gl2tosl2

I found them. On my car (98 obw) they are not accessible from inside the engine compartment. They are attached to the frame inside of the front fenders. Access (theoretically) requires removing the front wheel and the forward mudguard. At least, the right side of my car requires that. The mudguard on the left is so loose it can be pulled open by hand far enough to see the components. I'll start with that one, with a flashlight I can see quite a bit of rust on the sensor mount/casing. I haven't actually gotten in there yet. I won't have time to get to them until sometime later this week. I'll take my time and hopefully won't break any plastic bits.

I'm confused. ABS sensor? I thought this was a different thing from the airbag sensor. On another note, the light has gone out on it's own. This makes me think that the flaky connection theory is probably right.

As far as I know, the car was never wrecked/repaired. But we've only had it 1.5 years. I do have a copy of the service manual. From that: Code 3: Front sub sensor harness is faulty. Front sub sensor is faulty. Code 22: Airbag main harness circuit is open. Passenger’s airbag module harness circuit is open. Airbag control module is faulty. A bad connector seems highly plausible. We live in MN with salty roads, other problems on the car have been fixed by cleaning electrical connectors. Does it seem sensible to start by looking at the connectors to the front sensors? Are those hard to get to?

Cruise control works.

Horn works. I haven't tried cruise control in a while (mostly city driving), but we're headed out right now and I'll give it a shot.

I've got a 98 outback wagon and the airbag dash light is on. I followed the instructions in the thread http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=117181&highlight=airbag+code and got codes 22 and 3. What do these codes mean? Where should I look on how to fix this?

A heat gun is perfect, but a standard hair dryer will do the trick. Just don't overdo it

Yeah, both hoses and clamps is my intention. I don't have any hose end expansion tools, but what I usually do with rubber parts that are a tight fit is a little bit of lube and a heat gun to warm the rubber up and make it a little more malleable. The lower end of the lower tube is the only one I can't get to from the top of the car. Is it tucked inside of the frame rail or something? It was 5F when I was looking at this and I didn't feel like crawling under to take a look.

3/8 id?

Sweet. Thanks. Upon close inspection there's small cracks in the end of the upper hose so I'm going to do that one and replace the clamps at the same time.

I have a 98 legacy obw. It has a ATF leak coming from the lower hose where it connects to the radiator. Is this special tubing or can I just go to the local parts shop (NAPA or Advance or O'Reilly) and pick something up that will work? EDIT: It's hose #20 in this diagram http://opposedforces.com/parts/legacy/us_b11/type_45/cooling_system/engine_cooling/illustration_2/

Does it turn over and not start? Or does it have trouble turning over? I've seen behavior like this caused by bad/worn out plugs.

I'm originally from CA and have only been in the midwest for a few years (5? where'd the time go?). This is going to be my first winter with AWD, I've had a FWD Geo Metro (hatchback) up until now. In CA we didn't have snow or ice, but we had mud. My experience has been knowing how to handle your car and what the limits are is far more important than having more driving wheels. The only other thing that seems to really matter is having good tires. I've taken the geo on plenty of winter trips (east to toronto and west to CA) mid winter without trouble. Though I saw plenty of SUVs in the ditches. Get decent tires and slow down if conditions are bad.

I've got a 98 legacy obw with a ej 25. I've marked up a couple of your pictures. I'm calling the rubber pieces you can remove hoses, and the connections coming out of the airbox tubes. Hose #1 goes from the y in the pcv system to the tube that I've marked as #1 in the air box. The two hoses in the same picture as tube #1 should stay where they are in that picture. Hoses #2 and #3 don't attach to #1. They go from tube #3 that I've marked in the picture to tube #2, that is on the back side of the airbox -- opposite of where the airbox connects to the throttle body. So yes, hoses #2 and #3 route one tube on the airbox to another tube on the airbox. Don't ask me why. Hope this helps.

I put the new radiator in this morning. Burping seemed to go all right. I'll keep an eye on it for a while. At this point, the fans are working and there are no external coolant leaks. Thanks for the help.

I just put in a ECM from a salvage yard. I let the car idle for a while and the fans came on. They weren't turning on at all before, so I think this has fixed the issue. Yay! My coolant leak is definitely getting worse and it's coming from the radiator. I've put a new cap on. If I rev the engine you can see it come out of roughly the top center of the radiator in a forward stream. I think the next step is to replace the radiator and see how everything comes out. Does this sound right?

I'm going to try to pick one up this weekend. The only thing I can come up with is maybe the ECM has a bad ground, but that doesn't seem likely to me. It'd be interesting to hook a voltmeter up to the pin while driving, but I'm not sure I can pull it off. We'll see how much time I have this weekend.

So now I'm doubting my earlier diagnostic work, and I also doubt that there is a diode in this circuit. The original fan operation I was seeing was *lo* speed of the main fan. I don't think I've seen the ECM turn on high speed this whole time. So the original problem is, CEL comes on with code p1520. I got a set of the service manuals from the subaru download site. The wiring diagram in there doesn't show a diode in the circuit. I can't find one that is plugged into the circuit. I've done everything short of open up the covered part of the wiring harness, I *have* managed to look at every inch of the wiring harness between the plug going to the ECM (F-45) and both fuse blocks. I pulled plugs and looked at a bunch of stuff today. Basically, if I get to the connector F45 and ground the control wire, *both* fans come on. If I ground the control wire going into the cabin fuse block, both fans come on. If I pull the relay for the main fan, and ground that control wire, the sub fan comes on. I *think* this means the wiring/circuits from F-45 out to the fans is good, and that this means I should be looking back towards the ECM. Does this seem right? If I removed the ECM, would I be able to open it up and inspect it, I might be able to spot if there's a burned out connector or resistor or something like that that way. I have a little bit of experience with circuits and soldering, so I might be able to spot something.

update. I spoke with the shop. They tested the coolant and it had exhaust gas in it.

I just double checked so let me revise. I don't see *any* black gunk in the coolant. Nor do I see an oily residue on top of the coolant. But there is some residue on the sides of the overflow reservoir. I changed the oil a couple of weeks ago and it didn't show any signs of coolant. I just checked the dipstick and it was normal fresh oil color. I originally took it into the shop thinking it needed a radiator and I could save my self a few hours/trips to the parts store hassles. I've swaped out radiators in other cars before, so I'm pretty sure I could handle this one.

I don't think the head gaskets threw the code, the fan is definitely not working properly. I'm still not positive as to why. It hasn't overheated that I've noticed. My wife drives it more than I do, but she would typically notice such a thing. There was a small amount of black gunk before the additive, now there's lots. I don't know if the additive would affect this.

sooooo, In looking into this I noticed that the radiator let out steam from the middle. I took it to a trusted repair shop and they pressure tested it, said nothing showed up. They drove it and said that it's got a bad head gasket. They put in some of that subaru additive stuff. That didn't help. The leak is worse and it appears to be spraying coolant out of the radiator cap. We've only had the car since september. Recap, 98 outback wagon, with 170k. I've done major car repairs before, but I'm not comfortable working on this engine yet and I don't have time to do major car work before december 10th (I have a big due date then). I don't have a heated garage at my disposal, so it'll be too cold for me to work on the car until spring. What I'm trying to figure out is, is it worth paying the shop to work on the car, or try to come up with something else?

That's amazing. Thanks for posting this. I won't get a chance to dig around for it until this weekend. I'll let you know what I find.

That would be awesome. My wiring diagram covers "95 and later models" which I think includes up to 99. So it'd be great to know where they are on your car. I'm afraid I don't know what near the bulkhead connectors means. Is that near wear the wires come into the engine compartment? Or near where the wires go to the under hood fuse panel? Or does it mean at the front where the wires go to the fans?

Which model years? Yes. This fan relay is inside the cabin. The other fan relays are in the engine compartment. That's also what my diagram shows. I don't have a diagram that gives me pinouts at the ECM. I could probably figure out which is the right wire with some patience, but I'd be nervous about probing around the ECM like that.