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Hi,

I have a 1992 Legacy Wagon, 2.2L N/A, Manual Trans.

I discovered that I need a new starter switch. I'm trying to sort out a fuel injector pulse problem. The switch must have been next to dead. With all this starting and key twisting I broke the switch.

I need the part number for the switch with just 4 wires at the back of the body of the switch.

The parts house unit (18-0326) has 5 wires. Also, it has an extra position on the rotation. When I install this 5 wire switch into my ignition lock housing, I can not even activate the starter. My key can not twist that far.

I hope that someone out there has the correct part number.

I visited the Subaru Warehouse website, and found two different part numbers. They dont have pics of their switches, so I have no idea if they are what I'm looking for.

Thanks.

Yesterday, I decided to visit the local wrecking yard.

I discovered that 90-94 wagons came with both style switches. There were 6 Legacy's at this yard. 4 had 4 wire switches and two had 5 wire switches. The 5 wire switch was in a Manual & Automatic.

Here are some pics of what I need and what I bought

starter-switch-1990-1994-legacy-001 by R H, on Flickr

starter-switch-1990-1994-legacy-002 by R H, on Flickr

The above pics are my 4 wire switch. As you can see, there are 4 wires at the back of the switch and the electrical connection uses a rectangular body with just 4 electrodes. I've seen some 4 wire switches on EBAY but they have a square body connector.

starter-switch-1990-1994-legacy-003 by R H, on Flickr

starter-switch-1990-1994-legacy-004 by R H, on Flickr

Above is the switch I got from a local parts house. Their webiste, and many others including RockAuto, said that this switch would fit my car. They are RIGHT. But the switch does not work in my car. Testing each electrode at each key position, the wrong electrodes are hot at the wrong time.

starter-switch-1990-1994-legacy-005 by R H, on Flickr

This pic shoes the 5 wire switch on the TOP and my 4 wire switch on the BOTTOM. Even the placement of the wire connections is different.

If anyone knows of the correct 4 wire switch with the rectangular connection please let me know.

Thanks.

Did you browse through the 90-94 parts manual? I know cj91legess had terrible starting problems over the years he never resolved. He ended up wiring a start button to bypass the "start" part of the ignition switch.

Anyways, all the site's PDF's are located here:

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=14485

That is really interesting to see the difference. There were two part numbers listed, but in the parts book I have and is in the link Mike posted the part number for the 91-94 MY's was crossed out and the part number for the 90 MY was put in its place. So it looks like the 91-94 MY may have used something different or Subaru did like they've done on other things on these cars and used random bits and didn't document it.

90 MY - 83131GA060
91-94 MY - 83131AA000 (Note: this part # supersedes to 83131GA060)

What would be the solution to this issue ? I have the same problem and really don't want to get rid of my car for such a little problem

I don't know other than try and find a used switch in the junkyard.

If you can do it, probably the easiest thing would be to get a new switch and reposition the pins in the electrical connector to how it's supposed to work. For this to work you'd have to have the old switch there and would need to match the position and continuity of each electrode to the correct pin location.

Hi josh , got the matching Switch from someone in here ( wow this website is a savior ) , come to find out the previous owner wired the switch diferrently than supposed to , he spliced a wire and grounded it to the frame underneath the dash I have no clue why

After thinking about your emails and pictures you have sent me (i'm the someone in here person lol) I wonder if the person that grounded that black/yellow wire might have fried something else.

I'll grab the pics you sent me and upload them to here for you in a little bit.

Here's the link to the album with the 3 pics you sent me.

http://s633.photobucket.com/user/ephyew ... tion-issue

The Black/yellow is a 12v constant power. If that was grounded by someone than it's likely it fried a ground somewhere or maybe even the ecu like you mentioned here and in our emails.

I uploaded the pics so others could chime in on this issue. I fear that you may have to do some hunting around for a fried ground somewhere. I would suggest checking all your fuses first, both under the hood and under the dash board. After that, check the ignition relay. If they all check out then I would plan for the worst with hunting down all the ground points and inspecting them.

For everyone else, I sent him a whole ignition with key.

edit... he was not able to swap the whole ignition, but he was able to swap the switch on the end of the ignition.

Thanks so much cj91! I had a mechanic check my grounds before said it's all good so hopefully it's just the computer , the ignition is wired the normal way now and I'm about to swap the computer next week. I've always had a small electrical glitch on this car looks like I'm getting close to pin point it at last. Hopefully it won't fry the new computer if I do have something that is still off

When your mechanic checked out grounds, do you know how far into the wiring he looked?

Probably not that far ...i will recheck everything once I get my car back

It almost looks like someone was trying to wire in an alarm or a make shift kill switch. That's the only reason I could think you'd mess with those wires. It's likely they screwed something up.

I'm just Gona revwire everything the way it should be and pray for the best ! Is there a list of all the grounds somewhere in here that I could check ? They also messed with the radio looks like

The factory manual should have the ground information in it.