I picked it up yesterday for under $500. legacy L wagon 1990 5spd. I wanted to be able to haul stuff. the good: Almost every power option works; mirrors, wipers, windows(except drivers), stereo is stock but amazingly has a front input jack, lights, signals, stupid automatic seatbelts... has spare the bad: body rust(but no floorpan rust) draining coolant (not sure where, but not into the engine as the oil's clean) holey exhaust interior a bit rough, smells like pot
That seems like a pretty good deal since it's running. Are parts for a '90 hard to come by? I wouldn't mind having a car like that as a second vehicle.
i don't know if they are. I'm prolly going to pepboys on my lunch hour to check out the Haines book on it. draining coolant could be head gasket, i wonder how tough that is...
Smells like pot? Oh noes some hippie owned a Legacy station wagon! Sounds like a nice shell to drop an STI drivetrain into.
On your basic 2.0 WRX motor the cylinders are just surrounded by a thin cylinder wall with no bracing to the rest of the block; this makes it very easy to crack cylinder walls with high boost. On the STI blocks (and possibly every 2.5T) each cylinder wall is braced to the block, it is called a semi closed block. On the EJ22 it was fully closed meaning that the cylinder wall is completely surrounded by metal for no flex at all. It's kind of a double-edged sword though as it retains heat and doesnt allow for as many cooling passages to flow through the block.
i see. so open deck is for lightness, heat disappation, and ideally high revs. anyways, the first thing is to get it reliable. Replacing headgasket seems to be a good start, any other opinions?
How many miles on it? Timing belt would be up there on things to do on an older car. Swap out all fluids. Whiteline steering rack bushings would probably firm up the car since its gotta have 17year old cracked bushings.
all the fluids are fresh, belt's only about 20k. I'll look at the suspension later. I actually mean, any other thoughts on the coolant leak. ;p
Ya gotta love a group that takes this in stride. I guess I'm just too nervous. But, for that price, what the heck?
Take care of it and it will run forever. Go to the mountains and many of these things are still puttering around.
My ex-wife sold an old Subaru GL mountain putterer that had 340K miles on it and was reliable transportation. That helped sell me on Subaru. She sold it to get a newer American car that didn't make 70K miles before it developed major problems.
well, i looked through the haines book. It says headgaskets can be done with engine in car, but that its easier to pull it. Dad suggested we just swap an engine in while we're building up the original, that way we can at least drive it. Opinions? Different suggestions? Ideas for what engine to swap?
dad bought me a head gasket for my b=day. Now we just have to haul the thing down to his new garage in stockbridge.
93 Legacy that my family got just before my little brother was born. It was going to be mine for my 18th birthday. On the night before my 18th birthday...well...
My friend Erin was hurt enough to go to the hospital, but I was up and walking the next day. Had we not been wearing seatbelts we would both be dead.
The "destroked" 2.5 (2.2) was made before the 2.5 so the 2.5 is accually a stroked 2.2. The 2.2 will last you quite a while, I had a 2.2 that lasted almost 300k it didn't go any further because I wrecked it lol. Take care of it and it will take care of you.
well, we hauled it down to stockbridge on sunday. Put the battery in it, and it fired right up. Still runs like crap tho. So now its at the garage, but it has to take a back seat to Dad's new business and to a dodge cargo van he's fixing up for me. Spent most of sunday setting up his DSL...
Trying to come up with a service schedule/plan again, now that its at dad's garage and can be worked on. goals: short term. 2nd vehicle for driving/hauling stuff. Like to have it roadworthy by end of year. Long term: race the vehicle within 6 months, solo, drag, whatever. Shake out needs of the car, prove stability of the platform for next goal. Longer term: prepped for rallycross racing. -------- Its looking more like to do this will be a repair of the existing engine while its still mated. Got the headgasket, most regular maintenance to the engine has been done, so after we do that I guess i'll look at suspension. I'm open to other suggestions? Still smells of pot... gonna try some Cedar blocks. :/
i have a full 93 legacy 5-speed wagon siting at my parents house... If you need any parts, they would love for me to sell some of it. It has no motor, engine harness, or ecu (they are all in my Porsche)... Let me know if you need anything. its white by the way with bad body rust by the wheels, so very few good body parts. I bought it off craigs list for $250, you cant beat that.
Well, Dad's new business is car transporting around the country, so I basically have no wrench-turning friends to work on stuff with at the moment. The car is at his shop in Stockbridge, and I can go there anytime I want and use his well equipped shop, but my own knowledge is pretty weak to work on engine stuff by myself. its putting a pretty pointy kink in that schedule.