Brianmitchtay

Ha! I just walked down with my list of things to check with the multimeter etc and thought I would give it one last try just for the hell of it and it fired right up, first go after not more than a half second of cranking. Drove it around the block and the battery gauge is working and everything. Frustrating. I guess that battery was too cold this morning and it took all day in the sun to warm up enough? I'm not sure honestly, still stumped.

Howdy gang, my neighbor knocked on my door this morning to tell me to move my car for the snow plow and I couldn't get it to fire up. I was driving all over town yesterday and aside from the usual quirks everything was fine, started the first time every time, even late into the evening as temps were below freezing. Last night it dropped down to around 18 F and now even in the relative 34-36 F warmth of a sunny day I can't get it to do anything other than crank, it cranks but there's no combustion. This is a SPFI ea82 on an 87 GL wagon I checked the oil first and it was about a quart low, filled that up and saw no difference, so we tried jumping it off the plow truck because it seemed to be cranking a bit slowly and even then couldn't get it to fire. It cranked more quickly with the booster cable connected but still not even a sign of ignition. I've pulled the cover off the throttle body and see fuel spitting from the injector when trying to start, pulled a spark plug and it sparks, not wildly far, but there's spark, doesn't seem to have any airflow restrictions (Although I have a spare IAC valve I pulled at the junkyard a while back so I might clean it up and then swap it to see if that makes a difference) Only recent change is when I put on new timing belts two weeks ago it started to rain as we were finishing and since then the battery gauge has only worked occasionally. So I'm inclined to believe that something is off electrically, not sure what though. About to start looking up the wiring for the battery gauge and see if I can get it to show anything. After that I'll check the resistance on the ignition coil and see if it's still in spec, (it was a tiny bit off when I got it new and installed it in August) If I had access to a fuel pressure gauge I would be putting one in my line to verify my fuel pressure is correct Looking around the forums I've seen some people having issues with cold starts related to the MAF sensor, so maybe I'll pull that off and very gently clean it up. The FSM points a big finger at the Crank angle sensor and the ignition coil in it's "No initial combustion" section of the engine troubleshooting table. Do you guys think that's something that could die as a result of a deep dive into sub freezing temperatures? Any other thoughts or suggestions? Lately the slogan with this GL wagon as a daily driver has been "Always one repair away" Hopefully it doesn't get to a point where I have to give up and buy another car :/

Yeah I see, just did a fair bit of reading around the web related to part time 4wd/without a center differential and how that changes/creates stresses like driveline bind and it actually makes pretty good sense. I think I've not been cautious enough about avoiding the use of 4wd in situations with decent traction! I swear every time I learn something new about cars I feel like it's a miracle this GL hasn't exploded yet from me abusing it. I guess that means the next car will last even longer than this one does! Since I'll have such a better idea of how to care for it ;D

I haven't had a chance to take it apart and give it a better look yet (It'll be a bit harder now that there's 6 inches of snow on the ground) but tonight I threw on the 4wd to drive home in the snow and that also completely kills the noise. Weird, eh?

Yeah I had looked at them and they definitely look a little worn, but I hadn't realized how much of a problem that could be. I'm beginning to suspect that it could be very spongy and loose transmission mounts causing the inner DOJ of the new crummy axle half shaft to wear excessively. I think I'll order one of the A1 Cardone Reman axles from Rockauto, along with new transmission mounts, and then try to do it all in one fell swoop. Good news about the Oreilly CV axle is it has a limited lifetime warranty, so at least I can get my money back! Maybe if I beg on the local community facebook page someone here in town will lend me their garage for an afternoon so I can get out of the rain. All the auto shops here are booked out for almost the next month completely - "Tire changeover season" - Welcome to Alaska I suppose. Thanks for the insight guys.

I can't remember from when I rebuilt mine if you can or not, but if you can get that sprocket off the oil pump and put a new one on - sounds like you've got one - then I'd do that for sure, those are some mean nicks! I wonder what happened... Between that and the coolant leak I can see why the belt broke. Edit: Derr I just took another look at the first photo and I'm gonna say with confidence that you could just pull that sprocket off and put the "new" one on there

Looks to me like either one will get the job done, I'm partial to any part that has 'Japan' on it since that's Fuji heavy industries' home turf, but that's probably just a logical fallacy. Good luck!

Good evening, gentlemen! (or morning to everyone in the land of Oz) Welcome to another round of diagnose the noise! If you're keen to humor me feel free to read on Here's the context : The outer boot of the original passenger CV axle broke, and was driven on for probably longer than it should have been, plus I currently live in an apartment where I am not allowed to work on my own vehicle, so I had a local Subaru specialty shop put a new axle in for me. I couldn't find an OEM axle so I had an import direct axle from Oreilly put in (and have the old axle in the closet so I can rebuild it for a spare). On the drive home I noticed a new noise and went back to the shop the next time I was in the big city, they said that their best guess is the noise is from my engine "slapping around" due to not being completely mounted and that they would install the two missing motor mount bolts for the low low price of $450 to see if it helped, and that they would not diagnose the noise further until I had the bolts installed. It's true that I only have the front bolt installed on each motor mount bracket, but I've now driven over 25k miles like this without issue so I'm pretty dubious about their diagnosis. Here's the noise : (Pretty similar description to this other recent post I found digging through the search today) A rhythmic/speed related, knocking/ticking, it gets louder and faster as you move from 5-25mph, then continues to get faster and never really goes away, but disappears into the blur of road noise from 35mph and up, the pitch doesn't change ..just the speed. It seems to match tire rotation speed. Once the car is warm it quiets down a bit, and so far has just been a noise, no drivability issues. After about 1200 miles now it's starting to get noticeably louder and worse. And the conditions: -It only happens when the engine is under load, if you're coasting down hill, or foot off the gas, or the second you take it out of gear, the noise is completely gone. -It gets a bit worse making right turns, and almost completely goes away making left turns I have a pretty good guess that my problem is a crap aftermarket axle that's been noisy from the day I had it put on, and the shop that put it on just doesn't want to deal with my old Subie anymore, (not sure why because I love this old thing) but I figure I should post here and see what you all think - if you're not sick of guessing at my old '87 GL's quirks yet. The only reason I'm not totally confident about it being the inner joint of the CV axle is that it completely goes away if the engine isn't under load and I have a hard time imagining how an axle that sounds that bad under load could somehow be completely quiet just because it's coasting. Any thoughts are welcome, thanks as always gents.

Alright, the timing was just off, I just re-did it by night after work (Since the forecast shows rain all this coming week and I don't have the luxury of a garage up here) and now I'm right back where I started, idling between 1000 and 1250, but with all the power I've ever had. Hmm.. Now with seeing how much the timing can effect the idle, next clear day I get I'm going to have to pull the distributor cap off and make sure that it's perfectly lined up on cylinder 1 at 20degrees BTDC. Thanks as always for your help guys, someday I'll get this high idle figured out. Until then I guess 24-27 mpg is almost as good as the 30-34 I used to get.

Ok so I just checked my timing, lined the timing mark on the cam sprocket up with the seal in the rocker cover, (is that my best reference point with the belt covers off? That's the reference point he points out in the Miles Fox video and I hadn't thought or known to use that before so thanks for sharing that video czny.) and from there the timing marks on the flywheel were probably about 4-5 degrees off, so I'm gonna say I just didn't do as good of a job lining up the timing as I thought. I'll redo the belts before I do anything else, then go from there as far as how the idle is effected, etc. I wonder if I just had the timing off ever so slightly before and that's why it was idling high? seems odd but maybe?

Yeah, if it were idling at 650 at the lowest and had the power and pickup I'm used to I would be stoked! but with the total lack of power and the idle bottoming out at 500..

The FSM says that with a manual SPFI the idle should be 700 exactly. Ok I know what cylinder you're talking about. Can it be removed and adjusted like the MPFI ones? or is it a part that just has to be replaced?

Ok, that actually sounds like it's pretty possible, I checked the idler sprocket but I can't believe I didn't think to make sure the tensioner pulleys were spinning freely! They're definitely pretty dirty, so maybe that has something to do with it. Although that still confuses me as to why the car would have been idling high before the first belt broke. I'm about 99.99% positive the timing isn't off, I've had to do it about 10 times on this car now and have got the procedure down by this point (or so I thought!) as for the old belt, after I installed it there was a week where it consistently had coolant leaking onto it while I was driving and so I'm gonna say that's probably why it kicked the bucket so early. A Vacuum leak is the first thing I thought it was, but I traced all the lines and they seem connected and fine, maybe I''m missing one though? I've seen the IAC valve for the MPFI and Turbo ea82, but don't know where it is on the SPFI, I'll look and see what I can find there, although that seems odd to swing from one end to the other just like that. This is the CTS I bought https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=39891&cc=1268478&jsn=415 When it arrived I was pleasantly surprised to see the Fuji Heavy industries logo cast into the metal head, but unfortunately I'm living in a tiny town and couldn't find a thermometer with the right temperature range at our little grocery store to check it before I installed it. That being said, I've had it installed for a week and the car ran exactly the same as it did with the old CTS (which I did check the resistance values for and they were fine)

Hi guys, I've been trying to figure out why my 87 GL wagon has been idling at 1000-1250 for the last few months, with no real progress to speak of, I've put on a new ignition coil, fuel filter, spark plugs and wires, and was able to get my hands on a new CTS as well, (the round plug version I couldn't find anywhere was listed under a GL-10 on rockauto, sold as a standard motors product, and had the Fuji heavy industries logo cast into the sensor when I got it so I think it might even be an OEM sensor) all of which made the car start and run a little nicer but made no noticeable difference to the idle speed, then last night driving home from an evening out with my lady, I had my driver's side timing belt snap on me - after only 21,000 miles! We left the car on the side of the road and this morning went back and swapped the old timing belts onto it, (glad I had kept them in the back as spares!) Curiously, after swapping the old belts back on, the car now idles between 500-650 rpms when it's warm, sputters, makes a sort of metallic buzzing when I'm coasting down hill in gear, and has basically no power. I had to downshift from second gear at 2400rpm, into first gear because I didn't have the power to make it up the slight incline back to the house. I'm basically at a loss here, I was meticulous putting the old belts on and at worst the timing could only be off by one or two degrees, which I suppose could maybe account for some loss of power, but would that effect the idle speed so drastically? At this point I've got a new timing component kit coming in the mail and I'm planning to replace both the tensioners and the idler sprocket when I put on the new belts, but would it hurt anything to just use the idle adjustment screw on the side of the throttle body to see if I can get it back to normal? That's the last thing I can think of considering I've now replaced the Battery, CTS, Ignition coil, Fuel Filter, plugs and wires etc. Any thoughts? This is my daily driver and with winter on it's way I'm going to have to start browsing craigslist for another car if this keeps up. Edit: I know this was a long winded post but one last question, when the FSM says to rotate the crankshaft one full turn "Clockwise" between putting on the first and second belt, does that mean clockwise when you're in front of the car looking at the engine?(what I did) or clockwise as viewed from the driver's seat? That's the only other thing I can think of

Howdy all, recently my ventilation system started only blowing when the knob is turned to 4, so it's full blast or nothing these days. Anyone else seen this before? Browsing the forums I've seen some people run into this with the Legacy and they mention a wire or switch below/behind the dash, but I can't find anything similar on my GL

Somewhere along the road from Alaska to Utah one of the boots of my front right CV axle blew a hole and I still haven't dealt with it properly, the axle is getting pretty noisy now. I browsed the forums here pretty thoroughly and compared what I read to the FSM Diagrams, then pulled the trigger on this axle from Rockauto which they have listed as fitting a front right 4wd MT Fuel Injected 1987 GL with my SOHC engine. After getting the axle in the mail today though I counted the splines and realized it has 25, not the 23 the manual says I'll need. So I'm wondering if anyone else has experience with this so I can know whether or not the axle will fit before I tear the car apart and count the splines on the old one?

Oof! I hope my pressure regulator keeps working nicely on mine for at least a while longer. I'm surprised that the pressure regulator was the issue even though pressure appeared normal with the old regulator on there. Looks like I've got a new part I'll be wanting to find a good spare of.

Well today I finally got a chance to plug a fuel pressure gauge into the line and I'm still a little confused. The FSM says that the Fuel pump's discharge pressure spec on a SPFI is between 36-50psi. With the fuel pressure gauge T'd in between the fuel filter and the throttle chamber I had the pressure bouncing up to ~25psi when the pump turned on, and falling to about 20 when the pump was off. Here's a video of that if you want to see for some reason - I had connected the test mode plugs so the fuel pump would operate intermittently with the key turned on (Otherwise I don't think it runs unless you're cranking or the car is running, if I understand the FSM correctly) So just looking at this I thought, Ha! my fuel pump isn't pumping hard enough! Problem solved! But then since I had the fuel gauge rented already, and the FSM says a faulty pressure regulator could be the problem for hard cold starts, I decided to look at the procedures for testing the Pressure regulator. Book says to T the gauge into the fuel line that goes to the throttle chamber (So where I already had it) and that at idle the fuel pressure should be regulated to ~21. I disconnected the test plugs and started it up and the fuel pressure at idle was exactly where it was supposed to be. So I guess my question is, did I test the pressure from the fuel pump correctly? Should I have T'd in directly after the fuel pump under the car? I didn't have another person there with me so I couldn't exactly race the engine to watch for a change in pressure. It might be worth noting that the only procedure the book gives to check the pump on a SPFI is to hot wire it with 12v and see if it turns on. I'll be honest it's pretty fun having a car mystery to solve like this since it basically just gives me a reason to play around under the hood and learn new things, but since the GL is my daily driver and also my home for the summer, I'll also be pleased to have this squared away. For what it's worth I'm pretty confident the CTS isn't the culprit at this point, it always gives the correct resistance reading, even when the car is having trouble starting, but I took the time to test one and pull it off a junk car at a scrap yard here anyway, along with a fuel injector that looks and tests just fine. So if it gets really bad and a new fuel pump doesn't fix it I'll do some soldering and replace those things.

Hopefully this helps! and good luck! All the wires around my SPFI control box are so stiff and old that when I move them around to check continuity and resistances I always feel like I'm probably breaking more wires and causing more harm than good. ha

Ok so far as I can tell, in the SPFI section of the fuel injection chapter there's some info on troubleshooting the two possible trouble codes, 11 (no reference pulse) and 13 (no position pulse). also a wiring diagram of the sensor. I'll post those as well as the diagram of the layout of the control unit connectors. That should probably be what you'd need to check all the wiring. It says there's a more thorough write up of the distributor and ignition coil setup (including crank angle sensor) in another volume - Chapter 6-1 Engine electrical system. If you'd like I can pull that one out and see what it says. I'll be at the library all day today so just say the word if you see this post in time.

Yes it certainly is, let me pull it back out and see if it does.

Yeah I think 6 is just saying it's a Canada or California 5MT. a spec code, not a trouble code. From Le book:

Yeah it gives a steady reading that is right in line with the resistance values posted in the FSM, I'm figuring that it's not the sensor that's bad. Do you know if it could be a fault of the pump that would cause it to not run when the key is turned to on? Or would that more likely be a problem in the circuit where I put the key in the ignition? I've been sleeping in the car and there's been quite a bit of condensation on these rainy nights with the windows barely cracked. So maybe there's some corrosion or something there... I'll try to look into it. Thanks as always Dave

Spotted these two old beauties in front of 'Boston's Auto' in Soldotna Alaska. They say they're Subaru specialists, but these both look broken down unfortunately.