Start/No Start

[gnm2140]

Greetings to all!

 

I just joined and is already counting on somebody's expertise.

I have a 1997 Subaru Legacy Brighton 2.2L 5 speed, 65,000 miles.

Friday night the car wouldn't start. It felt like there was no spark (that's what I thought). I bought new plugs, pulled out the old ones and found them flooded with gas (I was cranking it trying to start for quite some time). So I thought that there was fuel and no spark. I put new plugs in and the car started right up! I shut it down, started again, did it the third time - it didn't start. It was yesterday. Today (fuel evaporated) it started fine.

Now I think the ignition was not a problem, but it was flooding the plugs to the point of no burning. Interesting enough, a friend in Boston has a 1997 Legacy L, and he had the same issue on Friday.

Question. What would cause gas overflow? It hasn't happened before. When it happened the first time on Friday, I just drove to a parking lot, came back five hours later, didn't touch the pedal, and tried to start with no results. And should I mention that here we have temperature around -4F/-20C?

 

Thanks.

[Cougar]

I would first verify that the ignition is working when this happens again by placing a spare plug in one of the wires and setting the plug on a ground point of the engine. Then look for spark while cranking the engine. If spark really is ok then I guess the flooding is the issue. It may be the injector is leaking if you have one. If you have a carburator then the float may be bad and causing this.

[gnm2140]

Glen,

 

I checked the ignition, it was fine, very strong spark. The car is fuel injected. And hasn't happened again!

I might go through all the sensors when the weather permits. At least check them with multimeter. But for now it is an unsolved mistery.

 

Thank you,

 

Greg

[Cougar]

If there is a sensor problem, the ECU should catch it and set a code in memory.