Photos of the ea81 EGR Warning Light reset procedure

[eatmorepossum]

Greetings,

 

I did a little work on the 1985 BRAT this weekend.  I finally got rid of that pesky EGR valve warning light.  Following the advice of others on this forum I learned that the light comes on every 60,000 miles irrespective of EGR status.  As wikipidia states, the function of EGR is to reduce emissions:

 

 via Wikipedia:

In internal combustion engines, exhaust gas recirculation(EGR) is a nitrogen oxide (NO_x) emissions reduction technique used in petrol/gasoline and diesel engines. EGR works by recirculating a portion of an engine's exhaust gas back to the engine cylinders. This dilutes the O2 in the incoming air stream and provides gases inert to combustion to act as absorbents of combustion heat to reduce peak in-cylinder temperatures. NOx is produced in a narrow band of high cylinder temperatures and pressures.

 

 

The light comes on to remind you to remove the EGR valve and perform a cleaning procedure that is described in the service manual.  Some folks perform this, some ignore it, and some install a delete kit that looks like this:

 

 

 

Which ever way you choose to go, this will not reset the light.  To do this you must get up under the dash and swap a single electrical connection (at 60k) from Blue to blue to Blue to Green.  At 120k you reverse the swap back to Blue to Blue.  I performed the swap this weekend and spent a good amount of time under the dash looking at the rats nest to find the appropriate connections.  Below are some photos to document the procedure so as to help others.

 

First take the panel off below the steering wheel, to reveal the wiring.  The wires in question will be found behind the fuse box area.  See the Blue connector behind the fuse box in this photo for the actual location:

 

 

 

Once you find this, unplug the cable and locate a similar looking plug in the opposite color.  Here is a look at all three plugs.  You may need to do some fidgeting to provide enough slack to make the connection.

 

 

 

Here is what the final connection looks like:

 

 

One word of caution.  by spending so much time crawling under the dash, I managed to break my step assembly trim component (the plastic thing that says subaru next to the seat).  This was a major bummer.  Take precautions not to put too much weight on this piece. 

 

Cheers,

Chris

[rdweninger]

Nice photos.   Thanks for the post.

When working under the dash, I always remove the driver seat.   Then lay on my back with feet resting on rear seat.   Much easier on the back, neck, arm, leg.   Only 4 bolts.

[SourKraut412]

Thanks for the post, I've been needing to find those wires since I bought my rig in July but keep putting it off.