Troubleshooting 1994 Mercury Villager starting issues

[foxfan1992]

Hey everyone. I'm just posting here hoping to find some answers to why our 1994 Mercury Villager suddenly decided it would not start. It is fitted with a Nissan Quest engine.

The starter will crank if we put power to the solenoid, so that's not the problem. The inhibitor relay is working fine, but we do not have power from the START position on the ignition switch, is there anything that could cause this other than a faulty ignition switch? We found the circuit diagrams on NICOwebs manual for the '94 Villager on page EL-21.
http://www.nicoclub.com/FSM/Quest/1994- ... est/el.pdf

Something is stopping power getting to the inhibitor relay from the ignition switch. The starter cranks with a jumper wire from the battery to the solenoid but the engine does not fire up even with the ignition on. Another oddity is that turning the ignition switch to START yields a "Low Oil" light on the dashboard. This was the first thing we checked and the oil is almost full.

Anyone who's had this problem and managed to solve it, please let me know as we now have two broken vehicles - my Nissan 720 and now the Mercury Villager/Nissan Quest too.

[sx moneypit]

Check fuse #26 in the interior fuse box,it is a 10 amp fuse .
It would be a good idea to check all your fuses while you are at it.

[foxfan1992]

All the fuses and relays have been checked, and they're all working. For some reason there is no power going from the ignition switch to the starter, though there is power to the ignition switch.

The only thing I can compare it to is trying to start an automatic vehicle in gear... it won't work. Though now it seems to have the same lockout when the vehicle is in park, so that's where the problem may be.

[the converted]

Do you have power going into the switch? White/purple should have power all the time. Your starter wires are going to be red and another wire that's red/white and both of those will need to be powered to start. If you have power in and nothing out, you're going to need a new switch and they generally aren't that expensive or difficult to install.