[EddieSVX]

So... My SVX now has around 96k miles in the odo... My wife's been driving it daily back and forth from Spanaway (home) to Bellevue (work) (Washington state...that's a 50 miles route each way), and the commute, as I expected, took a serious toll on our poor subbie...

At around 75k miles, the tranny was rebuilt. The issues back then were that it would take a long time to engage reverse, and it had some serious gear hunting action going on (it would go back and forth between gears during shifting).

After the rebuilt, the tranny worked like a champ... That is, until today... What a day.

So my wife calls me up while driving on the freeway, freaking out, saying the car would rev up real high whenever it would try to shift... Hmm, I tried to explained it sounded like the tranny was flaring. I asked her to try and putting the car in 3rd and see if the problem would go away, but then she said the car wouldn't accelerate, just go up to redline if she tried without it accelerating.

The problem sounded worse by the second... So I asked her to try and make it home (I should've just had her pull over and me pick her up, but I had a little bit of hope that the car would hold up 'til she got home).

Once she got home, I went out and started it... At first the car revved up then down, on its own, then idled rough for about 5 seconds... Once it settled, I revved the engine a little and I could hear a strange rattle comeing from underneath... It kind'a scared me so I shut her off, popped the hood open and checked engine oil/tranny fluid levels... The engine oil levels were low but not too terribly low... Although I checked last week and they definitely had dipped about half a quart since, which isn't common for our SVX at all... Tranny fluid levels were good, and the fluid didn't seem to be burnt or gunked pu or anything.

I backed the car up so I could put it on jacks, and my wife's expression changed as she looked down in front of the car once I moved it... I was like "Oh God...what???"

I get out of the car and notice a puddle about the size of a CD...engine oil! At this point I'm getting extremely confused trying to figure out if it's an engine problem, tranny problem, both...uggh...

So I jack her up and look underneath and realize there's just a mess of oil down there... I removed the plastic cover directly under the engine and look around and realize that the seals/gaskets on the block (I've never worked on a boxer engine before even tho I've owned the SVX for over 3 years...yea I know, I'm lame) so I didn't realize the block was not a single piece. Anyways, both seals on either side seemed to be leaking, but the one towards the driver side (left bank) was leaking worst...Fresh leak, too...

So now I'm scratching my head... I started the car and now it's idling perfect and the motor revs up smooth with no weird noises.

I decided to take her out for a spin to try and reproduce the problem my wife was having, and it didn't take long... I left it in D, and it goes through 1st, then 2nd, and as it's supposed to shift into 3rd, the damn thing downshifts to 1st!! The revs went right up and the car shoot forward like I was racing it... so I immediately let go... So then I decided to try again, this time to see if it would eventually upshift from 1st... So it goes 1st...2nd...then the dreadful 1st gear downshift...and it went up to almost redline then shifted to 2nd again (I'm doing well over 40 MPH by now of course), and in 2nd it just keeps going up and up (not upshifting)... So I let go of the gas and noticed that OD engages! But whenever I accelerate the revs match up 2nd gear and the car keeps going...fast...

So, I'm like...WTF? This time, I put the car in the 3rd position and go for it... Well this time it gets even more bizzare... It goes 1st...2nd (normally, no crazy redline crap), then when you'd expect it to either shift to 3rd, or do the weird downshift to 1st...it does neither! It free revs, like 3rd gear never existed... Now the car stays in a sort of "neutral" position, no up or downshift until I move the lever to D (in which case it goes back down to 2nd), or 2nd, in which case it...yea, goes to 2nd too, hehe...

Hmmm, so, in summary, my car thinks that the shifting order is 1, 2, 1 really fast, 2 really fast.... If it's in Drive... And if it's in 3rd, it's 1, 2...then Neutral.

Okay so now I think I know what happened to the poor motor... I mean, try driving an SVX for half an hour on the freeway constantly shooting up to 5500 ~ 6000 RPM... It wouldn't like it much now would it?

The engine, though, does not seem to have been damaged internally, as it revs smoothly, has lots of power, and idles perfect.... But now it's got that nasty leak from the seals.

The tranny, though, seems to be a much more serious issue. I've either lost 3rd gear and it just doesn't wanna go up, chooses to go down instead, or Satan's posessed it and all it wants to do is try to get me a speeding ticket by shifting into lower gears when it shouldn't.

So what's the veredict? Should I do a 5MT swap? Have the TPS/brake band adjustment checked to see if by some cosmic miracle that's the issue? Or sell the car for really cheap?

How much do you guys think the engine gasket/seals replacement will run me, provided that's the only issue with it?

Oh, and if I go with a 5MT, should I take it to Small Car Performance (I live about 15 ~ 20 minutes from their shop, or get my own subaru 5 speed and have a shop install it for me? What all will I need them to custom manufacture for me if I go the latter route?

We love the car and it's been very reliable dispite the current situation (any car will have issues being driven over 100 miles a day on 405/167 traffice here in WA state). We would really like to keep and rebuild her, and the 5 speed conversion sounds tempting but I'm scared of the costs... What recommendations do you all have?