Starter/wiring problem

[Nathan]

Well, I got the starter hooked up, with a direct power feed from the positive terminal of the battery to the terminal on the starter solenoid. The battery is VERY well grounded to the body and every ground I know of on the wiring harness is in it's proper location. I also hooked up the switched 12v power wire that goes to the starter solenoid to its correct wire. Once I did all of this I verified the battery was charged and working fine, then proceeded to test everything to see if the car would turn over. I depressed the clutch, turned the key and heard the starter relay kick over...but nothing from the starter. I then checked for 12v power to the terminal on the solenoid as well as switched 12v whenever the key was turned and verified that it IS getting 12 volts. Then, I checked the ground on the starter (just the body of the starter) it was good. I verified that all the connections were correct and called a friend. We looked at it and he checked everything AGAIN, then we decided the starter must be bad, pulled it out and went to autozone to test it. Well, its just fine. We brought it back and using some spare wire and jumper cables tested it ourselves using my battery, once again verified that it was good. We then re-installed the starter, hooked it back up and whala...nothing, it still doesn't work. So, we take some spare battery cable and connect it from the battery to the positive terminal on the battery to the terminal on the starter solenoid. Check it with the key again...still nothing. Irritated, we decide to take the relay out of the equation and just jump to the switched 12v power on the solenoid to the positive battery terminal. This ellicits a hell of a spark but also gets the starter to work...momentarily. We try it again in about 10 seconds and this time it doesn't work. We pull the starter out AGAIN and this time set it up on the shock tower, ground it to the body with a jumper cable, connect a positive cable from the battery to the starter and jump the battery to the switched 12v. power on the solenoid. Yet again, it works just fine. Currently the plan is just to setup a redundant system, I have plenty of battery cable laying around and so I'm going to hook up a second power cable to the starter and run a ground from the starter body to the car body. Then I'm going to run a second wire from the solder connection of the switched 12v. wire up to the plug for it and splice it in. This way I know it can get all the voltage it wants. However, I really shouldn't have to do this trash, it should have worked just fine. We verified that the wiring was indeed correct (used the voltmeter), then verified that everything that was grounded should be, then verified that when the key was turned 12 volts went to the starter solenoid, and verified that the starter was receiving constant 12 volts from the battery. It should be mentioned that this is just after a rebuild and turbo kit install, I'm putting everything back together and had hoped to start it tonight. It seems theres a problem but I'm thoroughly confused what. When I removed the engine I unhooked EVERYTHING and the only thing still not hooked up is the alternator wiring. Also, there is some other quirkiness with the car, the fuel pump wont come on, and two dash lights stay on after you take the key out and shut the door, the only way to turn them off is to unhook the battery. HOWEVER, they dont turn on until you put the key in the ignition and turn it to ACC. The two lights are the parking brake light and the low fuel light. Thanks for the help guys, I'm at my wits end with this thing.

[fuzion]

Is the switch on the clutch pedal bad? I thought my starter was going out.. it wouldn't start, I disconnected the switch down there and stuck a little wire in there to make the connection [ie, making it seem like the clutch pedal is down and allowing the starter to turn]

[course now my starter IS going bad so it doesnt help me anymore, but this little 'trick' does work!]

[Nathan]

I'll try it fuzion, but I dont think thats it...since when I depress the clutch and turn the key, it sends out the 12v signal to the solenoid. However, in the spirit of trying ANYTHING at this point, its well worth a shot I'll report back with the results...

[C-Kwik]

The solenoid for the starter may be going bad. This can lead to randomly intermittent working and non-working periods.

[Nathan]

Thats what I'm starting to lean towards C-Kwik...I tried fuzions trick and verified that the switch is indeed good, but the starter still wont kick over. I'm thinking the solenoid is unhealthy

[Nathan]

Update: I just found out that the starter is only 2 months old, maybe 4k miles on it. It's a re-man'ed unit but I'm not thinking its the starter. Is it possible that for some crazy reason there's a problem somewhere else in the harness that could affect the starter? Electrical systems own me I'm getting tempted to just haul it to a shop and say "fix any and everything electrical, bill me whatever you have too". I would much rather stick to purely mechanical things

[GoofyATX240]

It could still be the starter man its worth a try getting another one or something granted thats more money out of your pocket.

[Nathan]

You should have kept the one off your old KA, we could have tried it I'm still thinking the problem is somewhere else in the harness, I'm going to go all through it friday and then if it doesn't work by saturday...new starter for Nathan.

[droll]

i was going over the problem. can you clarify a couple things (if you fixed it i guess you can just ignore me.) you should have a hot connection from the battery to the starter solenoid, a connection from the ignition switch to the solenoid, and a connection from the solenoid to the starter motor. if you jumper between the battery terminal and the ignition switch terminal the engine should turn over. if you jump (with a big cable) from the battery terminal to the motor itself it should turn over. if you try either of these and it still does not turn over i would say you installed the motor improperly and it is jamming. if you did properly jump a 12 volt source to the ignition switch terminal and it worked, you have a problem in the ignition switch circuit.

[Nathan]

Oh, I'm sorry..I should have edited or posted again. I actually did get it working very well, but I'm still not sure how. I ended up hooking up the alternator and found a large ground that I had missed going to the intake manifold. I dont know which thing fixed it but after that all my little electrical gremlins went away. I doubt it was the ground as I had tried grounding the starter to the body with some jumper cables, to no avail. I'm thinking it was hooking up the alternator that did it, but eh...whatever, it works now I just have to get the timing right and I should be in business.

[NISTECH]

it was the ground ,not the altenator wiring. you can yank out the altenator leave all the wires to it disconnected,chuck the altenator in the trash and it will start all day long, at least till the battery goes dead.

[Nathan]

Ahhh, thanks for the reply NISTECH! I'll know that now in the future when troubleshooting a problem That was one big honkin ground that I had forgotten too...

[TheNomexNinja]

Im resurrecting this thread because Im having much the same problem as the original poster.

Let me start by saying that everything seems to be grounded correctly in the harness as well as the battery to the engine and chassis. I have 12v at the starter and I can turn the motor over fine with a snap-on starter button connected to the signal wire and 12v. When I test the signal wire it has 12v in the momentary "start" position and is dead in every other position (seems to be working properly). When I hook up the signal wire (tight, clean and what should be a good connection) and turn the key to start, all I get is a click.

How is this even possible? If the starter has 12v to the solenoid, and the signal wire has 12v when in the start position, and I know the starter works fine because like I said, I can start it with a jumper signal.....should it not work?!?!? I have checked all the fuses - help