So the other day my mom was telling me the car wouldn't go into drive I figured I guess just the solenoid. Well not the case. Went to try today did it again and I also noticed the abs light and no hvac. So I hit the dash and various areas around the shifter and voila hvac was blowing air, i could shift again, and when i restarted abs light when out. My guess is a bad ground. Question is where do you think this ground is? Any suggestions and comments would be great thanks guys!

 

Car: 94 Legacy Turbo Sedan 207k km

The car starts and runs fine in Park but won't go into Drive?

 

I'd pull the gear selector and have a look at the button and solenoid mechanism.

check the 2 square big connectors at the tranny near the firewall. they could be loose or not fully connected.

checked them and the solenoid appears to be fine just like i said hit areas of the dash and everything worked again so woodsing where i can find some grounds.

any other ideas what happened? I just swapped my alternator a day before this started happening. Related maybe? Like bad diode can cause this? Hitting the dash could have been a fluke because the car was on for a while. I took apart ALOT of the car and everything was fine all grounds I could find were in place. Tried hitting many areas of the car with 0 issues with the fans or abs light coming on or shift interlock!

Guys any other ideas? Seems to fix the issue if I kick around the little plastic panel on the floor on the driver side. Anything there that would cause these items to not work? It is really bothering me as I am afraid it might completely fail and then I would be screwed obviously... It comes and goes. Seems to happen more after taking a long trip with the car, then the following day after a few short trips it does it.

 

Always at the same time HVAC does not work, abs light on, no shift.

Have you looked in a wiring diagram to see what those three things share?

 

It could be they all share a fuse or perhaps a fusable link, perhaps an earth.

I have no clue where to start or what diagram to look at. It is doing it more often. It did it this morning. I really need to figure this out before complete failure in the winter. I just again hit the fuse panel on the floor then everything came back to life.

Start pulling fuses and see if any are corroded or feel loose.

http://www.northursalia.com/modifications/misc/wiring/wiring.html

 

I suggest removing the drivers seat to make it easier to get under the dash and work on the fuse panel

Only four bolts and the seat comes out

There may be an electrical connector to unplug before taking out the seat.

Well since you know where the trouble is approximately, why don't you wriggle things carefully, one thing at a time, instead of bashing it?

 

That way you might find which particular thing it is that the thump is effecting.

 

Not knocking thumping in any way here... thumping is good, but you need to be a little methodical with them.

I would suggest pulling one fire wall plug at a time then putting them back on. Usually that is enough to clean the contacts on the plugs.

 

This failure may never show up again, but I think its just a poor or dirty terminal on one of the plugs.

 

 

nipper

Rather than a bad ground I suspect the trouble is due to a bad connection to power somewhere. Especially since hitting near the fuse panel corrects the trouble.