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1997 Legacy Computer Electrical Starting Problem


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I know what you mean. I just did my A/C idler pully. First reasonable day in a few weeks when I was also not terribly ill.

 

But with the parts you've swapped vs. the weirdness of the problem I still feel like there is an intermittent wire or terminal rather than what we more traditionally think of as a 'bad part'. For the cam and crank sensors I expect it would be enough to take it off the car, connect a volt meter, and move a neodymium magnet past the can. If you get a little pulse of voltage it should be good. Clean any gunk and put it back.

 

I'd like to know what ohms are on the big wire from alternator to battery. You'd want to take out the battery for that test. And you'd want to check it slowly wiggling the wire to see if it is frayed internally. Better if you could do that test right after running the car until it died in case it only shows after loaded use.

 

Your car will run again. I just hope we can get through this sooner...

 

I will have to get a little help with this task and I really appreciate the optimistic last line.

 

In my mind, the big wire from the alternator to the battery needs to be ruled out. I suspect I can check the batter fresh of the charger and then check it after the car dies and I will find it drained some. If the car runs and alternator is bench tested to be good but the battery drains and car dies it stands to reason it isn't being charged, right?

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I have to hand it to you. You have some tenacity on getting this problem resolved. I would have thrown in the towel long ago on this and drove the car off a cliff.

 

It's a good thing there are no cliffs within the 5 to 30 minute run time I get with each fully charged battery start. Two weeks ago I pulled out of my parking lot only to die in traffic without any shoulder to pull onto because the shoulders are covered in 4ft of snow. I thought I was a goner trying to push the car back to my parking lot.

 

Good news is accuweather was right and we only got a skiff of snow last night. I hope accuweather remains true cause our local Facebook weather group who prides themselves on being able to interpret our local weather better, is calling for another 20 inches today and tomorrow. Once this storm passes we should be back into warmer weather, should be.

 

I'm sure if I were handy with a volt meter I might have this problem solved by now. I know it is going to be a cheap fix is if I can trace the problem down and survive my wife's third degree on how much I have spent and wasted on this car.

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Honestly I would have lost patience with it by now too, I probably would have let it get buried with snow in the parking lot and hope a snowplow hits it. Electrical gremlins are something I don't mess with. Also what year and motor is it? I have a spare engine wiring harness off of my car and it's for a 2.2, you're free to have it to give it a shot and see if it changes anything.
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Honestly I would have lost patience with it by now too, I probably would have let it get buried with snow in the parking lot and hope a snowplow hits it. Electrical gremlins are something I don't mess with. Also what year and motor is it? I have a spare engine wiring harness off of my car and it's for a 2.2, you're free to have it to give it a shot and see if it changes anything.

 

It's 97 with the 2.2. I would love to walk away from it but I have $2k in new parts in it that haven't more than 2000 miles on them. I think the only way for me to get any money back out of it is to part it out and sell on ebay part by part. Everything works great on it when it runs except the AC which has a leak somewhere. Just put new 4 new struts on it to boot.

 

I have never changed a wiring harness before, I'm not too excited about doing that, but that should be something with a set fee I could shop around and find someone who is an expert changing them. Will a wiring harness replace the wires for the alternator and such?

 

I plan on calling my local dealer and see how they react to the problem. See what they are willing to do, my guess is they will ignore all my notes on the problem and do their own thing and charge me out the wazooo.

 

As soon as our current storm passes, I plan on getting it to someone to fix. I've just about had it.

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I definitely understand having too much in a car haha. I'd get frustrated with it and I'd hate it but I wouldn't actually try to kill it/sell it, they're great cars when they behave.

Luckily on our cars, the engine wiring harness is all tucked up under the intake, it's easiest to take off the intake, you could easily make a weekend project of it since it's pretty painless and only requires basic hand tools and knowledge. And no the alternator cables goes into the wiring harness in the fender and then into the car somewhere, I'm not sure how to replace that one.

I'd suggest taking it to someone who's experienced/specialized in electronic systems. That's a skill in and of itself and most mechanics don't mess with it. If you take it to a regular mechanic, they'll probably run up a couple hours of diagnostics and not find anything.

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The alternator isn't in the engine harness, that just does the sensors and takes them back to the bulkhead harness at the bell housing. The alternator comes over from the front left side of the engine bay. I've switched out engine harnesses before. Not a lot of fun if you have big hands or if you aren't flexible. Otherwise it's not so bad. Just match everything up. (Keep in mind when I say not so bad, that's from someone who doesn't mind taking the engine out to swap a clutch.)
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Quick question...have you run a separate wire from the alternator power connection directly to the positive on the battery?

 

Charging issues shouldn't be this hard to diagnose. The other thing I would do is remove the charging wire from the battery and tie it off so it doesn't short out. Start the car with the fresh battery and take a voltmeter and measure the output of the pole on the alternator. See if you're even getting a reading that's within spec. I know you said you replaced the alternator, but I'd still check that.

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Thank you all for the emotional support. I haven't done a thing with a voltmeter because I have no experience with them which makes me timid to try.

 

Is it reasonable to expect our local Subaru dealer to have mechanics experienced enough to easily diagnose the issue and fix it? I'm just about ready to load it up and take it over and hope for a bill less than $400 to get it fixed by them. Desperation is setting in because I need to work on my Chevy truck too putting it out of commission for a few days and without a second car I'm out of commission.

 

Should a professional subaru mechanic be able to track down the issue and fix it?

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I think anyone with subaru expertise can get it figured out pretty easy. I meant just avoid the quicklube/NTB type of garages. They'll hire anyone who has ever held a wrench.

 

I like to think so too. In a perfect world, their top electrical guy will whip out his trusty volt meter and trace it down in an hour and then clean and repair the short and send me on my way with a bill under $200. :)

 

My last run in with a dealership was with Chevy and it cost me dearly. I self diagnosed my problem to be the injector/injectors and decided to have a Chevy dealer confirm it for $60 before I spent $400 on new injectors. Chevy told me it was the fuel pump so I changed it 5 time being told Napa sold me the wrong one or bad pumps and then after buying one from Chevy they told me it was the computer so I bought one from them on the spot, paying another $60 for the diagnoses and buying the computer from them and I replaced it in their parking lot and no dice. I went home and replaced most of the throttle body except the expensive injectors and no dice. All along, Chevrolet insisted my injectors were fine. Took it to another mechanic who replaced all the new parts I had already replaced who also swore it was not the injectors and he kept it for 2 months and I had to pay him for all the new parts and his labor to get it out of his shop and then I was futzing with it in the Staples parking lot and a guy pulled up and asked me what the problem was and I told him all I had been through and he said bring it in, he would have fixed in a few hours. He called me in 30 minutes and told me one of the injectors is bad and he could put a used one in for $200. All said and done I payed over 2K when all I needed was one used injector I could have put in for the tune of $75. That's why I am so dealership and mechanic shy right now.

 

I really appreciate all the advice and support here and I still love Subarus and will always have one, hopefully just not this one.

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Thank you all for the emotional support. I haven't done a thing with a voltmeter because I have no experience with them which makes me timid to try.

 

It's not hard. If you have a digital voltmeter, set it to 20 under the DC Volts

 

http://i.imgur.com/4jpcZuH.gif

 

Disconnect the lead from the alternator and make sure it doesn't touch anything.

 

http://i.imgur.com/k80doY6.jpg

 

Start the car and take the red lead from your voltmeter and touch it on the pole you just removed the wire from. Take the black lead from the voltmeter and ground it anything metal. The readout will tell you what voltage is being output. It should be putting out around 14.2-14.7 volts.

 

According to the FSM, the output with no load is 14.5V. If you have a dedicated Ammeter, you could test the output of the amperage. The FSM states it should put out 35A at 1500 RPM all the way up to 82A at 5000 RPM

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If that test is good then next you want to shut off the car, disconnect the positive battery terminal. Set the meter to the lowest ohms setting. That's the O with the hole at the bottom and the little feet. With both ends of that big wire on the alternator disconnected you can use the two meter leads at either end of that wire and make sure that it has less than 1 ohm. It would be best if you had a helper to move the alternator wire around at different points while you do this to see if there is a funky spot in the wire.

 

This would prove that the power that the alternator makes can actually flow over to the battery.

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QUICK QUESTION, can a fowled crank or cam sensor cause a car to run rough? Now when I start it, it will not allow me to raise the RPM much and it drives really rough. I'm thinking of pulling the sensor right under the alternator and cleaning it on the off chance it might be fouled by leaking PS fluid.

 

We are going to test all the electrical wires Thursday if the weather holds.

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I mean.. those sensors are fundamental for the engine knowing where the crank and cams are so I would think if they were failed/failing that the car wouldn't run at all. But it wouldn't hurt to clean them, but plan to replace them if you are going to take them out, I've had issues with them getting stuck in their holes and when I applied force and WD-40 they broke while trying to remove them.
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My car ran with the sensor equipped cam 2 or 3 teeth off compared to the other cam and the crank. I could kinda drive it if I was careful to allow for extreme low power. It ran real rough at idle, and cut off above 3450, but in the middle it ran smooth at low power settings. So I think yours would run, but be yucky with certain sensor problems. Metallic dust on it for instance, which does happen sometimes, but if it does you should also consider searching for where there dust is coming from.
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I mean.. those sensors are fundamental for the engine knowing where the crank and cams are so I would think if they were failed/failing that the car wouldn't run at all. But it wouldn't hurt to clean them, but plan to replace them if you are going to take them out, I've had issues with them getting stuck in their holes and when I applied force and WD-40 they broke while trying to remove them.

 

Probably because they have less than a 1000 miles on them they came right out and were extremely clean. I pulled traded all the SBF fuses around to make sure none of them were blown and causing my problem. Wasn't able to get the car started after doing all that assuming it is because I didn't give the battery the customary 4 hour charge after starting it the last time. Will put the nice warm fully charged batter in today and see if it will start. If not, weather permitting, Thursday will be the day I resurrect her some how or die trying. ;) If you do not hear from after Thursday, you know it was the latter.

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I have $5 betting that all of this was cause by something stupid, like a lightbulb was blown or a plug is not connected somewhere

 

Totally which is what makes it so hard to take it to a shop for a $200 or $400 bill for putting a plug back together or replacing a bulb.

 

Right now I can't even get it started. I have it parked over snow run off and I get a bit of a feeling that the humidity and moisture might be part of the problem. Got the batter on the charger again and will try again if it will warm up a bit. I would like to move it to a dry spot on my parking lot.

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Just a word of advice, if your charger doesn't auto shut off, don't overcharge that battery. I've seen a bunch of them explode because of that. What'd I'd do at this point if I were you is go get a tube of dielectric grease and a can of QD electrical cleaner and just pull all of the plugs, spray them out with the cleaner and then fill them with grease and see what that buys you.
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Got it started again today, ran rough died in less than 10 minutes so I figured I would check the fuel and as far as I can tell there is little to no fuel to the fuel filter.

 

I believe it is suppose to be squirting fuel as it turns over, am I correct?

 

Is there a fuel pump relay or fuse?

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