For those of you who are familiar with my LGT problem, I think I may have found some help. My BIL lives down by Mankato and asked around for me. Found a guy in ST Peter MN who is up for the challenge. I need to find a time to trailer it down. He says he works at a car facility and his specialty is wiring. Tony is his name is all I know. We talked on the phone and seems to be intrigued by my specific set of issues. Foe those of you not aware of my nightmare here is a link to one of the threads. Terry http://mnsubaru.com/threads/05-lgt-on-its-menstrual-cycle-again.44153/page-3#post-739759
Good luck finding the gremlins and ghouls! If this doesn't work I would suggest a seance and an exorcism.
Dropped off the car in upper North Mankato this am. Tony seemed to be pretty excited. Said he loves the challenge. He moved way, way up on the list of people I really like right now.
I called him a week ago and touched base. After I dropped the car off it started and ran just fine for 4 days or so. Then it started it's sane old crap. He has a couple of ideas, but so far no solution. Tony admits this one is puzzling. I have heard that numerous times. Told him I'm in no rush, just see what he can find. I haven't used the car for about a year now, a few more weeks won't hurt much. Terry
Little more news. I picked up the car from Mankato on Saturday June 21. Tony checked everything he was able to get into with his scan tools. The Subaru scan tool is very expensive and basically available to dealers only. He really could not identify or isolate the problem. I get in the car and try to start and it fires right up. Tony just about fell over. He stated that is the first time the car has ran since I dropped it off. Got it home and unloaded. Can't say why, but it has continued to start and stay running ever since. The seat belt chime is also STAYING cancelled, something that has NEVER happened before. Every other time I have cancelled it, it resets itself after the key is pulled. Time will tell, but I need to change my header (flex section blew out) and I'm gonna try to drive it. Wish me luck. Would like to through out a big thank you to everyone who has contributed to this thread/problem. Terry
I've been wondering about this but have been too lazy to search. Good luck. Might want to throw a road flare in the trunk just in case.
Terry, if it starts happening again, if you ever want to get a couple people together on the weekend with some food & beer to attack this mother, I've debugged crazy electronics issues on aircraft etc. There's a bunch of engineers on this board, some of us could come over with some lab instruments borrowed from work and go to town ... You down @Nhibbs et. al. ?
I will absolutely take any and all help. I don't know where to go next. Either it meets with an unfortunate accident, or I start swapping out the wiring harness.
OK, well throw out some times that you might want to work on it, probably best on the weekend when there's an extended period to fool around with it. This is a 5MT car right? Was it always, or did it originally have an automatic? My biggest hope is that it's the Neutral Position Safety Switch. Your generation of Legacy has tons of reported problems with this switch, just do a web search. It can cause symptoms very similar to what you're describing. Try looking it up on Google and see what you can find, you might be able to find instructions how to jumper it out temporarily to verify/rule it out as the cause... That would be sweet : ) Otherwise it might be helpful to plumb in a cheap fuel pressure gauge under the hood, because that could be a problem too. Or a dirty/bad IACV.
Yeah at this point it is hard to speculate the cause because I am sure one of the 10 people to troubleshoot the car so far have probably checked all the usual suspects. But who knows!
Just edited my last post, I meant to say Neutral Position Switch instead of Safety Switch. It's the one on the tranny.
This is a crazy thought, but since this a car that's been modified/diagnosed a bunch, have you checked to make sure the green 'test mode' connectors under the glovebox (tucked under carpet I believe) are not connected? That can cause this type of symptom....
Ive never had the test connectors do that before. Ive accidentally left them hooked up before after flashing a map and it started and ran just fine other then the flashing cel.
OK, I was just going off what some people said on the internet, you know how reliable that is Maybe it depends on the year/model/etc due to different ECUs.
With all of the components that have been replaced already, I have to put my money on a broken wire or a harness connector that is having an intermittent continuity failure.
You can start and drive with green connectors plugged in. Fans would cycle constantly. It'll run kinda poopy This car was acting a bit different.
I think 5 gallons of gas and some tannerite targets would be a more fun way to send it off to the next world.
Well I might be on to something thanks to EricS. He sent me a link to a Forester thread and it mentioned the neutral position switch being a problem with some Foresters. I unplugged the neutral position switch and the reverse switch on the back of the transmission and for three consecutive days now the car has been running without flaw. Seems to idle smoother than it ever has and the little stumble/hiccup at about 35mph in third gear has disappeared. I'm very hopeful, but still don't want to attempt ant cross country trip. I was making plans last weekend to move it to the back of the garage to begin replacing the complete wiring harness. I would have really been pissed had I gone through all that trouble and the problem would have still existed. I never would have even thought to look to a neutral switch to solve my security light issue. Thanks again everyone for all of your input and wish me luck.
I want to see this thing go at least a few weeks before I call Eric a genius. If it does, I will be the second to call him one. Here's hoping for Terry's sake (I hope I don't jinx it).
All is still well. On the way home tonight it threw a code for the park/neutral position circuit high. Sure damn thing won't throw a code for over a year with a faulty switch, but disconnect it and right away it comes on. Oh well easy fix. On a more positive note, I am really starting to love my car all over again. I had forgotten how much fun a 350whp car could be.
Maybe the failure of the switch is the "other" position and a fault code is set for only one type of failure and not the other.
