1999 Legacy won't start after engine got wet

[Jarrett]

My girlfriend's car was recently rained on and at the time the hood was off of the car for front end repairs. I reinstalled the battery in hopes of taking it to a body shop to have a new core support welded in place and it won't start. By this point the engine had easily dried out and all related connectors had been checked for moisture. I've checked nearly everything I can think of. The issue is that it's not getting any spark.

I've checked the crankshaft and camshaft position sensors, cleaned them off very well and nothing has changed.


Here's the link to the thread that she posted over on the Legacy forum. She's not getting many hits, though. Any ideas?

http://sl-i.net/FORUM/showthread.php...ow-won-t-start

[sonikaccord]

I guess we should start from square one.
Is the ECU/PCM sending a firing signal to the ignitor?
Is the igniter switching the coil, rather, do you have any high tension before the distributor?

[Jarrett]

All of my electrical testing equipment (multimeter/test light) were in Dallas and I was in Bryan/College Station (3.5 hours away). So, no, I didn't have a chance to do any real electrical testing.

Now that I'm back up in Dallas for the work week I am restricted to what I can explain to my girlfriend to do for diagnosis.

I'm going to have her unplug the IACV and try to start it without it. I'll have her clean it either way before reinstallation. Rationale for that is based off of this symptom.

[Jarrett]

I had her test the coil the way that the FSM states to test the coil and she's getting nothing except for a resistance reading where she shouldn't be. Any ideas?

This is a difficult nut to crack as all '90-'98 Legacys used an ignitor on the firewall and that's where people want to direct these issues. The '99 that we have is kind of a bastard year and does not use an ignitor. Many other things are different as well. So, the cookie-cutter answers don't really work in this application.

[sonikaccord]

I had her the coil the way that the FSM states to test the coil and she's getting nothing except for a resistance reading where she shouldn't be. Any ideas?

This is a difficult nut to crack as all '90-'98 Legacys used an ignitor on the firewall and that's where people want to direct these issues. The '99 that we have is kind of a bastard year and does not use an ignitor. Many other things are different as well. So, the cookie-cutter answers don't really work in this application.

Primary shorted to secondary? That would definitely cause no spark. Do you get any HT directly off the coil?

[Jarrett]

I'm assuming "HT" is high tension, right? I didn't have her test that as she was by herself so there was no one to start the car while holding leads on the coil. I'm down here now and can test that. I'm still confused by the results she got and that I have confirmed. What would cause a coil to have zero reading whatsoever in any of the prescribed testing locations, but show 11 ohms of resistance between two pins that the FSM doesn't say to test?

[sonikaccord]

Correct.

I'm going to assume here that your coil has 4 connections.
The "primary" should have a low resistance.
The "secondary" should have a high resistance as in higher than the primary.
There should be infinite resistance between the primary and secondary.
Does the service manual specify which pins go to which part of the coil?

[Jarrett]

Here's the page from the FSM that shows the coil test.

To add a bit of confusion to this whole thing, I'm not getting a resistance reading across the coil towers. And that resistance appears to be within spec on both readings. I used alligator clips to hold the connection this time. Still nothing across the two locations I'm supposed to test on the primary connector.

I went to O'Reilly and bought a new coil. Nothing changed. I'm at a loss. The Subaru forums have not been very helpful to her and I'm beginning to think this car has a dealership bay in its future. I'm trying to avoid that as it's missing the core support and all front panels so I'm trying to get it running to get to the body shop.

[sonikaccord]

I just read the Subaru forums. At least we can eliminate the coil. Next is the "ignitor". I know you said that the '99 doesn't have one, but something has to switch the coil and that would be the next item to check.

I saw that she bought a multimeter. She can now also do continuity checks. Tracing the primary connector to the "ignitor" or "switch" and verifying wire integrity could eliminate another potential cause of failure.