bigshankhank

I managed to find a couple 94-95 Legacy’s at 2 local auto yards and scavenged the upper engine wiring harness from one of them (the 94 had already had its engine pulled) so hopefully I can strip the sensors out and plug them into my older version. I need to go back and check to see if their we re AWD and if their rear subframe is complete, that swap is on the eventual To-Do list

On a positive note I was able to achieve chugga-chugga from the starter, turns out the signal wire was only loosely connected. I went ahead and pulled the two offending sensors and what remains of their wiring, I’ll solder on some additional wire and reconnect them to the plugs and hopefully that’ll complete the suck-squeeze-bang-blow cycle

Good to know, I’ll try giving it a tap maybe later today

That’s been my normal go-to for testing a starter on the car but due to trying to finish building my house most of my tools are packed away so I don’t have any heavy gauge wire with clips on it. 12ga sure but I don’t want to start a fire. Update: I tried another multimeter (cause who doesn’t have multi multimeters am I right) and now with a turn of the key the voltage drop is approx .5-.7v so the starter is trying to draw energy. This leads me to believe the starter may just be stuck, either way it’s coming off soon.

Just picked up a Legacy wagon project and haven’t spent a great deal of time fiddling with it yet what with the holidays, so I’m hoping yall can help me narrow down my focus. Car was last registered in 2016, PO “claimed” he got it to run with a boost pack and ether but wouldn’t say how long ago that was so I am assuming 8+ years since it last ran Pulled all 4 plugs, spritzed ATF in the cyls and spun the engine with a breaker on the crank bolt, spun easily Stuck a good battery from my Jeep TJ (4.0L) so it should have all the CCA I need Key in and turn it & all the dash lights come on but it won’t crank. Radio, AC fan all works so good electrical contact. Checked the interior fuse box the ignition fuse is good. There was a large (8-wire) yellow plug that was disconnected so I plugged that back in but that didn’t make a difference, still no crank Under hood I can see the wiring from the crank and cam position sensors is chewed/damaged. The plugs are both in their sockets and the raw ends of the wires are there but something decided to chew on them. From what I’ve read that will stop it from running but it should still crank, or am I wrong? When I turn the key to the Start position I am not noticing a significant voltage drop on my multimeter, which leads me to believe the key isn’t “signaling” to send voltage to the starter. Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to test the hot lead on the starter itself to see if it’s getting voltage Is there anything specific I should be checking to get the engine to spin? My next step is to pull the starter off and bump it with jumper cables. Usually with a bad solenoid it’ll still try and draw down the battery/voltage drop but since I’m not seeing that, I’m not 100% certain the starter is the problem, but it’s easy to get to so why not Thanks for y’all’s help, my wife is eager to drive this and considers it an upgrade from her Saturn wagon so I’m lucky she doesn’t want the newest Lexus or something silly.

If you zoom in to the passenger side of this underhood shot (this came from the original auction listing before I bought it) you can see the socket retainer clips loose on the back of the headlight shell.

As a matter of fact the headlights are a particular problem. In the little bit of time I’ve been able to spend under the hood I discovered some wiring has been damaged/chewed including the headlight wiring. In fact the sockets themselves are gone and wire is missing on both sides all the way back to where it comes out of the loom inside each fender. I also found damaged wire at the cam position, crank position and knock sensor plugs so that’ll have to get fixed right away as well. let me know what you want for the headlight setups, the lenses themselves are a bit foggy but I’m not opposed to polishing them for the time being.

Just picked up a 1990 Legacy Wagon L-Series from a local diesel tech school. Didn’t want it, didn’t need it, but it was an auction and I thought someone would outbid my lowball. So now it’s in an empty lot beside my house and before my HOA bitches about it I’ve got to get it running. Previously had an 00 Outback that I loved but we lost it to a deer strike on a backwoods highway in Florida. So I’m moving backwards, next I’ll get a B.R.A.T. or GL wagon then work my way down to a 360 but that’s a problem for future me.