CAR WON'T START. Clutch switch gone bad?

[crzycav86]

My car won't start. I can start it up by connecting the starter directly to the battery, which proves that the battery and starter are fine. When I turn on the ignition, it makes the clicking sound but doesn't the engine doesnt turn over. This leads me to believe that the clutch position switch has gone bad. But I today I connected the wires together, thus bypassing the switch, and it still doesn't start.

I think the connection from wherever that clutch switch leads to may be loose. NISTECH, can you give me your opinion on the matter?

I originally posted the problem in the brake/suspension forum because it happened after I finished my brake swap. More information on my situation can be found here: http://www.nissaninfiniticlub....78314

Thanks

[Big Red]

The clicking sound is the starter solonoid resetting because of not enough voltage, either the battery is low or your starter solonoid is going iffy.

[crzycav86]

Well it can't be the battery because it does start the car, I just have to wire it directly to the starter.

Where can I find the starter solenoid?

[Big Red]

I don't believe this!

I looked in both my books and I can't find anything that tells us where the starter is located.

The starter solonoid is called the "magnetic switch" and it's attached to the starter unit, but where the hell is the starter unit???

[Nathan]

Crawl under the car on the passenger side, look right alongside the engine. You will see a big round thing with heavy gauge wiring going to it. That would be the starter. Its under and back from the bottom of the intake manifold.

[crzycav86]

Actually, we kinda fixed the problem.

The relay for the starter(located on the right fender near the battery) is not activating. I have been told that it may be due to the alarm system(I didnt even know my car had an alarm). The relay got replaced, but that didn't fix it. So I just bypassed the relay, and it starts fine. This is only a temporary fix though...

[hotshot240sx]

yeah you may have to disable your alarm. my buddy had the same issue, and we were lucky to have disarmed it with a lucky snip of a wire. but yeah aftermarket alarms seem to go faulty on a number of vehicles causing the battery to lay dead or the starter to just click or sometimes no response at all, disable the alarm and bam... car starts fine...

[s13sr20chris]

try jumping the relay. be carefull though as you only want to jump the switch side and not the coil side. if you jump the coil side you will "let the smoke out". i had a z one time with a bad starter relay(aka clutch interlock relay). it clicked and passed on 12v to the starter but the starter solenoid did not even click. i was just about to replace the starter when i checked the voltage drop. it was no good. the relay had mega-voltage drop. it was the equivalent of one strand of wire passing on 12v with no current capacity.