Intermittant electrical faults are annoying.

[tambox]

I have just purchased a one owner Gen2 Outback, very neat original car.
Everything is fine, well, except for some fire in the water and the ABS light was on.

Did a quick check of all the fuses and sensors.
I checked all the fuses in the fuse box, all ok.
After doing a voltage measurement on the ABSCM, no voltage.
Then I read the fuse box cover, ABS fuse was missing,:oops:, fitted one, light went out.
Drove down the road, light back on, fuse blown.
More serious measurements now, all sensors measure ok, voltages at ABSCM ok.
Drove to borrow a genuine Subaru reader, would not connect, fuse blown again.
Change fuse, blows again.
Drive home, unplug it all, clean all connections (they looked ok), inspected the cables I could see.
Plug it all back together, light is off.
Drive around for the next 30 mins, light stays off.
Fixed, yay, parked for the night.

Start up next morning, drive 50 meters down the road, fuse blows.
Back home, change the fuse, 1 meter out the drive, fuse blows.
Back home, as soon as fuse is fitted it blows.
Unplug sensors and ABSCM, fuse ok.
Plug ABSCM back in (no sensors), drive 2 meters fuse blows.

Change ABSCM, fuse blows after rolling 3 meters.
Downloaded the full ABS wiring diagram, I had checked most of it, only G sensor left, measured ok with multimeter at the ABSCM.
Remove centre console to swap G sensor, noticed one of the cruise control wires and been squashed against the hi/low lever bracket.
It had been squashed that hard, the copper wire was just visible.

Moved the wire away, ABS fixed.

The fuse does Cruise and ABS.
Another lesson in life, from Subaru:)

[El_Freddo]

Glad you found it. Pretty simple fix!

Maybe you should take out shares in a fuse company

Cheers

Bennie

[tambox]

The fault was a bit conFUSEing, but got it sorted.
It shows how something straightforward can turn out to be unrelated to the diagnosed fault.
One of the advantages of wrecking a few Subaru's, plenty of fuses.
And patience.