Project 1990 Legacy Wagon No Crank

[bigshankhank]

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.  

Edited December 24, 2024 by bigshankhank
Cold Cranking Amps typo

[bigshankhank]

[forester2002s]

For a quick test of the starter:

- disconnect the small-gage wire that connects to the starter solenoid-terminal;

- connect a wire to the positive battery terminal; and touch the other end of the wire briefly to the starter-solenoid terminal.

This will put 12V to the solenoid, and should energize the starter itself. But be aware that the test-wire from the battery will be unfused, and capable of conducting a larger than intended current.

[bigshankhank]

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.  

[forester2002s]

15 hours ago, bigshankhank said:

...I don’t have any heavy gauge wire with clips on it.  12ga sure...

You shouldn't need a heavy-gauge wire to energize the solenoid. 16ga would work. And we're only talking about a few seconds anyway.

[el_freddo]

The series 2 starter motors used to become unresponsive due to a lack of power to energise the starter solenoid. 

The work around here was to setup a horn relay that’s triggered by the factory starter wire to give a better 12v hit to the starter solenoid via better and shorter wires from the battery (and appropriately fused). 

Hopefully it’s something as simple as this. 

Those cam and crank angle sensors will need to be sorted out but they won’t stop the engine from being turned over by the starter motor. The engine just won’t start as the ECU won’t see the crank or cam signals - which means a code or a check engine light won’t be thrown. 

Cheers 

Bennie

[bigshankhank]

5 hours ago, forester2002s said:

You shouldn't need a heavy-gauge wire to energize the solenoid. 16ga would work. And we're only talking about a few seconds anyway.

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

[lmdew]

Corrosion/green crap in the wire.  There should not be a significant voltage drop under load.

I just fixed the better half brake lights on 2006 Forester.  No brake lights, all three out.  Of course the brake switched ohmed out just fine.  

I swapped it with a spare I had.  Fixed.  When I opened up the old switch, one contact was pitted and burned.

[bigshankhank]

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

[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