i have a 95 formula and this car hasnt been started in two years. two years ago i had a bad freeze plug and i pulled the motor and put in a nitrous cam and crane 1.6 rockers. well about two weeks ago i started putting the motor back in. its 90% complete with just valve covers left to put on (they are off to do final adj on rockers). the shifter isnt in, yada yada. but it is ready to start. i got a new cheap battery until i get an optima. well it was dead so i hooked the jumper cables up and let it charge. i have power in the car all the lights work. even the headlights are bright and motor comes up fast. now when i turn the key and it chimes and you can hear the fuel pump, but the battery gauge does not move. if i just turn the key obviously it does nothing but then i push in the clutch and turn it you can hear the starter click once and that is it. i got the starter ground on and its a pain to get to but i think i got it pretty tight. i need help. i have to have this car drivable to school tomorow. there are some leftover connectors from the harness here and there but i think a lot of them are for smog stuff.(no pump) my brother hooked it all up and its not likely for him to forget much

 

i just called my brother and he said the ground for the battery is connected to the belhousing. he said he thought it may of went to the tranny before but he cant be for sure. isnt the belhousing aluminum. could this be a problem?

 

ok i moved the ground from the belhousing to the body and turned the key and this time it acted like the starter was going to turn over so i hooked up the jumper cables and went to start it and the ground sparked a bit then i lost all power. so about 15 mins went bye and all the sudden the interior lights came on so i moved the ground around a bit and this time as soon as the starter went to click over all power was lost and i cant even get the power to come back on now. someone please help me i cant do electrical

 

Is the pos connector to the battery "clean"?
I had recently had starting problems, while everything like interior lighting and radio worked, the car would click once and not even turn over. Come to find out that there was intense corrode build up on the inside of the positive battery cable connector. A few minutes with a stiff wire brush to get the metal inside the red rubber shiney again... the car starts right back up.

Just a thought...

 

yes it is clean. where is the ground wire supposed to be ground too.

 

40 people have looked at this yet only 1 person has suggestions. i need help. i cant do electrical. all it does is **** me off.

 

If you're talking about the ground wire that is buddled with the starter wires, it bolts onto the passenger side motor mount, the one with the stud. Hope this helps. Which I think it should since we just put a buddies car back together and had the same problem because I let someone else connect the starter wires and he left that ground LAYING on the headers. So of course, I had to get under there and get everything straightened out.


Btw, not to get off topic here, I have a buddy that is a freshman at Wyotech. His name is Andrew Beckner, maybe you know him. He's also from Kokomo, In. Just wanted to know how you like it so far, right now I'm a freshman at Ivytech for Automotive and I wish they had a way to test out of first year classes becuase I'm so far ahead of everybody else it's rediculous. Later

 

could i have blown a fuse or something when trying to start it. i guess i am going to have to just go over everything slowly. the small ground wire from the starter goes to a small stud above the y-pipe that is a pain to get to. the ground i am talking about is the actual neg battery terminal ground. is that what you are talking about.



is he at the blairsville campus. and also wyotech isnt set up like that. we dont have freshmen or anything. usually first class students are refered to as new-starts. what class is he taking. i am in collision now and will be going to refinishing in december. then it is off to chassis and motors which is the real reason im there.

 

Time the measure the voltage at the starter when you click it on... If it doesnt hold enough voltage you will need thicker power wires to feed it..

Some jumper cables do not have enough thickness and drop the voltage down. if in doubt triple wire the positive and negative...


Also measure voltage at the batterry under load... sounds like you just getting enough juice to the starter.


Marvin

 

everything works like its getting plenty of power. the one bad problem i have is i dont have a meter. the other problem is im not getting any power at all now.

 

There is no ground wire going to the starter. Two wires go to the starter-the positive cable and the purple wire to the small, outside post on the solenoid. A small ground wire goes to to a stud under the #6 plug. The battery ground cable goes on a stud on the RH motor mount bracket.

 

From another post you have, asking about Alt bolts, am I to assume that you do not have the Alt mounted? If that is so, the gauge does not function. There is the plug underneath the Alt, and a stud connector that a red wire with a 90 degree black boot connects to. Without htat wire connected, the interior battery gauge does not function. Also, if this red wire is in contact with any metal parts... you have basically created a direct short on the battery. Something things, like lights and chimes will work, but the car will be "dead".

There is also the point made about using a "cheap" battery. Not sure what that means, but there has to be enough cranking amps in the battery to get the car fired and running. A battery can be capable of making some things work but be totally inadequate for turning the car over. Can you borrow some else's battery for a few minutes and try it out to see what happens?

If you don't hear the "relays" over by the brake lines clicking when connecting and disconnecting the battery... there is no need to try cranking the car. There is a short in the car. If you hear the relays clicking, then you move on to the starter. If it's not turning the cranking the car, then you have to determine if the battery is good enough, if there is a short in the system or if the starter needs to be replaced. This can only be correctly done with a meter, or else play the "guessing game". If the car does crank but not fire... then we move on to the coil and opti.

My suggestion (just my humble suggestion) is to put a full amp battery in there and see if the car cranks... or if there are sparks and smoke from where the short is.

Good luck,
ron

 

Hey man,

I would check all of these things before even attempting to start the car:

Wiring: Is the negitive battery cable grounded to the RH motor mount?

Is there a ground strap from the LH side of the block to the LH frame-rail?

Does all the grounds look clean? Also might as well pull them and clean them to be safe.

I would also pull the starter and try to "bump" it over when grounding out the side and suppling it with power.

Get that alternator hooked up and in the car! Also, get the belt accesory belt on.

Also, replace that battery with a known working one, not to hard to do but eliminates that as a known problem.


As for my friend at Wyo Tech, no I don't know any classes that he's in. I just knew he was going.

 

the alt is hooked up but not mounted. i dont have a belt on it because its not mounted but i hooked it up so everything would start and i could adjust the rockers. thanks guys i will be going over the wiring again.

 

ok i went through all the wiring and thanks to all of you i got it to have power and turn over. but the thing still wont start. im getting fuel but i dont know about spark. i think i am getting spark though because when i ran the ground strap from the motor i ran it between plug wires, well when i tried to start it i noticed smoke so i looked and saw that the ground strap was touching a wire loom and buring it because of the other side touching the plug wire, does this sound logical. and is that ground strap important to the car running. will it run without it? until i mount it somewhere else.