97 Leg GT Auto Trans

Hi All

Just bought a 97 Legacy 2.5 Gt sedan tonight with auto trans. The guy I bought it from said the transmission is in need of replacement per Firestone. It drives in a parking lot fine, it will only get up to about 20mph on the streets and runs ruff. I checked the trany fluid after I got it towed home, it was clean and didn't smell burned. What else should I check before I just pull the tranny and replace it.

That is a horrible description of the problem.

 

What happens when you drive it again?

 

Just for you John.

I drove it again this morning and it still did the same thing. When the car gets up to around 20 mph, the engine revs but the car wont' move any faster. I can't tell if it is in limp mode or the trans is bad. The AWD fuse was not plugged in so I put one in. I drove the car again and still the same. There's no CEL. If it is a bad trans, can that be detected with a OBDll reader.

Is there any shuddering when the car revs and won't accelerate? Does it stay at 20 mph or does it deccelerate? And at what rate?

Yes it does start to shutter, once the speed went to about 23 and then started dropping on its own. But otherwise if you carefully drive it to around 20 it will drive and run just fine.

how many miles?

 

if you drive your auto trans car slowly forward, and the RPMs increase but your speed does not, then you have a bad trans. there is a slight chance that new ATF will help but i doubt it .

 

so bottom line, you need a trans. you can look for one at http://www.car-part.com . however , because each year and model has a different trans code number, (TZ102Z2CBA, 97 Outback auto trans, for instance,) the interchange software will only return results from your year and model.

 

here is what you need to know, you can use ANY auto trans from 96 - 98 from an EJ25 car. period. they are all the same, outback, GT, LSi, all the same. but you will have more to choose from if you search each year and model separately. i sort my search by distance so i'm looking at ones that are closest first. shipping is expensive, $150+.

 

the only difference between the 96 outback trans and the 98 GT trans is the speedo gears. so if you use a trans from a different model car, outback instead of GT, your speedo will be off a little. but not much.

 

on the other side of the coin, the auto trans fluid dip stick is really hard to read. you have to look at both sides of the dip stick to get a good reading. and some times you have to WAIT after you pull the dip stick out , for the fluid to drain back out of the tube, before you re-insert it to check the level. they are hard to read. and if the fluid is low it may be causing part of your issue.????

 

i hope this makes sense, i have had a couple.

the car has 176k miles. Looks like I'm back to the original plans on this car, I was hoping that by chance there would be a simpler fix to get it going. I can pull a tranny for about $125-150 locally. We have 4 or 5 good self serve junk yards here, but we just had a ton of rain over night and most of today so most of them are muddy bogs now. I hope to get this going before the weekend.

just to re-cap, any auto trans from 96 - 98, 2.5L car.

 

a trans from a 2.2L car will bolt in and plug in, but the final drive ratio will not match. it will not work unless you swap in the matching rear differential.

Today I got a tranny from a 98 outback. Do I use the torque converter that is in my car or the torque converter in the tranny I just bought. Also, do I buy a new filter or can I reuse one of the filters.

Today I got a tranny from a 98 outback. Do I use the torque converter that is in my car or the torque converter in the tranny I just bought. Also, do I buy a new filter or can I reuse one of the filters.

 

either TC will work, but i would use the one that came with the new trans unless you have a reason not to.

 

about the filter, the 98 does not, should not, have an external spin on filter. if it does it is not a 98, it is a 99 and WILL NOT WORK. compare the trans ID number.

 

the internal filter is just a screen and does not need to be changed. don't open the pan just for that. leave it alone.

Had a problem with my Land-cruiser somewhat like what was described, mechanic rebuilt tranny, same problem, tore it down again and found out that the torque converter was the problem..

Yesterday I messed with trying to seat the torque converter to the tranny, it appeared it just wasn't going to work. I finally decided to go back to the junk yard and get the torque converter from the same car I got the tranny from. Comparing the 2 torque converters, they are different.

I know I should have just listened to everyone and used the same torque converter that was on the replacement tranny but I thought I was saving a few $$ reusing the one in the car. Lesson learned I guess.

Well, I'm back to square one again. I got the tranny in and everything back together. Filled the front dif and put in most of the tranny fluid along with Trans X, I wanted to run the tranny through the gears to get the fluid up to level. Then to find out the battery was dead, it worked fine just before I disconnected it to r & r the tranny. Took the battery out of my other Legacy and started the car. The car is still up in the air with all 4 wheels off the ground and the FWD fuse is in. Lots of bad noises, sounded like some scraping, buzzing noises. I shut the car off for a minute and restarted it, little less noise but there was still noise coming from the tranny. while I had my foot on the brake I was shifting through the gears, while doing this I was looking at the from left rotor to see that it was moving. It moved fine in R and 1, 2, 3 but when I put it in D, the rotor would slow down and stop, it would start to move again when I stepped on the gas. When I shift out of P, there is a clunk. I checked the codes and got a P0102 and a P1507. I did remove one of the fans to put the 22 mm socket on the front of the motor to align the torque converter to the fly wheel.

 

Since this was a junk yard tranny, I'm guessing either I inherited someone elses problem or I messed something up, could it be the oil pump in the tranny. I still have the original tranny (till I can find the receipt) can I swap out the oil pumps, If so, does the tranny need to come out of the car for this. Does it sound like I should even try to salvage this tranny and just get another one.