[timing and belt]

nothing so far. i am also reading this meter wrong. it is .9 volts not 9 volts. that i am getting when testing. i am running out of time today. i am about to give up and move on. i have a 2 trucks to remove parts from today. is there a chance the batter y may not be right? i tturns the car over with ease. when charged up and will crank the car over without a jump start from the charger.

[timing and belt]

i dotn know what haapened. i redone all the tests i have been doing. since the tach wasnt jumping. or pulsing. i took the cam sensor out and wiped the dirt off of it. it wasnt as dirty as the crank sensor. i retsested the power to fuse still the same 9 volts. i then re tested power to coil with the yellow wire and now have 9 volts there also. finally. but still not 12 volts. i have also tapped on a plasitc thing marked relay under the dash. we then tried starting it and it actually tried to start for a second and then stopped trying to fire up. i have not been able to replicate the car firing up yet. i even retried starting fluid. nothing. tapping on the fuel pump cover does nothing. you cant hear it usually anyway.

[whats this wire for?]

sorry. thats a dumb mistake. thats thr front fender. 93 subaru legacy sedan

[whats this wire for?]

this is a wire i found under the fender along side of the large wiring loom. it has two red wires in it. one of them was ate in half by the tire at one time. what does this wire go to. i have yet to solder the new wire together yet. but i will.

 

[timing and belt]

ok so now the tach isnt moving when the key is turned and the car is trying to start. this is the first thing i have noticed this morning.

[timing and belt]

someone remind me what those two green plugs at the bottom of the dash are again. you can plug them together for one reason or another. but you r not suppose to keep them together whiel driving or something.

[timing and belt]

is there a fuel cut off switch in this car? where is it at? can i reset it by hand? and where is the ignition relay at?

[timing and belt]

i have access to a mitchel manual that has some basic diagnosis in it. but by that chart if i didnt have power to the coil the coil was bad. well that is wrong. if you have no power to the coil how can you say the coil is bad. now if you had power to the coil and it wasnt givng spark then yes the coil would be bad. myself i am lost here. i dotn knwo these systems as well as other stuff. so searching for bad grounds will take me forever. it has to be that or a bad ecm. that is what i am gathering from all i have read.

[timing and belt]

yeah i am kind of wondering if that is what may have done this in the first place. hooking up the battery charge positive lead last instead of the negative last. that is all i can think of. if the ecm is dead. hey i have an idea. well it wont work. theres no way to get a ecm from a test drive vehicle. and use it to start my car. i would have to get a car the same years as mine. the dealers would only have 2011 and 2010 models.

[timing and belt]

there is a gold box just above and towards the dash near the fuse box. it has two phillips screws that looks like that is what it holds it in. or is it above that one?

[timing and belt]

up near the firewall or near the seat? i didnt see anything up near the firewall. except the a/c drain hose.

[timing and belt]

so which is the engine ecm? the one beside the column or the one beside the glove box? i may go to the junkyard and try to get one. and maybe the ignitier. but i dotn think its the igniter.

[timing and belt]

it was running when parked two weeks ago. i changed the harmonic balancer and the timing belt. now no spark. yeah it leaks oil. that isn't a problem to cause power to the coil pack. i checked the yellow wire. it is fine it isn't broken. i pulled on it. a broken wire would give out no power at all. a slightly bad connection would give intermittent power. i think.

[timing and belt]

i have three chargers that work. i was charging the battery earlier. but with all the attempts to start the car it ran the battery back down again.

[timing and belt]

i checked on fuse inside the fuse panel and had nothing on that one at all. it was a 10 amp fuse in about the third row up from the bottom. i didnt check the outside fuses. but the fuseable link has power in and to the out side of it.

[timing and belt]

i think i may stop for the night. i hope to have tiem tomorrow to get time to work on it. i have to return the borrowed car tomorrow afternnon at the latest. the core support ground was loose. i tightened it. i also cleaned and theother ground on the shock tower. i still am not getting a full 12 volts into fuse 16. since the battery is getting low again the voltage has now dropped to 8 volts.

[timing and belt]

here is what i have done. i had the coil pack unplugged during the last few attempts to start it. so i plugged it back in and no start. i rechecked my fuse power and it is 8 or 9 volts depending on how the ground side is put onto the body. bare metal well gas pedal and the metal ecm beside the column. i have 13 volts in the battery. when i crank i tover the battery volts drop to 11.1 and bounce a little but in that area. but not real low. i saw a 10.6 for a second. i then took one of the grounds off of the shock tower and cleaned that up. i havent done the second one yet. what i am thinking is that when you lose power to a tail light and have low voltage it is usally a ground problem. now i just have to figure where my bad ground is. does that sound right?

[timing and belt]

ok well i have been putting the battery in and out fo the car for use in another car. so i got to thinking maybe the wire behind the battery werte broken or something. when i pulled the battery out. i found this yellow wire fallingout of the plug. i mashed down the crimpe a little tighter and it seems to kind of stay in the socket now. but that didnt do anything to help me. how do you check crank voltage? just test the battery while it cranks over?

 

[timing and belt]

i took the crank sensor out and cleaned the grease off. that didnt do anyhtign. i didnt think it would after i seen it anyway. i have had dinner and have lights set up. here is where the crank sits when the cams are exactly at the mark.

 

this is the best i think it can get. if it needs to go back half a tooth i dont know how it can be done for sure. and of course the stupid picture isnt in line . crap. its under the sensor. surely it doenst have to be directly dead center of the sensor does it. everything the marks line up.

 

fuse 16 is still good. it only has 9 volts coming to it though.

 

[timing and belt]

ok my wife is home. i reset the bel tonce again. it is back where it is suppose ot be at. when she cranked it over the tensioner moved. so that must have been what happened earlier. it is now staying in time where i set it at.

 

now on the the no spark. i was able to check the yellow wire while cranking. it has no power coming through it at all. the other two wires from the igniter have power. it sisnt much. it gives up to 4 volts max and then drops to 3 volts. this is more than i was getting the other day. i got no volts at all the other day. now the yellow wire is suppose to have a diode in line going to the ecm. my conclusions are either thew ecm is blown from charging the battery or the igniter has failed. i dont know about that diode or where it is at in the wiring. of course a diode is a one way valve for electricity. so that wouldnt seem to be a problem to stopping it from starting. can i run start 12 volts from the battery to the yellow wire just before the coil pack to give it power and not fiy anything? also how do i nail down if it is the ecm or the igniter. wait i was messing around with the blower motor plug the other day. maybe i made the ecm plug loose.

[timing and belt]

well no i am mad. the fuseable link was fine. it ohmed out as good. when i pulled it turned off power to the beeper in the switch. when i plugged it back in after testign the beeper came back on. i had the key turned on still. ok so i was out of ideas. so i rolled the enigne over to top dead center again. and the timing was off again. the crank and drivers cam was in line but the passenger came was of by atleast two teeth from ling up the marks on the cam geag with the slots. so i am mad now. nothign what so ever could have kicked the belt out of place and let the cam gear get out of time. no rocks no debris. the tensioner was adjusted all the way out. &^$^%RE(&*%$# dang

[timing and belt]

here is the meter i am using this is a test with key on and fuse numebr 16. i was wrong about the last test it wasnt a key off test. key off give nothing. i'm heading out to check the fuseable link inside of the fuse box on the fender.

 

[timing and belt]

new timing belt installed just to make sure. the tach does bonuce slightly as you crank the engine over. it bounces with the engine cranking. i knwo this mother is in time. i even took pictures to verify it before cranking the engine over. there is no other pace it can be timed to because of the tension of the new belt and putting the tensioner pulley on. i have even sprayed starting fluid in the intake. i dotn have anyone here so i cant check for spark rightnow. here are the pictures this is in time as far as i am concerned. it should atleast try to start even if it was a off just a hair. but i have nothing. also relieze that soem of these pictures are at a slight angle so they dont look exact. but they are in line. the only one i am curious about is the crank pulley but it does line up with the upper mark on the crank sensor housing. so that has to be right. s o is my problem still spark related? i cant check it until i get one else here to crank the engine while i test.

 

By forman1 at 2011-04-08

By forman1 at 2011-04-08

By forman1 at 2011-04-08

[timing and belt]

i did go ahead and buy a new belt off ebay today. because it was super cheap and brand new. i may also go after that oil leak around the crank. i cleaned up the entire front of the engine as i was putting it all back together saturday. and while i was trying to start it up. more oil had ran down from that area. i really like how easy these cars are to work on. and my wife loves driving them. and this car has been so trouble free for so long. if this one ever goes to heck . we will probably buy another subaru. actually last week there was a right hand drive in omaha neb. with a bad transmission. if my wife would have drove it i may have bought it. or i could have bough it for a parts car. the engine bay was really clean.

[timing and belt]

back in december the alternator diodes went out on this alternator. and the brushes were alsp unevenly worn. i ordered new diodes and had then put in that day i got them. this was a very very easy job. i went ahead and ordered the brushes too. after i got the car going again. then before this crank pulley came loose. the battery was dying. and i took the car and the alternator off the car. to all four places in town. one of them said the diodes were bad again. the other places said they were good. at this time i put the new brushes in the alternator. and i then took off the negative battery cable and put a test light between the cable and the battery. the light came on. well the stupid sid emark lights/ position lights were on. so i turned those off. i think i bumped them while turning the key on. anyway i had no short after that. so i had a different battery. i put it in and the car was starting again without a jump start. then a few days later the crank pulley became loose. and now here i am . i know 8 volts doesnt sound good to me. i was unable to work on the car tonight. more urgent matters of making money had to be performed. it may be a few days before i get back to the car. the decision was made on sunday to let the car sit until we could get back to it. my other spare truck has a transmission problem. so i am going to concentrate on that starting tomorrow. but i may not do much tomorrow on the truck. and may have time to come back home before it gets too late and do some more testing on the elcetrical system. i did get to the library and looked at soem testing procedures ina mitchel manual which were basically copies of the subaru of america manual. but it was a 1992 book. and not a 93 book. it said to test the coil. i think they meant coil pack. but just from reading i am leaning towards a possible igniter problem. i am guessing really. it could be power before the igniter.