sooooooooo, short story is I broke down and now I've fixed it. longer story is: Leaving TE I stopped for a safety wee and on returning went to restart the bus and it wouldnt start, 3 or 4 goes later and it finanlly stated (caveat, this had happened at home ealier in the week but i had found a bad fuel pump wire and hadnt had an issue since). did get a crank sensor code so put it down ot that on its way out. So, off to the fuel staton near the M69, 25 litres of fuel, yet again no start!! getting twitchy now!! @theBusmonkey was with me and he helped me disconenct poptopkicthen and push it over to a parking space. then the bus obviousy started agin lol, connected back up and made the dash for home. 1hr 30 mins up the A46 and alls good, welli stopped at starbucks and got sorry im late coffee for the wofe and kids, where i stalled it. DAMN but it started straight up. so alls good. get home, stop, move all the cars around to get the van and poptopkitchen backin tehre spaces. van started up fone every time. Weird. onto the alst couple of nights: changed the crank sensor(CPS) for a new genuine one. unfortunately due to it being steel cased and in an aluminium hole it corrodes in due to dissimilar metal corrosion you have to destroy it to get it out. CPS changed amd it started straight up. the key here though is another start straight afterwards. no dice failed to start agin. this time codes for crank sensor (p0336)and cam sensor(p0341), weird as the CPS is new. checked all woring and put the battery on charge. started tonight and all good. another go....failed to start checked the battery tonight and it has 615 CCA left from its orginal 680CCA so thats a good battery still. this tim I got a new code (p0335) still crank sensor but when i looked it up iy pointed to a possible bad battery or starter. luckily I have a few starters knocking around so I swapped it out for the cleanest newing looking one and bobs your uncle it starts first time everytime now. obviously as part of doing all this I also cleaned all the grounds and cabe conenctions. and I also cleaned the spark plugs, luckily I did as I found a broken plug wire. amazing it was running so well really lol. I'm the end it was a weak starter motor (I noticed a couple of times when it wasnt starting it kicked the solenoid back out.) And the plug lead was a lucky find no moral here other than subarus still need maintenace too.(especially if you chucked an enigne in 2 years ago without doing anything to it apart from the timing belt!!)
With an air-cooled you could have fixed the starter with a hammer and the broken plug lead with a bit of insulation tape – I’ve forgotten what the fault codes are.
This stuff is water off a duck's back to you I know, but to the uninitiated it does seem an overly complex journey to discover the starter was bust, particularly as the problem you had was that the starter wouldn't work and you confirmed that by fitting one that did. lol. Forgive me for chuckling. What was all the fault code stuff for? It doesn't seem very helpful if it took you round a loop replacing the crank sensor that presumably wasn't actually faulty?
It's a cautionary tale I suppose, Because the only code was a crank sensor I changed it, especially knowing it was over 120k miles old/19 years old. however I should have followed my gut and listened to what my head was saying to me about the starter. I'd suspected it a few days ago. It was still turning the engine over pretty well but petrol engines are sometimes misleading, sounding stronger than they really are on crank. Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk
So what we have here is a case where the newest T4 engines are now around 40 years old (maybe less if you use a T25 engine..) , and the Subaru replacements are coming up 20 years old. Gradually they are converging into junkiness. At least if you leave an aircooled engine somewhere dry, its probably in the same condition after 20 years. While if you forgot to drain the coolant on the watercooled engine..
It's an interesting point you make. @pkrboo and I have chatted about this. On our old stuff, the symptoms would have pointed to a faulty starter motor or ignition switch. I'm sure most of us with a few miles under our belts have had occasion to welt the SM with a mallet and a lump of 2x4. For us air coolers it's usually a faulty connection, the oilite bush or general tiredness. I think the fact there is an electronic panel which produces fault codes almost makes traditional diagnosis and gut feeling feel redundant. Interesting Matt says he should have followed his gut feeling and suspected the SM, but the techie in him just had to go to the code reader...
The crank sensor told you the truth , the output pulse rate was too low for cranking - either the sensor had completely stopped working or the pulses were coming in below the acceptable rate. If your rev counter works while cranking, it probably would also have shown some non-zero value, not zero/ stopped indicating the sensor was working, giving another clue. Like my rev counter shows 300 rpm and the oil pressure will show about 10-20PSI just cranking.
But genuine Subaru engine parts IIRC are cheap in comparison. The job has either got harder or easier depending on your experience interpreting fault codes I suppose. One fault code with multiple possible causes. With hindsight it's obvious the crank sensor was trying to help by confirming the starter was too slow.
It's not unusual on subaru motors for the crank sensor to become Intermittwnt when it starts to fail. So it could well be a conjunction of a weak starter and the crank sensor. By replacing the crank sensor it then showed up the starter motor to be at fault too. Thing is the starter motor was cranking away to what sounded quite a strong turn over. Whacking it with a hammer would have solved nothing as it wasnt't a sticking solenoid. Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk
Not necessarily cheaper but still actually real life genuine at least. A genuine crank sensor is about £95 Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk
I bought a complete engine for half that .. Ok it was full of water, but I did end up driving with it. On the other hand, a water pump spindle and a length of steel oil pipe with banjos brazed on both cost £110 each for a Japanese Yanmar diesel. So your sensor was a bargain.
