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OBDII is meaningless here - pre OBDII stuff still gives codes. When you read the check engine lights what does it show? If it stumbles take notice if its: 1. recently wet/humid 2. happening when you let off the gas entirely (throttle closed) 3. is it ever hard to start or restart? Do you have access to spare parts? Hate to suggest guessing but MAF sensors are easy to swap on EJs and I’ve seen them cause starting and drivability issues without throwing a code The grounds are probably to the frame rail, I do t recall Subaru grounds on any radiator I’ve worked on. But maybe that’s indicative of my memory?!? Lol It’s unlikely the grounds anyway. Almost every Subaru I see and drive has corroded and detached grounds and runs fine. Yes they can be problematic but that pic looks like a clean car, engine came out and you had a good look at it and it starts.

I have plenty of experience with trouble from ground loops and very small circulating (as in electrical, not liquid) currents, so I get what you're talking about. What's important is that these problems are almost always solved by selectively removing excess grounds, and never by tossing in a bunch of extra new ones without very carefully analyzing the problem, or you can often make it worse. More grounds means more possible paths for those circulating and stray currents, and in this case adding a location (i.e. the rad) for possible electrolysis and/or corrosion that didn't previously exist. In other words, let the rad float (electrically speaking) and it won't give you trouble, even if it is a few millivolts away from the engine. (If there are any vintage microcomputer geeks listening, a formative experience for me in solving this kind of thing was about 40 years ago, working with a client who was building an early GIS system - it had to do with potential oil spills. Their system had outgrown the original (10-slot S-100) North Star Horizon chassis thanks to a whack of Matrox graphic cards. So I migrated them into a big rackmount (22-slot) Cromemco Z2-D box, which also meant duplicating in wire-wrap the serial and parallel I/O that were on the Horizon's motherboard (unusual at the time, as most S-100 backplanes had no active circuitry other than (perhaps) termination). They needed a hard disk, and this being a few years prior to the introduction of the very first (Shugart) 5meg 5" Winchester, we were using a 15meg 8" drive - a Priam or something. That's the part that was giving them trouble - the disk just wouldn't settle down and behave reliably. Disk read amplifiers are quite sensitive to noise, and I traced the cause to a couple too many grounds in the disk system that had been added and/or neglected by the North Star designers. Once I'd had some time to stare at the whole picture, I took a reasonable guess at which grounds had to go, and when I removed them the noise disappeared and the system sprang to life - and gave them years of pretty impressive service.) So I'm still skeptical, but might be convinced if someone can direct me to any solid references on the subject describing this application.

Thanks, the wagon doesn't have AC so might give this a go!

Rad: Fried by what? Rads aren't electrical any more than the hose running to your lawn sprinkler is. Yeah, you'll want to look seriously at wiring e.g. the ground you describe. [edit] And don't ignore the possibility that you could have a bad keyswitch. It's a single point of failure for the entire electrical system.

I swapped an EJ alternator into my EA81. It might be a bit different with an EA82 that’s AC equipped. https://ausubaru.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=49878 Cheers Bennie