What did you do to your 4th gen. Legacy today? Vol - 10

[SubOperator]

6 hours ago, KZJonny said:

Unsurprisingly, Amazon says those do not fit a 4th Gen Legacy. I will assume that is because of the large GT brakes not being part of that database.

Thanks very much. I found another place that confirms those are the correct numbers anyway. Seems smart to double check these things before running off and spending that kind of money on a set of pads!

Try Tirerack, Amazon is not always correct.

[SubOperator]

Btw, I have bought some "OEM" parts from Amazon that ended up being counterfeit. In particular, years back was prepping for an overhaul of front suspension on son's 05 OB and bought shocks and tops hats from Amazon. Parts waited for a few months until I had everything ready and when we opened the boxes the top hats were clearly remanufactured old top hats. Cracked rubber, just painted over with black spray paint. Boxes were brand new though. "Made in India".

Not sure if this was a return from some smart ars customer that got shipped to me, or real counterfeit stuff, but after that I stopped buying parts from Amazon. Support your local dealer if you can.

[tehspud]

@KZJonny I'd also look into the HPS 5.0. I think they made some slight tweaks to the original HPS, and in my barely informed opinion they're better. Of course that's comparing across two different cars, 06 WRX on HPS vs 05 LGT on HPS 5.0, almost 10 years apart, so some salt required. 

Front: HB533B.668

Rear: HB434B.543

[jaylew]

Re: brake talk

So i have slight shaky front and pulse rear. EBC greens with centric rotors. I do have a few factors though i need to hunt down and here are my thoughts on possibilities...might apply to others

1) I opted to not install the guide pin bushings on the calipers when I did total caliper rebuilds. I did this to see if they were not needed/increase reliability (could be the issue, could not be)

2) the centric rotors are crap?

3) I lightly painted the matting surface on the trailing arms+knuckles between wheel bearing and the trailing arms / knuckles. After installing I realized they are machined clean for a reason (duhhh).

For me it comes and goes in severity. Still totally drive-able but not smooth by any measure . It could be one of these items, or combo of all them and stacked tolerances

[KZJonny]

56 minutes ago, tehspud said:

@KZJonny I'd also look into the HPS 5.0. I think they made some slight tweaks to the original HPS, and in my barely informed opinion they're better. Of course that's comparing across two different cars, 06 WRX on HPS vs 05 LGT on HPS 5.0, almost 10 years apart, so some salt required. 

Front: B533B.668

Rear: HB434B.543

I will consider those, and a friend who was by this weekend has them. Perhaps I can ask to take his car for a quick spin and get a feel, but our brake set up is not the same, so it would be hard to make a reasonable comparison.

My reason for leaning towards the 'full street' type pads is cold braking stopping distance. It's not living in fear of it, but if I am highway crusing in the summer, which is something I do often enough (brakes fully cool from not being applied for an hour or more at a time....) and a deer/moose whatever runs into the road, will I lose stopping distance on 'higher performance' pads which work better when heated up? Or is that not a relevant concern? Genuinely curious if I wrong in my understanding on this one. I've only used generic $40 Bosch pads or whatever up to this point, and they've been pretty good to me over the years, so maybe even a cold EBC Yellow/Hawk 5.0/Akebono is better than them?

Note: I do not track the car, but it does get aggressive twisty road drives as often as I can manage to get out and do it.

[GearJamr]

I've run EBC redstuff and rotors and currently have Akebono pads/rotors on my LGT.  I found the EBC bit harder than the Akebonos do when cold.  A wash once at temp.  I can't speak for the yellowstuff pads, I would assume they are just as good about cold braking.

I had Hawk pads on my old Camaro, and swtiched to EBC reds on that as well.  Can't say there was a massive difference other than the EBCs were the last set I put on so maybe recency bias?

In a pinch I put on some cheapo rear pads on my wrx once.  After about a year, right before trading it in, the pads were nearly shot.

[Max Capacity]

All this brake talk should be in that forum...but, I'll say, if you are not hitting the brakes hard all the time, using maximum braking, just get a good set of stock style pads and rotors. Unless I drove the Brembo pads hard, the shimmy would come back, that was on my Spec B, which the GF is with me a lot when I drove it. The wagon had good OEM style pads & rotors and stopped smooth every time.

Why, because not race car.

[pksystems]

Legacy is put away till I fix my other 2 cars.

Parts still arriving for when I get back to it.

Black leather with red stitching seat belt pads, e-brake boot, arm rest top.  Yes, the e-brake boot is wrong.  The seller has already shipped me out a new part.

[BoozeRS05]

34 minutes ago, pksystems said:

Yes, the e-brake boot is wrong.  The seller has already shipped me out a new part.

Can I buy that one and try to make it work for my EDM console?

[WRX USA]

1 hour ago, pksystems said:

Legacy is put away till I fix my other 2 cars.

Parts still arriving for when I get back to it.

Black leather with red stitching seat belt pads, e-brake boot, arm rest top.  Yes, the e-brake boot is wrong.  The seller has already shipped me out a new part.

If you like a black with red theme, this place does custom seat belts and you can get red edged black. I'm just about to send mine out to them.

https://www.safetyrestore.com/content/74-colored-seat-belts?gclid=CjwKCAjw-eKpBhAbEiwAqFL0mvJq-tB7KTZZi2LmduPxRNZ1nYqluBp5wP1VaHOaztCWmxmN57egTxoCSWgQAvD_BwE

Edited November 1, 2023 by WRX USA

[Code]

8 hours ago, WRX USA said:

If you like a black with red theme, this place does custom seat belts and you can get red edged black. I'm just about to send mine out to them.

https://www.safetyrestore.com/content/74-colored-seat-belts?gclid=CjwKCAjw-eKpBhAbEiwAqFL0mvJq-tB7KTZZi2LmduPxRNZ1nYqluBp5wP1VaHOaztCWmxmN57egTxoCSWgQAvD_BwE

I have a set waiting to sip out to them as well.  I just can’t decide if I want all black or blue edges. 

[SilentJ20]

Discovered a more reliable way to check the oil level.  After having recent difficulty getting an accurate reading on the oil dipstick, I found a thread suggesting to open the dipstick cap and/or oil cap to let everything settle more completely.

Even after sitting over night, with all caps tightly sealed I'd always have oil on the edges of the dipstick and had to 'interpret' where the lowest point was.  After doing the above trick, I still have a difference on either side of the dipstick, but it's much clearer to read.

[310Z]

Yesterday I had a set of front and rear White Line sway bars with end links delivered, Stop Tech DOT braided steel lines delivered and a set of EBC Yellow Stuff pads (DP41584R Rear pads, DP41661R Front pads) delivered. Today I went about installing them. I started at the right rear and soon found out that these rear pads do not fit. On the box it says for Outback 2003 and up. The fit finder at Summit said it also fits my 2005 LGT. So I went ahead and installed the the braided lines on the rear. As I moved to the front I found the same issue, the pads do not fit. The box says it fits Baja 2002 and up along with Forester 2003 and up. Again Summit's fit finder says it also fits my 2005 LGT . So again I installed the braided lines to the front. Then my daughter helped me bleed the brakes with Motul RPF 600 fluid.

As I stated a few days ago I had found a an ASV rear sway bar reinforcement. Yesterday I was informed the part is no longer available. I returned to searching and found ADF Anderson Design and Fabrication they make Subaru off-road stuff and that includes a rear sway bar reinforcement. I will report how that turns out.

[310Z]

10 hours ago, SilentJ20 said:

Discovered a more reliable way to check the oil level.  After having recent difficulty getting an accurate reading on the oil dipstick, I found a thread suggesting to open the dipstick cap and/or oil cap to let everything settle more completely.

Even after sitting over night, with all caps tightly sealed I'd always have oil on the edges of the dipstick and had to 'interpret' where the lowest point was.  After doing the above trick, I still have a difference on either side of the dipstick, but it's much clearer to read.

That is interesting I could see this technique having an effect on a more accurate reading. The Subaru reads just like my Tundra.

[KZJonny]

1 hour ago, 310Z said:

Yesterday I had a set of front and rear White Line sway bars with end links delivered, Stop Tech DOT braided steel lines delivered and a set of EBC Yellow Stuff pads (DP41584R Rear pads, DP41661R Front pads) delivered. Today I went about installing them. I started at the right rear and soon found out that these rear pads do not fit. On the box it says for Outback 2003 and up. The fit finder at Summit said it also fits my 2005 LGT. So I went ahead and installed the the braided lines on the rear. As I moved to the front I found the same issue, the pads do not fit. The box says it fits Baja 2002 and up along with Forester 2003 and up. Again Summit's fit finder says it also fits my 2005 LGT . So again I installed the braided lines to the front. Then my daughter helped me bleed the brakes with Motul RPF 600 fluid.

As I stated a few days ago I had found a an ASV rear sway bar reinforcement. Yesterday I was informed the part is no longer available. I returned to searching and found ADF Anderson Design and Fabrication they make Subaru off-road stuff and that includes a rear sway bar reinforcement. I will report how that turns out.

Bummer that the delivered parts don't fit. I think you are finding the condition where the computerized parts listing doesn't differentiate between a normal Legacy and a GT. In this case, the GT has much larger brakes, so the cross listed non-turbo parts are probably innacurately listed as correct.

Hopefully all the rest of the work goes well!

[jaylew]

Saw a clean GT sedan today in my town...who was it? Hudson, MA. I was the weirdo in a red jetta wagon admiring the car and whispbars and wishing I was in my GT wagon to also show off my whispbars haha

[WRX USA]

I dropped 34 pounds.

https://antigravitybatteries.com/products/starter-batteries/automotive/ag-35-rs/

Edited November 4, 2023 by WRX USA

[310Z]

That is a substantial weight loss, more than the driver not ingesting a cheese burger before getting into the car. How much did losing 34 pounds set you back? What is the life expectancy of this battery?

I have had friends use the small lightweight batteries on their dirt bikes and they love them until they wont take a jump and you are in the middle of nowhere and then they won't even kick start. I don't know why the bikes wont kick start or tow start.

[WRX USA]

10 minutes ago, 310Z said:

That is a substantial weight loss, more than the driver not ingesting a cheese burger before getting into the car. How much did losing 34 pounds set you back? What is the life expectancy of this battery?

I have had friends use the small lightweight batteries on their dirt bikes and they love them until they wont take a jump and you are in the middle of nowhere and then they won't even kick start. I don't know why the bikes wont kick start or tow start.

It was just over $700. They claim better cycle life than lead acid. This battery has a remote jump start feature built in. You don’t even have to pop the hood, you just press the button on one of the included remotes.

[Enlight]

That's interesting, so it looks like they have some of the battery monitoring functions the "smart" trickle charger built-in to the battery itself. As we already know, lead-acid batteries like to be stored full but lithium batteries do not.

I also have an Odyssey battery. I switched to Odyssey from Optima after I had a Red Top fail within 2 years.

As an aside (for those who still have lead acid batteries), Harbor Freight sells overcharge protected trickle chargers now for $10.00. I keep one on my Suburban so it's ready for snow duty.

[Enlight]

I tried installing a TrakMotive CV axle today but the inner joint popped out of its socket, don't know whether it's a common occurrence or not. Reinstalled my Raxles unit (which might not be bad after all) and also installed the pitch mount which might be the actual cause of the clunking. Tomorrow I will test for vacuum leaks.

[Flaris]

Today and tomorrow both -- Trying to figuring out how to get the passenger side oil pressure switch off without using enough force to crack the engine block. It's leaking oil, so I'm trying to get ahead of the repairs before Subi succumbs to them.

..And yes I call my Legacy "Subi".

[xt2005bonbon]

Amazing how these lithium batteries are that light. I installed a 60 Ah lithium battery where the spare tire is about 2 years ago for our fridge and portable shower. Sooo light it is ridiculous. 

[310Z]

I worked hard yesterday so I am catching up today for yesterday. I removed the stock sway bars front and rear and installed a new set of White Line bars and end links. In the rear I also installed a brace to strengthen the stock bracket. I spent weeks looking for the bracket and found that all of the companies that made the brackets no longer make them. But what I found is a very simplistic design that appears to add the needed strength. A company in Sandy OR that fabricates stuff for off-road Subaru's' designed and still sells the rear bracket brace and I received it in 3 days. The company is Anderson Design & Fabrication (ADF).

Ride does not appear any different on straight roads. Cornering comes with more confidence as I have no on road photos of before and after in corners showing the amount of body roll reduction.

Today I installed a new set of rear hatch struts as the hatch back was working fine until it was cold in the mornings and then they would not hold the hatch up.

[Max Capacity]

310Z, how come that car has no rust under it ?