Electrical Issues on a 93 Subaru Legacy

I am having a problem with my 1993 Subaru Legacy. Under the hood it says the

car is BJ7DY3 option code UOHW.

 

First of all, it won't start although panel lights such as a door open would show

on the dash. My first thought was a close to dead battery. I jumped the battery with

the help of a passing stranger, but it still didn't start. There was a click of

a solenoid, which I interpret as the solenoid for the starter motor. Ok, so then

I conclude that it is related to the starter motor/solenoid/bad connections. I

found your forums here, studied various entries and concluded I could probably

handle replacing the starter motor and solenoid if necessary.

 

But, some other things didn't really add up. For example, the automatic seat

belt motor on the side of the door would not move up all the way, when I tried

to start the engine. It seemed like perhaps the battery was dead after all.

Also, it was not me that had connected the jumper cables on my benefactor's

battery. Perhaps he hadn't done it correctly. So, I replaced the battery after

all. Car still does not start. I left it overnight and thought about the

situation. The new battery was left in place and hooked up.

 

This morning, I cleaned the contact where the wire connects to the solenoid. I

did not remove the grounding wire to the engine, because it appears that I need

a longer extension for my socket wrench, but it seemed pretty tight. When I

tried starting it, nothing happened including no click from the solenoid. In

addition, the automatic seat belt motor only worked for about 1/2 a second. In

many ways it seems like a dead battery still, but of course this is the new

one. I am wondering if there is a short somewhere that drained the battery.

 

So, I know I have a problem, but I don't know which one. I am open to

suggestions on what to do. What seems the most logical is to systematically

test the wiring to see where there might be a problem. I don't have the first

idea on how to do that. Could someone make some suggestions on where to start?

Bear in mind that I am pretty ignorant about the whole thing, but I like to

think I can follow directions and I have things like a multimeter and basic tools.

Ok, that turned out to be a much shorter saga than I thought it would be. Because I had focused on the fact that it wasn't starting, I hadn't checked much of the electrical when I wrote the first entry.

 

For others who are searching based upon a similar problem, what I did:

 

Cleaned the connector where the positive wire attached to the starter motor.

Checked the connector of the wire coming from the ignition switch.

At the battery end, cleaned underneath where the wires are clamped to the connectors.

Cleaned the connector of the negative wire where it attached to the frame.

 

In my particular case, what I found when I finally cleaned under the clamped wires for the positive connector is that there was a significant amount of rust, maybe 70-80%. The rust did not really show from the outside, when the clamp was screwed on. Only after it was removed was it so apparent.

 

It seemed like a big enough smoking gun that I decided to try starting the car before looking further, so I hooked up the battery. What I noticed immediately when I opened the car door was the automatic seltbelt positioner in the door moving to its furthest open position. Putting the key in the ignition resulted in all of the lights on the dashboard operating normally and the car started without incident.

 

So, the mostly rusted but partially connected wires on positive allowed some current to go through, but not enough. I assume that it has been slowly getting worse over time and eventually hit the tipping point.

 

At this point, I'm declaring the thing a big success and will move on. I am still interested at some point at learning more about the electrical system, but will not address it further for awhile.

 

Thanks for reading this, and perhaps it will help someone else down the road.

An upgraded grounding system would probably help you. Runing extra ground wires from the battery to the engine block then from the block to the firewall and then another from battery to chassis ground. Subarus have a minimal grounding system and electrons flow from ground to positive.

That's an interesting point, USLiberty. I'll be the first to admit that electricity is not one of my strong areas. As I think about what you said, intuitively, it would seem like the total area of the cross-sections of the wires for positive and negative ought to be near parity. However, the actual cross-sectional area of the positive is much larger. So, your suggestion makes sense to me.

 

If I were to drill and tap a hole in the firewall, is any spot better than another? I don't have a sense of what is behind there exactly.

 

Thanks very much for your suggestion.

EXACTLY! electrons going out need to come back therefore the cross-sectional area should be equal on the + and - wires coming off the battery. Been studying/working with electricity for 8 years now and it still boggles my mind when I learn something new. I'm studying solid state devices like op-amps and ocsilators right now and its comparable to magic, lol. It is definetly a bare minimum grounding system that subaru still uses today, probably saves a few dollars on each car. You can use any bolt,ground wire that's already in the firewall, clean it off and scrape off the paint under. I just upgrade the factory grounds, subaru uses a washer that digs into the painted body when the bolt is tightened. After some corrosion this can play hell with sensors that are mounted on the engine. You can find plenty of how to's and suggested mounting spots online, because its the same system in all subarus. I know the strut mounting bolts are not a good ground, its a glued panel. I used car audio 4 gauge wire with solid copper connectors from napa that I soldered with a torch... its a little over built though. You could get away with 8-10 gauge and crimp connectors sized to the bolts, if your not worried about appearance.

Thanks for your info. I will look into this. It sounds very doable.

i'm having a similar issue, except everything was fine up until friday night, i had someone replace my clutch and when i went to pick up the car he said that it didnt want to start because it was cranking very slowly, so then he jumped it and it still cranked slow but eventually started, when i started it it cranked pretty slow but started, drove it home, stalled it, then it wouldn't crank at all, i felt it turn maybe once. so me and my friend push started it and it worked. then pulled up to my friends house and i started messing with the clutch cable because it felt weird since it's off the bracket and blah blah blah.. anyways i went to pull off and i stalled it. went to crank and it only clicked. brough some jumper cables, jumped it and nothing. i know for a fact the battery is good because i had it tested the day after, but after we tried jumping it, i started trying to make the starter go by turning the key constantly since sometimes i got it to start that way, well after a few times i got some smoke coming from above the cluster and then everytime i tried turning the key it would make the temp gauge rise 1/4 of the way if i held the key on the start position and i only get a click inside the car and from the cluster. checked grounds and battery to engine is ok, the one really thin wirethat goes from somewhere on the pass side of the trans to the mounting point of that little black box that says tr power unit (or whatever it says) had an ear broken thus not being grounded to the engine. by the time i saw that i gave up and had my sister in law pull me with her minivan and towing straps. while the car was rolling i had they key in the on position to be able to turn the wheel and such. well i heard a constant clicking from inside the cluster, kind of like the sound it makes when you turn the headlights on but it was very repetitive. so i'm guessing that little wire is the one giving me this major headache and possibly other engine to body ground straps that are not obviously visible. where are the rest of the engine to body ground straps? and say i ground the engine to the body properly and the starter stil gets no power (i replaced the starter by the way) i was thinking maybe i fried the ignition switch on the steering column or something from behind the cluster. any ideas? 93 legacy l 5mt 2.2e all stock

Hello;

Fix the ground that goes to the tranny to body just under the coil ignitor. The battery has two grounds, one to the starter and one to the body. The positive side of the battery has two leads, one to the starter and one to the fuse box. Unplug the solenoid lead to the starter and jump a wire to the terminal to the hot side of the starter. If the starter turns over, then you have fried the relay to to the clutch pedal. Look at the switch on the pedal and trace back to the relay. If the starter does not engage, then faulty starter. Hope this helps, Steven.

Also, Ive had the ignition switch go bad and act like a bad starter relay, it would sometimes crank while jiggling it, until it completely quit one day. You can use jumper cables as temporary grounds just for trouble-shooting, at least rule out the bad ground idea. Releasing the smoke in your dashboard doesn't sound pleasant.

well i ran a ground wire from one of the strut nuts to one of the starter bolts, fired right up. i'm still going nuts trying to figure out what exactly was smoking behind the cluster, also it idles a little better now, who would think of using 14g wire to ground the engine to the body? Subaru.

The strut tower nuts are not a solid grounding point, its a glued panel. Id use one of the window washer reservoir mounting bolts instead, scrap some paint away under it or use something else. I've read this on other forums, it worked because its grounding thru the strut to the hubs and suspension.