Electrical items not working

[carrera1984]

I have most items tested and working however i'm having an issue with the following:

-horns(air bag out, should I be able to push metal tabs and have it work?, Probed at blue connect and horns work)
-Hazards/turn signals(no dash light, no relay click, nothing)
-High beams(low beams work and stay on when high beams are clicked, high beams do not test good when probed, High beam dash light DOES go on, no relay click)
-fog lights(is there an indicator? no relay click, does seem to half light high beam dash light indicator faintly...weird)
-"UNIT D R L" , where does this box go? Do I have it in a correct connect spot?


Checked for grounds, all seem to be good...

[carrera1984]

Fog lights do work... whoops, I just cut the connector and probed.

Another issue is that "brake" is illuminated in keyed on position and I have the hand brake is not connected or grounded out. Is this normal till the car is running?

[carrera1984]

I connected a wrx tail light and side marker and noticed that the hazards do in fact light the tail and side markers soild. No blinking on the tails as expected with hazards button on.

[UnhipPopano]

Without going into too much detail about how to troubleshoot electrical problems, the first place to start is with an electrical diagram or schematic. Copy on a piece of paper the circuit you are working on. Decide how you can test the circuit to verify each part and locate the problem. For example, the Horn circuit. The primary parts of that circuit are the horn and the battery. If you jumper the contact for the relay, and everything works, you will hear the horn. Next put 12 volts onto the Horn Relay Coil. If the relay works, you will hear the horn. Continue testing until you find the problem.

You also should have a multi-meter that can test for Voltage and continuity. When you have isolated the part of the circuit that is not working, use the meter for checking shorts and opens. Use the diagram you made to keep notes on what you tested, color of the wires, terminals, and anything else that may help you including what works and what does not work. Note that in the build threads, it is easy to remove the wrong wires while dieting the harness.

Another tool that is handy at times is a tone tracker. The wiring and the diagrams may have some differences. The tone tracker lets you to track wires through the loom to find the ends.

If you are going to be soldering, get a decent soldering iron with plenty of watts and use non acid flux. A proper iron should be able to heat the joint quickly, while a week one will heat everything and burn your fingers. Also, a bad joint will take far too much time to find and fix as compared to doing it right the first time.

[carrera1984]

Thanks for the reply, I'm familiar or have done a lot of that already. I was wondering if my problem is similar to another members and they may know the cause. I'll give my toner a try tomorrow, haven't done that yet. Your right though, toner's going to be key because so many wire colors do not seem to match the diagrams on my 2003 wrx. It's funny how you can fly through so much and then a few items hold you back days.

[STiPWRD]

so many wire colors do not seem to match the diagrams on my 2003 wrx.

That's interesting because my 02 wrx harness wire colors were exactly as depicted in the 02 impreza wiring manual. Are you sure you have the correct wiring diagram?

You should be able to check continuity at various points in the harness until you track down the issues. I couldn't really understand some of your questions about the horn/air bag or where does the DRL box go? Have you dieted the harness?

[redfogo]

I have a 2003 WRX harness and it matched my 2002/2003 diagram. Make sure you are looking at the turbo section and not the NA section they are very different. This one seems to have a good diagram. http://subaru-manual.blogspot.com/20...g-diagram.html.

The horn will only work if you have all the contact points installed. How much of the air bag did you delete? Part of the air bag assembly if i remember right(I'm using an aftermarket wheel) is that ring assembly that basically is a giant ring that provides contact between the stationary side of harness and the rotating wheel side.

As everyone else has said grounds, relays, and fuses are critical to testing. Make sure they are all installed. When in doubt follow the wire from start to finish. It no fun i know it I spent endless hours on mine ;/.

[carrera1984]

That's interesting because my 02 wrx harness wire colors were exactly as depicted in the 02 impreza wiring manual. Are you sure you have the correct wiring diagram?

You should be able to check continuity at various points in the harness until you track down the issues. I couldn't really understand some of your questions about the horn/air bag or where does the DRL box go? Have you dieted the harness?

In the picture above the black box says "Unit D R L" on it. Google comes up with nothing. The problem is that the plug is identical to at least one other plug... weird. The harness I'm working with was half not labeled by the PO. So I'm using an educated guess where Subaru might have placed it. In the picture those are the surrounding items to the black DRL BOX. I suspect I have the wrong wiring diagram, honestly ill be really happy if I had a brain fart on looking at the wrong one. Im going to check against RedFOGO's link.

[carrera1984]

I have a 2003 WRX harness and it matched my 2002/2003 diagram. Make sure you are looking at the turbo section and not the NA section they are very different. This one seems to have a good diagram. http://subaru-manual.blogspot.com/20...g-diagram.html.

The horn will only work if you have all the contact points installed. How much of the air bag did you delete? Part of the air bag assembly if i remember right(I'm using an aftermarket wheel) is that ring assembly that basically is a giant ring that provides contact between the stationary side of harness and the rotating wheel side.

As everyone else has said grounds, relays, and fuses are critical to testing. Make sure they are all installed. When in doubt follow the wire from start to finish. It no fun i know it I spent endless hours on mine ;/.

I just popped the air bag out so far and was pushing on the metal below it to test the horn. I was just having some reservations that im going to land on the reverse side of the shop messing with the airbag too much without some research on how to deactivate it and put it and put the shell back in. Haven't really dove into it yet and was having some other issues so I thought I would include it with that.

FYI-I'm currently at 90% wires/functions connected & tested, engine tuned over w/o a start. Just a few to fix as above before gassing up and starting for the first time, then the dieting can begin.

[DrunkenSailor]

The DRL is the daytime running lights module. It should have a 10 pin connector on it. The daytime running light relay, and daytime running light resistor are also part of the system. The parking brake light switch is connected to this module on pin 6, if the light is on, it is probably grounded somewhere, with power coming from the module.