1999 30th anniversary Legacy Wagon Sunroof and speedometer issues

[phreich]

I have a 1999 30th Anniversary Edition Legacy wagon. Per the Wikipedia article "1999 marked the 30th anniversary of Subaru in America, and the last of the second generation in North America. There was a special 30th Anniversary Edition offered in the USA with upgraded interior and sunroof, spoiler, alloy wheels on the "L" trim level cars." What the article doesn't mention is that they used the GT front bumper on this model, along with the GT foglights.

 

The sunroof for this model is a larger single sunroof, instead of the double sunroof used on the "limited" wagons.

 

Here's what happened to mine -- I was getting water in all 4 footwell floor pans -- left and right, both front and rear seat footwell floor pans. It was pretty obvious that it had something to do with the sunroof. I checked and found that the sunroof pan drains were open, but water would leak down the front posts and the posts behind the rear doors. The sunroof drain tubes at the bottom of the car didn't seem clogged either. Something was leaking and it wasn't clear what -- it became clear I would have to remove the headliner to gain access to the sunroof drain pan and it's 4 drain nipples and the top of the drain hoses in order to diagnose what was going on.

 

This requires taking apart a lot of the interior -- removing the front post trim panels, taking off the visors, rear view mirror and map light assembly, taking off the center and rear post panels and messing with the seatbelts, removing the rear headliner panel by the rear hatch hinges, and removing the cargo area interior side panels -- it's a lot of work, and it has to be done carefully so that the plastic tabs that lock the panels into place on the body don't get snapped off during the removal process, and the corresponding metal retainers don't get lost. Oh, and the last thing to remove is the flexible trim "frame" that attaches the headliner to the sunroof pan.

 

Once the headliner was out of the way, It became clear what was going on -- this year the factory drain tubes were not the clear vinyl used on other models, but instead were made of a stiffer black plastic material (possibly polybutylene?). The problem with this tubing material is that it shrinks with age and/or the constant heat from the summer sun. This causes the tubes to shrink enough that they pull completely off the nipples on the sunroof drain pan. In my case all 4 had done this. I read elsewhere that one guy had repaired this by judiciously stretching the tubes by pulling on them, then reattached them to the drain nipples, and finally used tightly closed zip ties to keep the hoses on the nipples. This sounded like it would work, and it did -- but only for about 5 months. Then I started getting water in the driver's floor again. A water test showed that the pan was again draining, but the water was leaking down the front post -- indicating that the hose had detached again.

 

I will have to remedy this soon, as the Western Oregon winter rains are just about here and I don't want to have to live through another season of soaking, smelly floors/carpets. This time I will add a tubing extension to the hose instead of stretching it so that there is no possibility of it pulling off again. I'll also use some kind of hose clamp instead of zip ties to keep the hose on the drain nipples. Hopefully this will be the last time I have to deal with this -- it's not terribly hard work, but it is time consuming, painstaking, and there's always the worry about breaking off the darn plastic panel retainer tabs.

 

I have been thinking about how to splice the existing hose to the "extension" hose. I could use a plastic barbed coupling fitting, but I am concerned about the potential for flow restriction, and trapping of debris at the fitting. Instead I plan to use some short lengths of the appropriate size copper tubing as coupling "inserts" -- which should have a much thinner wall, and use a couple of hose clamps to keep the tubing insert in place. Of course, if a tubing cutter was used to cut the copper tubing, the ends of the copper tubing will need to be reamed out. It might save time to cut the copper tubing with a hacksaw so that reaming won't be necessary.

 

Hopefully others can learn from my situation and will know to extend these shrunken drain hoses rather than attempt to reattach them.

 

I hope this helps others deal with the problem.

 

I really like the features they put in the 30th Anniversary Edition "L" model -- especially the single larger sunroof, and hope to keep this running for as long as I can. I like that it has the 2.2L engine rather than the 2.5 with it's problematic head gaskets. There's not really that much of a performance difference between these two engines -- it's only 0.3L difference in displacement, and a bit less compression.

 

Note that this particular model year had a couple of other known "issues" -- the power antenna gears usually stripped out after a few years, and the electronic speedometer has a circuit board issue that causes it to either stop working completely or to work intermittently. The good news is that it can be repaired without having to replace the speedometer. There is a thread that deals with this issue here: http://legacygt.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3103674&postcount=9

 

The link should start you at post 9 in the thread -- continue reading until you see the pictures that are posted later on page 2 that show the wire jumper that needs to be soldered on the board. Per the posts -- this issue is specific to the 1999 model year.

 

I hope this is helpful....

 

Philip