At my wits end with starting issues

[Plazma]

Off and on for the better part of a year I've had awful starting issues with my Leggy.


On good days I turn the key and the car starts like any other car and has no issues. These are good days and they are seldom.

On some days, when I turn the key all I can hear is an audible click, and what I assume to be the sound of the bendix being thrown out to engage the fly while. Nothing happens however. Just the click sound, no cranking, nothing.

Occasionally if you leave the key turned after a short delay the engine begins to crank. Prior to last Monday night this would be enough to start the car and operate as normal once the car is warmed up and started the problem will generally not occur again for a period of several days. However if I'm unlucky I'll encounter the same starting problems later on in the day after the car has sat and cooled for a little while.

Things took a strange, and worse turn Monday night. I had the dead starter motor problem but was finally able to get the engine to crank, but after more than a few attempts I gave up, the cabin was beginning to smell gassy and the engine was just cranking never firing though if I stepped on the gas it seemed more likely to start up. I got some assistance and with a good push I was able to pop start the car and run as normal. The car operated normally for the next two days.

Currently I'm back to the problem of when the starter does engage properly the engine will crank but it won't fire. The starter was OEM but in an attempt to fix the starting issues I had it rebuilt in the summer. It resolved the starting issue for a week or two but the problem persisted.

Things I know:
Coil Pack is good it's a Diamond, and I've got spark at the coil pack but I haven't checked the actual spark plugs. Resistance is good on the primary and secondary side.

The starter magnet switch appears to be good, when I crank it's got the necessary voltage. Plus there are times where the starter operates normally.

I know I have pressure on the in and out side of the fuel filter (not sure how much).

I know my fuel pump is working when I turn the key to ON I can hear the pump energize.

Things I don't know:

Don't know what my exact fuel pressure is

Don't know the condition of my fuel injectors, I assume they're good because in a pinch I could go pop start the car right now.



I've been struggling with this for a while anyone have any ideas?

[Legacy777]

Well, it sounds like you have two different issues or distinct starting problems. The first being that the starter won't engage and all you hear is a click. This I would attribute to a starter solenoid contact, possibly a weak battery or some sort of other issue in the starter or starter interlock wiring. Is your Legacy a manual or automatic trans?

Regarding the cranking, but not starting issue, that's something else, and could be a multitude of things from not enough fuel pressure, coolant temp sensor, poor spark, intermittent wiring issue, etc.

I would recommend trying to isolate and test specific components per the instructions in the factory manual. For example with the coil pack tests, they give the resistance of the primary & secondary coils and what the wiring from the coil pack to the igniter should be, etc. Doing this will help eliminate certain things from possible causes and narrow it down.

[Plazma]

It's manual but converted from the 4eat.

[86BRATMAN]

How was your car wired when it was converted? I had similar issues when I first converted my 97 to 5mt, the crimps I used were apparently substandard and not allowing full voltage to pass through the starter relay, resulting in a slow crank and sometimes no start.

[Legacy777]

Same thing happened to me when I did my conversion. I wired in the starter interlock relay with a plug & play harness and I had intermittent starting issues. When I removed that from the system, I no longer had any issues.

Do you know what wiring modifications were done when it was converted?

[Plazma]

The only modification to the wiring is the plug and play harness in the ignition. I'm not very confident about the way it's wired if I'm quite honest.

So today was a good day, the car started. I checked fuel injectors (they all seem to be working), My fuel pressures are fine 26-30 at idle, when I race the engine fuel pressure increases, and also when I pull the vacuum line off the regulator. I don't smell or see gas at the regulator either.

With the car started I was able to run Read Mode and D-Mode I did get codes back, the codes were 11 and 51. The code 51 is further giving me the idea that there's something wrong with the harness I made.

Another thing I discovered today which also makes me wonder about the wiring harness I made, but my clutch fork is getting energized when I step on the clutch I have 0 clues as to why that would even happen...

[Legacy777]

Can you provide some additional details as to what you did associated with the harness you made for the ignition?

Were those codes you got in D-check or read mode?

I don't understand your comment about the clutch fork getting energized when you step on the clutch, can you please elaborate what you mean?

[Plazma]

Sorry for the long delay holidays have been creeping up on us slowly, and for the last few days the starting has been consistent for the most part. Yesterday I had to make 3 attempts at starting finally easing onto the throttle the car turned over.

Over the weekend, I took a pressure gauge to it because it randomly decided to start. When I initially turned the pump on it was hanging out around 14psi but after venting the hose on the gauge it went up to about 28psi. When I stepped on the throttle pressure increased and then went back to 28psi again when I lift off. When I pull vacuum off the fuel pressure regulator my fuel pressure climbs to around 40psi. Of course the very next day I had to make several attempts at starting it. Go figure. This weekend I'm going to check the resistance of the fuel pump see if there's something there. I just need to unhook my amp to get there.

I got Code 11 when I was in read mode I believe that's the two black 1-pin connectors? Then I disconnected those, and I connected the two green connectors followed the procedure to do D-Check, and as I was driving when I hit 4th gear it started throwing a code 51.

Moving on to the electrical harness, I got a slightly blurry photo of the harness, but I also wrote down what wires are connected to what. I'm not sure if the wires are different from MY to MY but mine is a MY90. I'm working off a MY91 wiring diagram FSM.

http://i.imgur.com/80Git8u.jpg

Not really sure if you can tell what's connected to what, but here's what I have written down:

Red > Black
Red(y) > Black(blue)
Black(w) > Black(y)
Blue(r) > Blue(r)

I combined what I could see in your picture, and what I could decipher from the power supply routing diagram to put together what I thought is the proper setup for the plug and play harness, but now I'm beginning to wonder if like you mentioned earlier about removing the starter interlock relay altogether.


Finally the clutch fork issue. I was doing work near the clutch fork and my old man stepped on the clutch as I tapped it with a socket wrench and it arc'd. I put a circuit tester to it and had him step on the clutch again it turned the light of the circuit tester on. So for some reason there's 12v in my clutch fork...


Shit I think I just had a moment, I'm 100% positive I did this harness wrong I think I crossed the BL and BY wires. I'll be ripping it out tomorrow to take a closer look at it. I really I hope this is actually the issue here and I made this harness improperly....


Sorry if I was thinking aloud along the way.

[Legacy777]

I recommend pulling the starter interlock circuit out completely and just jumper pins 11 & 12 of the B15 AT connector. Doing that should completely eliminate the plug & play starter interlock relay harness you made and the car should be fine.

I'm a bit concerned about the energized clutch. Hopefully after pulling the harness or redoing it, the energized clutch issue will go away.

[Plazma]

Wow, sorry about the really late update on this, life has been extremely busy with school back in session.

Quick Update: I checked the ignition harness and turns out it was built wrong, I trusted a buddy to put it together and put it in and my fault for not following up on his work. Once I fixed the harness (the wires leading to the neutral switch were connected for some reason and that's what was causing the ignition problem. I repaired the harness properly, and now the starter issue seems to be resolved.

[Legacy777]

Thanks for the follow up and glad to hear things appear to be working properly now.

[Plazma]

Also forgot to mention that it did resolve the situation with the energized clutch fork.

[yazmo]

I recommend pulling the starter interlock circuit out completely and just jumper pins 11 & 12 of the B15 AT connector. Doing that should completely eliminate the plug & play starter interlock relay harness you made and the car should be fine.

I'm a bit concerned about the energized clutch. Hopefully after pulling the harness or redoing it, the energized clutch issue will go away.

im starting to think that is also my problem.
my car that was not starting after putting it the garage, found a fuse link broke, fix it got it to start but still having those clicking and light blink every one second
clicking sound look like its coming from the starter interlock relay.

need to remove the dash which is something i don't really like doing, any good source here on how to remove the dash easily?

[Legacy777]

There's no "easy" way to remove the dash. Now that I've done it, it's not too bad. The steering wheel needs to come off and if you have two people it's MUCH easier.