Every once in awhile I had to spend some time this year chasing down a few little electrical gremlins. After I fixed them, I noticed how few threads about these particular problems there were, so I figure it cant hurt to share what I found worked.

Problem 1 - Starter runs constantly with battery hooked up

The easy answer would be that the solonoid to the starter was fused and I needed a new starter. However, when you would remove the control wire and hook up the battery, it would not run. After testing 2 starters, I decided to pull it all out, pull that part of the wiring harness on the passenger side up, and take a look. This group of wires would prove to be important all year. It has your knock sensor wire, starter control wire, 02 sensor wire, and a very small ground wire. Also nearby but not in the same group of wires is a small wire for your front right ABS sensor.

Ironically, I never found the problem outright. I brought up all of the wires, checked for cracks/ breaks, and retaped everything up. I made sure the control wire and main lead from the battery didnt touch, tightened everything down very well, and it worked. Where ever it was power or grounding itself, thats all it took to fix was some patience.

Problem 2 - Car turns off at WOT or on hard bumps/stops

At first it wasnt present at all, then only at WOT, progressing until any bump could make the car either temporarily or completely turn off. My security light was coming on as it happened, so I thought it might be a VATS issue causing a fuel cut, since it often returned to normal once I left off the gas. I had no problem starting the car however, and using LT1 Edit to remove the VATS check didnt solve the problem. Since it was a progressive problem, not as bad at first as it later became, I didnt realize until I tried logging some data that it wasnt just fuel cutting, but completely turning off the computer. Ended up tracing it back to that same small ground mentioned above. It grounds to the passenger side of the block slightly above the starter. Apparently all the new movement to this small old wire was too much, and it lost its good connection. A new eyelet and a new position for it to ground solved the problem, although 1 ground being able to shut down the whole car has led me to checking/adding grounds.

Problem 3 - Turn key, car starts, hear grinding. Turn off car, starter still turning. Disconnect battery and reconnect, starter stops until next attempted start.

This was similar to problem 1, except that now I could have the battery hooked up and it wouldnt try starting the car until I actually turned the key. I checked my ignition switch, but it wasnt sticking. Next to check were the relays under the passenger side dash, which also were ok. Which only left the solonoid. While it wasnt permanently fused, it would become locked into position once it recieved power, and couldnt release itself until the main power (battery) was unhooked and the connection was lost. Simple starter swap later and the car was fine.


So basically:

Owner before me burnt up ABS wire installing headers, and possibly damaged/loosened the other wires on that side. While pulling and reinstalling my engine, I could have damaged or further damaged that control wire area, causing problem 1. Messing around in that area searching for problems loosened the ground wire, causing problem 2. And the stalling/restarting from problem 2 most likely was too much for my original from 1994 starter to take any more.


The post is long, but I wanted to be somewhat detailed since I hadnt seen these problems chased down in that way. None of the repairs took me long, nor were very expensive, but they certainly can be frustrating when you are in a rush to get out and race before snow flies. 1 strand of wires, that visually looked ok, caused a good deal of annoyance before I pulled it all out and re-did everything.