skibumm100

Good point John. I have another gauge I can try. The one with my compression tester isn't very high quality and it sits in the tool box drawer for a long time between uses. I'm still a litle concerned about the bubbles, though. I didn't work on it today since it was so cold out. It'll be a couple weeks before I can get back at it again.

Hi GG! Thanks for your help in the past. I'm not sure what the overtorque was. It didn't click. I misadjusted the torque wrench and it was the first head bolt on the final torqueing. As I was turning the wrench I was thinking to myself "this thing should've clicked by now", so I stopped and checked my setting. It was definately higher than the final torque but I didn't leave it for more than a minute. I'm pretty sure it's a blown HG based on the way it acted when it puked the water out. I was careful to raise the front of the car on ramps and to burp the hoses as it warmed up the first time after the original work. I also drilled a bigger by-pass hole in the thermostat and located it at the top. I did that after the first time it puked. The head gasket I put in the car was the OEM one that comes with the kit from Genuine Subaru Parts. I don't know the part number of the gasket itself. When I warmed the engine before doing the compression readings I let it get warm but not real hot. I think I might let it get hotter today and see if I can get it to barf and then check the compression. I really don't want to do both sides if I don't need to.

The car: 98 Legacy GT The engine: EJ25 The Problem: I lost a timing belt idler a couple years back and bent a couple of valves. I pulled the engine out, took the heads off and had an automotive machine shop replace the bent valves, do a complete valve job and flatten the head gasket surface. I put it all back together using factory parts, replacing anything and everything that you should replace. I made a mistake and overtorqued one of the headbolts so I backed it off and re-torqued it. The car ran great for about a month. It then starts puking the water out of the overflow. Blown HG. Bubbles in the coolant reservoir. Fast forward a couple years and I've decided it's time to fix this thing and sell it. I charged the battery and fired it up. I drive it out of it's home in the garage and let it warm up. Once it's warmed up I shut it down, pull the plugs, prop the throttle open and check the compression. Acceptable compression range is 137-176 PSI. On my engine the compression ranged between 210 -240 PSI. No cylinder(s) was noticably low. The plugs looked good with the possible exception of one. It's color was good but it had a little build up on the ground electrode. I know these engines are finicky on head gaskets and are prone to blowing them. I thought about stacking two head gaskets to drop the compression down some but I'm a little concerned since these engines are already prone to HG failure. Does anyone else have experience with compression numbers this high? Am I concerned for nothing? I already have to replace the HG's so unless I can figure out which side it is I need to do both sides. Thanks for reading!

OB99W, Thanks for the reply. I've been out of pocket for a little while but it's time to dig back into this. If I can keep the CEL light off, I plan to get it in the garage to replace the head gasket.....again. It's going on the block after it's running right.

Hi guys and gals, More issues with the 98 Leggy GT. Car keeps throwing code P1121 - "TPS A RAN". I was also getting P0122 - "TPS A LOW" but that one doesn't seem to come up anymore. When I start the car it idles OK for a minute then, the idle RPM starts to climb. If I put it in gear the idle drops, then climbs again. Pop it out of gear and the idle jumps to almost 2000 RPM then slowly drops back down to about 900 RPM. If I put it back in gear again it will drop to about 600 RPM. It only does this for a period of time. The rest of the time the car drives pretty normal. I've connected my laptop and OBD II scanner software to it and the TPS seems to work fine. I can watch it on the data screen in real time. I've back-probed the plug on the TPS and the voltage and reference are within spec. The TPS reads zero percent with my foot off the pedal and 100 percent at the mat. The coolant temp sensor is reading fine. I'm tempted to get another TPS out of the junkyard but I don't really see a problem with the one I've got. When I'm backing down the driveway in the morning and it's doing the high idle thing in gear, something will instantly change and it will drive normally. (i.e. you have to hold it back with the brakes but then it snaps out of it and it won't try to push through the brakes) I'm at a loss on this one. Gregg

From my experience you may see a little less MPG due to running up and down hills. You never seem to be able to "save" as much gas going downhill as you "waste" going uphill. Congrats on your move! Relax and have a Fat Tire. I love CO. We have plenty of Subes around here also. Unfortunately, I may be getting rid of my 98 Legacy GT. Just too much trouble. I refuse to spend a ton of money on this car anymore. Here's a little hint: when something minor breaks...DON'T FIX IT! As soon as you fix some minor problem, a bigger one pops up. I fixed my leaky exhaust and then my heater core started leaking. Now I may have a blown head gasket. Can't keep the thing from puking out all the water. It's up on jackstands for now. I'm not done diagnosing it yet. I hope it's not a head gasket....again. I've also got some flakey TPS codes popping up. Sheesh. Sorry, I didn't mean to kill the vibe.

Mine's a 98 Legacy GT and when I replace mine I can get at the bottom nut with a loooong extension. I need to do it again this weekend.....solenoid acting up again. I might get a rebuilt one from Autozone as you did and keep the old one if I can. That way I can have a spare and just swap them out periodically. This will be the second time I've had to clean up the solenoid contacts in the last year and a half.

Dancing banana's all around! They're on me! It's sticka time! :banana: :banana:

I went out and checked out the car when I got home. I opened the hood, looked under the #3 intake runner and there it was, the famed purge control solenoid valve. How could I have missed it. It's sitting right there, buried under that stuff. Just a short distance away was the plug that was supposed to be connected to said valve.(I told you I was an idiot!) I missed reconnecting that plug when I reassembled the engine. Just for giggles I checked the resistance of the coil. It was around 26 ohms....perfectly fine and in spec. I plugged the pigtail into the valve and grabbed my laptop. Booted that baby up and started my scanner. I turned the key and it cranked and cranked and cracked and sputtered and cranked and sputtered and....well, you get the idea....no start. I thought to myself, "You really screwed something up this time." I thought "fuel pump going bad?"....."ignition problem?"....etc. The gas gauge read 1/8 of a tank but the little gas pump light was flickering when I was cranking it. I stopped myself from getting carried away and said, "Sounds like it's out of gas". When I couldn't get the car started, I stuck my head in the house and said, "Honey, have you been having trouble with the car starting?" She said, "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you I couldn't get it started this morning so I took the truck instead." So the first thing I tried was to dump 4 gallons of gas in the tank. Cranked it and voila, it started right up. I guess my gas gauge is on the fritz because it never used to run dry at 1/8 of a tank. I reset the code with the laptop and restarted the car several times and I had no codes, zero, nada. So, all is right with the world, excepting my gas gauge...and I can live with that. Thanks again for all the help! Hopefully, this thread will help someone else down the road.

Thanks Skip! I will check the resistance across the coil. How much do these things cost and are there alternative sources besides the dealer. My local Subaru dealer isn't very competitive on price. I bought all my genuine Subaru part from Jamie and even with shipping included, I saved a boatload of money.

It's possible this could be....gulp.....self induced. I'm not saying I didn't get all of my plugs and hoses put back together when I put the engine back in but.....well....there's a lot of them....and ....ummmm... it's possible something like that COULD have happened. I need to check when I get home. I am just happy to be working on a problem that is just valves and wires. This should be much better than the alternative I was looking at (new ECU). Thanks again for your help! I was going nowhere fast....and making good progress BTW. Thanks for taking the time to walk a Subie Newbie through the process.

Yep, in my confused state I was at least able to count pin locations. That's how I figured it was 35. I can't wait to get home and actually see the purge control valve with my own two eyes. Thank you SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH for helping me out! The Haynes manual really doesn't give you much help on this system. It almost points you in the wrong direction. Two halves of different stories. Put them together and what do you get.......bad info. I am forever indebted. Gregg

NOW WE'RE COOKIN' WITH GAS!!!!!

Excerp from a post by Mikevan10: "Summer 2004 - CEL on. Would not pass emmissions inspection. DTCs were P0446 and one or more cyl misfire codes. Took it to the dealer (make that stealer) since the local repair shop/inspection station did not seem likely to diagnose the problems easily or quickly and I was at a loss with ODBII. Dealer installed new ignition coil and wires. Cleared codes. He told me something to the effect of "There is a P0446 code in history so that fault may pop back up. We recommend you have us replace the vent/purge/drain solenoid valve soon as you can. We don't have one in stock but can have it for you in a couple days.". I paid the massive bill for the ignition system work and RAN. But before I ran, I spoke directly with one of the Subaru mechanics and I asked him where this solenoid valve was located. This guy was aware that I was dealing with DTC P0446, by the way... He pointed out what I NOW understand to be the Purge Control Solenoid Valve!!! Well, as soon as I started the engine to dive away from the dealer the MIL came back on. Pissed off, I drove back to the local garage/inspection station and the guy there told me he had figured out how to get around the system and give me a sticker. What a relief. I believe he had just learned about the 5,000 mile rule, but whatever, I got my sticker. Next, I ordered a Purge Control Solenoid valve from Liberty Subaru using the part number they gave me at my local Subaru Dealer/Stealer. When I received the part I installed it. I did not have a scanner so I could not clear (or read) the codes but at that time my (false?) understanding was that even if I had fixed the root problem, that my light may not go off right away but that it would after I reached sufficient "cycles", what ever they are. Well, the light never went off but, heck, car ran fine and I had my sticker. Cut to about a month ago. Brought car to my local garage but this time he screwed something up when hooking up the "The System" and now he could not give me a sticker with the MIL on!! The Horror!!! My only recourse seemed to be to fix the problem(s). At this point I borrowed a scanner from a friend and read the codes. There were 4 or 5 of them. Cleared them and when I started the car the MIL was off for the first time in years!! But, as I stated way above in one of my first posts on this epic thread, the light came back on the second time I started the engine. Read codes, only one, P0446. The next couple week's worth of troubleshooting is well documented above, but, as you know, I was chasing the wrong solenoid valve!!! In my defense, I started out on this (wrong) track due to the dealer's advice. And when I started working on this almost 2 weeks ago, all I had was a Haynes manual. The Haynes manual, in the Emmisions Controls chapter, only addressed one solenoid valve in the EVAP system. I "ASSUMED" that this must be the valve I replaced 2 years ago. Also, the Haynes manual even only shows one (1) solenoid valve related to the EVAP system in the wiring diagram! Although at least one of you guys made comments that in retrospect should have given me enough clues to question whether I had the right component, I was just too dense to see this until I finally got my hands on a Subaru factory manual and started studying the EVAP system schematics and wiring diagrams. I had one of those Eureka moments at about midnight Monday night and almost had to wake up the wife and kids. Once I went after the right component, following procedure 10AJ1 in the factory manual led me right to the cause in about 5 minutes - An open circuit in the tank harness so signal was not returning from the solenoid to pin 35 on the ECM! Like I said, a long story and a very frustrating experience, but, on the other hand, I do understand alot more about these systems and most valuable of all was getting to "work" with you folks who tried to help me out. I had seeked advice from this board in the past and, frankly, was disappointed. But I am now a believer. Some of you guys have great technical minds and the rest of us are lucky to have you around! Thanks again for those of you who took the time to take my comments, think about them and apply it to what you know about these systems. Hats off to Nipper, Cougar, OB99W and Ferret. You guys are the real deal. Also thanks to Matty D for getting me the bible, without which it seems like no amount of wisdom was going to get me to finally find the truth! And thanks everyone else for bearing with us. This Long Strange Trip is over. I am starting a new one now!!!!" He was dealing with PO446. His problem was the valve I have been working on. My code is PO443. It is now my understanding that this is a DIFFERENT valve. Hopefully, I can get on the right track and get this fixed.

OK, I looked at my ECU plug again, B84. Looking at the pic you posted, that's half of the plug, hence the squigly double line. I am also assuming that the view of the B84 plug in the pic is looking at the back (wire side) of the plug. If that is indeed the case, pin 72 is located on the bottom row near the top of the plug when it's inserted into the ECU. It is a white w/blue stripe wire as shown on the schematics. This all makes sense. When backprobed with KOEO, I did not find any voltage at that pin. That would explain the CEL and trouble code. Now, the questions I have are these: 1.) What is that solenoid valve that is located next to the carbon canister at the back of the car? It doesn't have a white w/blue wire going to it. 2.) Where is the evap purge control valve located? 3.) Where is the "Main Relay" located? This is supposed to supply 12VDC to the purge valve. Haynes shows it on the schematic but doesn't show a location for it. FWIW, the "mystery" valve I have been working on has a brown w/yellow wire that goes to a pin on the other half of the ECU plug (not shown). I believe it's pin 35. That wire rings out to the brown w/yellow wire at that valve. I hope I'm on the right track. I believe this "other" valve was eluded to in another post about PO446 but the post ended without decribing the location of the two valves.

Thanks for the pic! I'm also pretty sure that's not the pin I'm on. *DUH!* I will take a look and see what pin it is that has the brown/yellow wire. (it's pin 35) I was a little concerned that I wasn't on the correct pin because of the color coding discrepency. I guess I need to go back to square one. PO443 is evap purge valve. It's located at the carbon canister next to the spare tire well at the right rear corner of the car. It has two wires going to the plug. On my car one is brown with a yellow stripe. The other is yellow w/red, if I remember correctly. The yellow w/red is 12VDC supply when the key is on. * I still haven't put two and two together yet....well I did... but I got five*

OB99W, Thanks for the reply. I need to double check that I'm on the 72 pin. I found the pin I'm checking by matching the color of the wire at the purge valve plug (brown w/yellow stripe) and checking continuity to the ECU harness plug with a multimeter and a really long jumper. * I was on an evap valve....just the wrong one* "P0443 is "EVAP System Purge Control Valve Circuit Low Input". I added the emphasis because that would seem to indicate that your ECU is not seeing battery voltage (greater than 10 volts) at Pin 72. You said "I backprobed the ECM plug on the correct (incorrect!) wire and had 11.8 VDC at the ECM with the KOEO."; assuming that means you made the measurement right at ECU pin 72, it should have seen sufficient voltage. Is there any possibility that the ECU connector (B84) isn't making good contact?" If I'm on the correct pin (72), I am seeing the voltage. The plug and pins look to be in excellent shape. It should be making good contact. How do I determine if I'm on pin 72? Is there an ECU plug diagram somewhere? Do I just count pins? * I was on pin 35, not 72* "I'm not certain about this, but D-Check mode may cycle the purge control valve solenoid. You could try warming the engine, shutting it down and connecting the green under-dash connectors, then run D-Check. Monitor the voltage across the solenoid while D-Check is running." I'm not familiar with D-Check. Is there anywhere i can read up on it? I'll try a search here first. Thanks again! *edited because I can*

Well, it's official.....I'm an idiot. (just pointing out the obvious, my specialty) I was posting this in the wrong sub-forum under "Older Generation Subaru's" and have been searching that same sub-forum for solutions. I had thought I'd asked this question before but couldn't find my old post. The old post was in "Newer Generation Subaru's" and Cougar had been kind enough to post a reply. I had worked on this problem but dropped it to work on a different problem and was prompted to get back to fix this one after failing my NH inspection. I still have one question about this evap system. My Haynes manual says this circuit should be the white/blue wire, Cougar's reply says it should be the white/blue wire. The valve I'm looking at has a brown/yellow wire. Is there a second evap solenoid valve somewhere that my Haynes manual doesn't mention? I saw something about a "second" valve in one of the posts I found here http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=63955. *the plot thickens* Sorry about the confusion....I'm not sure I've cleared it up yet. Here is my earlier post: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=82144 Thanks! *edited just for good measure*

An update... I checked for voltage at the ECM pin coming from the solenoid valve by back probing the plug again. I got battery voltage KOEO, when I turned the key and started the engine, I still got battery voltage. The ECM should ground that pin through the circuit used to control the valve, correct? (it will if your on the right circuit bozo!) I checked resistance to ground with the ECM plug connected. I got around 12K ohms with the KOEO and around 7K ohms with it running (this was a bad idea as pointed out later). That was checked with the solenoid purge valve unplugged at the back of the car. I am thinking bad ECM but would like to hear from the experts. Does anyone have a factory service manual that they could look at to see what else I can check for PO443? * edited to point out general buffoonery...wait... did I spell buffoonery right?*

Hi guys (and gals), 98 Legacy GT, 2.5L DOHC. Well, after spending the better part of last February and March getting cozy with the innards of the 2.5 DOHC, I've run into another issue. We have an annual inspection here in NH and the car did fine on the safety part but failed emissions. They don't use a sniffer, they check codes on OBD II vehicles. My car has had a check engine light on for code PO 443, Evaporative Solenoid Valve, for some time. I can reset it with the laptop and it will stay out for a short time then comes back. So I reset it before going for inspection but now it will only stay out for one start. I have no problem with fixing this for mother nature's sake. Problem is.... there doesn't appear to be anyhting wrong, except for the code. I have a Haynes manual that is just about worthless but better than nothing. Here's what I have done so far: 1.) Checked the resistance across the terminals for the evap solenoid valve(or so I thought, tee hee). Spec is 10-100 ohms.....it's 26 ohms. 2.) Checked for voltage at the valve, KOEO. I've got 12VDC at the plug when disconnected. I also checked it after it was plugged into the valve and I still had good voltage so the valve isn't dragging the voltage down. I can also ground the ECM side of the plug and the valve clicks so the valve appears to be good also. 3.) I've rung out the wiring from the valve to the ECM. It all looks good. I had about 0.3 ohms resisitance for the wire running from the valve to the ECM. Haynes had the colors wrong(can you tell I'm on the wrong track here). The wire from the valve to the ECM is brown with a yellow stripe, not white/blue. I backprobed the ECM plug on the correct (wrong!) wire and had 11.8 VDC at the ECM with the KOEO. I'm running out of ideas. I hate to just start changing out parts. Does anyone have any other ideas on what to check? What other years have an ECM that would be interchangeable with mine? That's the only thing I can't really check. *edited to point out my mistakes...read on if you dare*

Cougar, Thanks for the reply. Does pinn 72 on the ECU provide the ground or the voltage supply? I think my power side is good. I need to trace the ground side of the circuit. If I can find out where it goes, I'll check way downstream (at the ECU maybe?) and see if the resistance is still really high. If it isn't high, I should just need to pull new wiring. If it's corrosion or a bad plug, I might be able to fix that. If it's inside the ECU.....well....I don't really want to dig into it unless I have a spare.

update: I did a couple of more checks. I disconnected the valve and put a 12 V test light across the terminals of the plug and checked voltage to ground. While feeding the test light, I still had 12.1 VDC to ground, same as with no load. I think the 12 VDC source is good. I checked resistance to ground on the negative lead of the plug. I got 14,200 ohms to ground. I think that's why it won't work. Whatever the negative lead goes through has too much resistance. Reading across the plug w/o the valve connected is like an open circuit because a voltmeter has infinite resistance, therefore there is no current in the loop and no voltage drop across the resisitance. Once I connect the plug, I no longer have an open circuit and the high resistance in the circuit consumes all the voltage and the current goes low. There is no voltage left to power the valve because it gets consumed by the high resistance elsewhere in the circuit. Question is....where's that high resistance? ECM? Is there a relay somewhere that this goes through with bad contacts? Anybody know???

I've been tying to troubleshoot my Check Engine Light situation. I'm getting a code PO443, Evap Purge Control Valve. So far I've unplugged the valve and checked for 12 VDC at the plug, KOEO. I got it...every time. I've checked resisitance on the valve....27.5 ohms. Between 10 and 100 ohms is OK. I've taken the valve off and jumpered it across a 12 VDC source, the battery terminals, and it clicks every time. Today I pushed a couple of straight pins through the insulation on the wires at the plug and checked across the pins with the valve disconnected, 12 VDC, same as at the plug connections. I plugged the connector onto the valve and I get 0.6 VDC when checking the pins. It looks like the voltage sourcing the solenoid valve is being pulled down by the load of the valve.....but the resistance is in spec.....and the valve works fine when fed a hot 12 VDC. I don't have a detailed schematic showing where the wiring for the plug is fed from. Has anybody had this problem before? Can anyone tell me where this little gem is fed from? Wiring colors, etc? Thanks for any help you can offer.

I pulled the plug off the solenoid valve last night and checked everything again. I've got a solid 12+ VDC at the plug with the valve disconnected. The solenoid valve resistance is 27.5 ohms. The book says anything between 10 and 100 ohms is good. I put a 12V test light on the plug connections to see if the voltage is being dragged down under a load. The light burned bright. I am really stumped. This thing should work. Tonight I might try sticking a couple of straight pins through the two wires and checking the voltage with the solenoid connected. I tried to back-probe the plug yesterday but it's so small, I'm concerned that I will damage it. Maybe I should just it.

Pulled the solenoid off last night and cleaned it up. Squirted some PB Blaster into the ports. Then I hooked it up to the battery direct and the valve shifts and operates. Put it back on the car and it doesn't click when I have power at the plug, KOEO. Might be a bad plug connection. I'm gonna try bending the pins slightly to try to get better contact. This bugger should work! I cleared the code and it keeps coming back with PO443. My old catalytic converter code has been solved. Haven't seen it in quite some time.