I recently picked up a 1995 Subaru Legacy 5M/T wagon. It has 260,000 miles and overall is in decent shape with no major repairs needed. The most annoying issue is that the shifter is extremely loose side to side when in gear. My research indicated that it was most likely the fault of a bushing in the shifter's u-joint. There are a couple of options that I've found.
I can buy this part from Amazon (or from Subaru for $30 more) and replace the entire u-joint. This video describes that process. Say $60 if I buy the Amazon u-joint as well as OEM roll pins, nut and bolt.
Or I can go the route of this guy, who went to the hardware store and found various rubber grommets to jam into the hole until it worked. Say $10 overall.
Assuming the hardware store actually has what I need (I wouldn't be surprised if they stopped carrying them since this video was made), which route would you take? There are some things I don't mind cheaping out on, but should this be one of them?
I’d be inclined to fix it properly. Might be able to get the parts online from a Subaru dealer at a discount. I did the job years ago (on a Subaru Legacy Brighton), and it was fairly easy, but I don’t remember it costing $60 in parts, even though I replaced the bushings, roll pins, and the u joint. Parts prices could have gone up considerably since then, though. I probably could have gotten away with just the bushings, which at the time were just a few dollars.
Someone before me had tried to “fix” it by wrapping electrical tape where the bushings went. I suspect they spent almost as much as the proper parts cost, based on how much tape was there.
Electrical tape is my go to solution... but probably not for bushings.
I'm going to take it apart before buying anything, in order to see what I'm really dealing with. The car isn't a daily, so it can sit for a while. Thanks for confirming that OEM is probably the way to go here. Hopefully I'll be able to buy just the bushings and not the whole u-joint.
Just chiming in to say I loved the 1995 Legacy L wagon with 5mt that I owned. While the '11 is a better car, I LIKED the '95 more.
The shifter in my Forester was really sloppy. It was an OEM trunnion and spring that wore out got replaced with a brass unit and new spring. No more slop.
In reply to Brett_Murphy :
Ooh, that reminds me, I replaced the spring as well. IIRC, it was just gone from my car.
So the shifter bushings on my Datsun were horribly worn; I drilled out a hardware store brass plumping fitting then put it in my drill press and used a file to turn it down to the right OD. I had to make two of them, this took 1.5 - 2 hours. It worked fine but frankly I'd spend the extra $50 and just get the factory part. I only did it because I couldn't get the part for a couple of weeks and an event was coming up.
