Can anyone shed any light on this :)

[blackshade]

Had a crack at changing over my centre diff in my 2002 Legacy wagon on sat......didn't go as planned. :'(

Followed all the guidelines and brought a older model with the same rear housing, took out the old one and saw a lot of burn damage around the centre diff, so was a relief to get it out. Took off the housing and began trying to fit on the 2nd hand on, its from a 93 rs box.

So started struggling to get it on, had a heap of issues getting the shifter in place. the shifter was completely different, this worried me at first but as it looked like it was a little bit smaller than the original. But eventually I got it on, and before I tightened all the bolts and what not I used a punch to select gears and all was looking awesome. I could select gears when I reassembled using the shifter(although it felt very loose) so I continued tightening up the bolts and brackets and everything else. Filled it back up with about 3.5ltrs of oil, selected all the gears for about 5 minutes to get the oil through it and then decided it was time to take it for a drive. Just went on a short drive, it ran mint as. Got all the gears, felt great no probs at all.

But........then next day, started it up to take it on a proper test drive and got about 25kms from home, selected 5th gear and carried on to 100KM and after about 7 minutes of driving at 100kms I went to change down to forth and it wouldn't budge. I still can't get it out of 5th, and I pretty sure I've maybe put the selector in the wrong gate or maybe one of the gates weren't in the right place upon assembly. If I gently release the clutch it sounds like trans is skipping, so I hope I haven't blown the box.

It was a massive mission so I apoligise for the lack of exact info but does anyone have any ideas on what could have gone wrong and where I can fix it. I'm keen as to get it right, I figure I've had a go so there's nothing wrong with hammering it again. I find it a bit odd that I found all the gears and then it got stuck. I am concerned maybe it's ceased up or something but until I can afford to take it apart again I'm just going to try and get as much info as possible.

So if anyone's got any gems they are willing to pass on it wont go to waste.

[Joker]

same ratio?

10years difference in age might be the biggest clue...

/notmuchhelpatallspam

[blackshade]

Yeah same ratio. The age was a concern as well but all info lead to older models being very strong, I gave it a crack so could be an expensive lesson but only one way to find out .

Next option will be to probably try and track down a BH-5 phase 2 centre diff and put the original housing back in etc just to be safe. There seems to be a lot of mixed pros and cons with phase 2. The WRX diffs don't sound like they bind up as regularly as BH-5 diffs. I don't know whether a WRX phase 2 could be interchanged without swapping the housing as well, I've spent quite a bit of time looking for info, maybe I'm using the wrong search questions.