legacycentral bbs

So heres the deal, I recently bought 1991 Legacy SS. Over all, pretty good condition (70,xxx on engine) few cosmetic an minor electrical problems (like sunroof and a few dings). The car was 300 dollars, so I feel like I got a pretty good deal. The downside is that it came with no transmission (auto).

This is where things get complicated. I am familiar with replacing SVX trannys so I thought I would be able to go about it the same way...hop on a forum, grab a decent tranny for 250 install it and be done with it. I didn't realize how scarce the 3.9 4eat was (at least the turbo version). I called around and looked on the internet, and could not for the life of me find a 4eat from a turbo anywhere.

I am however able to get a hold of a 3.9 4eat from an old legacy L (along with the torque converter) for about 400 <- not what I am used to compared to my SVX trannys.

Now another layer of confusion comes into play... The guy that sold it to the car dealer said that the reason he wanted to get rid of it was because he kept having tranny problems, and had recently just installed another one, which, although it worked fine the odometer stopped working. So when he sold the car, he asked for the tranny to be pulled and given back to him so that he can return it to the junk yard to get 500 dollars back (what he paid). I talked to him on the phone and he said something about speedometer gear in the tranny being bad or something...

now despite having swapped them, I know very little about transmissions, but this speedometer gear thing doesn't sound right at all, I think maybe there was some other problem with it (especially considering it was the second transmission that had had this problem). Also, another fact that I am not sure about is if it was a legitimate turbo tranny he put back in.

So to summarize these are my main questions.
-Is there really something wrong with the transmission internals to cause the odometer problem and such, or is it electrical/TCU or something else.

-If it is not the transmission internals, do you think it is worth 500?
^^I guess I need to find out if it is a legitimate turbo tranny or not.

-If so should I keep this one in if fixable.

-If not, should I just go with a torque converter + tranny of a Legacy L? And is that really going to run me $400?


Sorry for the incredibly long post, and anyone that takes the time to read it and help me, I truly appreciate it.



-Ben-

Anyone have any advice?

Swap to a manual transmission.

BAC5.2 wrote:Swap to a manual transmission.

Although I would really like to, that is not really an option (time/money). For the time being I am just wondering if I should stick with this transmission that is in it, despite the speedo (and possibly the odometer <-not sure bout that one) are not working.

I did a bit of research and came up with a few reasons to the problem.

-VSS has gone or the connection is bad.
-Guage cluster has bad connection.
-Speedometer Gear is broken.

It could possibly be one of those. How hard is it to replace the VSS and what would the price be. Also, is there an easy way to tell if it is one of these problems.

So, I am leaning very strongly towards the VSS being the source of the problem. Does anyone else feel that it may be this so I feel a bit more confident?

Again the problems are:
-Speedometer and Odometer not working
-The transmission seems fine otherwise.

Thanks a bunch guys

Anyone, I would really really like to know. I'm just asking to be pushed in the right direction.

Check the speedo cable base piece where the speedo cable goes into the trans. It's a common failure point, and cheap to replace

http://www.main.experiencetherave.com:8 ... lebase.jpg

Does the 91 legacy use a speed sensor or does it use a speedometer cable (There is a difference right?). Ill be sure to check this part however.

Also, do you feel that these symptoms are synonymous with a VSS problem?

Thank You very much for the advice.

Well I noticed the check engine light was on and it was giving me a code 33 which happens to be the vss code, so I think this confirms my suspicion.

As a side note, would anyone happen to

a. know where the Transmission ID # is located.
b. know where the wire from the VSS runs.

Thanks