I cant believe the size of that hole in the rear door. btw my 2.5 seems quick compared to my 2.2 outback :P

great job on bringing her back alive!!!

sweet!

Originally Posted by caschmidt

haha nice work dude! I love working on them too but that thing was rrrrrusty. I cant believe the size of that hole in the rear door. btw my 2.5 seems quick compared to my 2.2 outback :P

It's actually not that bad at all. My RS had way worse rust in the rear wheel well.





I had never welded before, just sucked it up and did it. Sawzalled a patch panel out of another car.

I've been keeping the RS running for the last two years through a lot of terrible failures, that's why I was able to turn around this legacy so quick, because I've got no issues going deep into these cars.

Originally Posted by WESTcoast

great job on bringing her back alive!!!

Thanks!

Mounted up a set of brand new Continental DWS's on the snowflakes that came with the car. Throwing those on and buffing the headlights Saturday and it's off to state inspection.

great work man! bringing what seems to be junk back to life is the best way to buy!

Awesome work on the car!

People always have the will to make a nice car better, not too many will make a beater better. Welds didnt look too pretty but very nice

Five stars for the effort and love in this thread.

nice!

Impressed with the resurrection you had served up. Great job troubleshooting the tranny and CELs. Car looks good.

We didn't realize the tranny had issues until the first drive... It sorta ruined the night until I saw that the pan was dented. It was a really bizarre failure mode, though. It didn't go into full limp.

987687 has been a huge help. He helped me dump the motor and helped troubleshoot all the other issues.

I got the car stickered today. Passed maine state inspection.

Had to have trailing arm bushings done because they were seperated. I had the dealer do it because they have a press tool to do it, where as I'd take 6 hours to do it. Plus I wanted a sticker now.

Drove it 100 miles today with zero issues.

More pictures and details but imgur is giving me a hard time.

Oh.

I'm autocrossing it tomorrow for ess and giggles. Mostly to maintain my street cred. And I'm crazy.