No spark 94 loyale pls help

[Loyal Lover]

1994 loyale

This is my dads old car they bought brand new it’s been Sitting for a while after loosing spark at 170,000 miles and now I’m trying to get it fixed up to learn stick on and be my gas getter, snow drifter car

It doesn't get any spark from the coil but the coil is getting power and I checked that the coil was good with a ohm meter

not sure what to check next? any help is appreciated 

[idosubaru]

Drivers side timing belt snapped or jumped. 

[Loyal Lover]

Idosubaru is that the only thing it could be? 

[DaveT]

The timing belt is an easy thing to check.   My experience with several of these engines is that the timing belt makes it about 60k miles, then snaps.  Not a big deal to fix, it does no damage to the internals.   New belts and idlers, re set the marks, and go.

The sensor in the distributor could be bad.  The igniter transistor could be bad.  A wire between any of these could be bad.    The easiest thing to check is the timing belt.  Take the cap off, turn the crankshaft with a wrench.  Does the rotor move?

[1 Lucky Texan]

Dave mentioned wires, you say the car has been sitting, you should look around for rodent damage I think too.

[Loyal Lover]

Thanks for all the ideas so far I’ll get back to you guys when I work on the car more 

[Steptoe's photos]

do you know how to check for dizzy rotor spinning, or not as the case may be if that side timing belt not right

[idosubaru]

14 hours ago, Loyal Lover said:

Idosubaru is that the only thing it could be? 

Yes. But it’s almost always the belt so that’s the first check.  Remove three 10mm screws on front drivers side timing cover and look. It takes 10 minutes. It’s easy and the best method - has to come off anyway and car is still drivable without it  

You can also remove rhe distributor cap and turn the engine over - if the disty doesn’t spin when the engine is cranking, the belt and/or pulleys are bad. 

The disty sensor pick up could be bad. Also an easy fix but far less common. 

Instalk new belts and idlers. They’re easy to do.

Id also install cam cap orings, crank and cam seals and reseal the oil pump with Subaru gaskets while it’s apart. I’d use Subaru seals. All of that requires the belts to be removed to replace anyway. Water pump too - use a Subaru gasket. The aftermarkets are thin cheesy paper and prone to leak. 

[Loyal Lover]

All these are good ideas but it’s not sending spark to the distributer because there’s not spark at the coil I did some research and my next best guess is that it’s a coil resistor because I know that the coil is getting power and swapping the coil did nothing

Edited June 4, 2022 by Loyal Lover

[Ionstorm66]

Also make sure there is a screw in the rotor. The screw can fall out and the dizzy wont work as the rotor wont spin.

[el_freddo]

21 hours ago, Loyal Lover said:

All these are good ideas but it’s not sending spark to the distributer because there’s not spark at the coil I did some research and my next best guess is that it’s a coil resistor because I know that the coil is getting power and swapping the coil did nothing

If the dizzy isn’t spinning and the ignition module not being activated the coil won’t give a spark. You need to check that cam belt is present and turning the cam with the engine. As others have said, it’s an easy thing to check - remove dizzy cap and turn the engine with the starter motor, either have someone do the starter and you watch the rotor or mark where the rotor was, flick the starter and see if the rotor moved location. 

Or remove the cam cover as mentioned and visually check the cam belt. 

If those check out I’d be looking at the connector at the dizzy to the body loom, followed by the electronic ignition module in the dizzy. It would be odd for it to let go so early with those miles but anything can happen too, it’s definitely worth looking into. 

All the best. 

Cheers 

Bennie

[Loyal Lover]

Oh alright thanks I’ll get back to you guys when I work on it more 

[scoobydube]

Single defective items that can by themselves keep the engine from starting and has put thousands of Subarus in junk yards:

1. the black fusible link is the main engine but any of them can start to break or get hard and brittle, causing intermittent and then total failure.

2.  the thing a ma jig that bolts to the body, directly behind the fusible link box, that had one wire to the coil and the long black wire running to left side engine attachment next to the battery, where the ground wire attaches.  The thing a ma jig also keeps static off of your radio and right before it blows, you get a lot of radio static.

3. the main engine ground wire get brittle and loses most of it's ability to conduct electricity and ground out the engine, at it's attachment to the frame.  This single defect will cause the engine to run poorly when you operate any other accessory on the vehicle.  For instance, you can almost kill the engine by operating your electric windows, if you have them.  THIS IS THE MOST PROBABLE CAUSE OF YOUR PROGRESSIVE FAILURE.  These wires may not last more that 250,000 miles.

4. a loose wire inside of the distributor cap

5. the short wire between the Positive battery terminal and the fusible link box, gets hard at the terminal end, brittle and loses most if not all of it's ability to conduct electricity, causing poor performance before a total engine failure.  You splice in a new lead to the battery terminal, by splaying both ends of the two wire ends that you are joining, in order to get the maximum about of contact surface.

6. the distributor electronics just suddenly went out.

7. the hot wire that runs into the back of the alternator, gets brittle, hard and breaks, causing the engine to perform poorly before it suddenly fails.

8. bad plugs will cause your alternator to fail prematurely.  Some plugs require replacement every 15,000 miles.

9. coil failure or corrosion inside of the lead wire from the coil to the distributor.

10.  Bonus:  a failure of the replaceable round switch below the dash board, to the left of the steering column, will cause the interior fan to suddenly fail, especially if you had just been running it at it's maximum speed.  There are about 5 of these identical switches below that dash in the same location so you are going to have to get a known good switch and plug it into each switch socket, one at a time, before you find the burned out one.  There may be black discoloration on the burned out one.

[scoobydube]

Item 2. above is probably a condensor.

Item 11.  A bad oxygen sensor in the catalytic converter, really screws up the engine.

[scoobydube]

Item 12.  A broken wire to either coil terminal will keep it from starting.

Bonus #2:  A failure to switch into 4WD can be caused by either a failure of, or disconnection of, either one of the two vacuum pumps on the right side of the engine compartment, just behind the air filter in the 86 GL10.