Odd starting problem

Thanks KilnRed for the tip! I think I might put tape on them to hold them in place to preserve the order.....before I start removing......that would be a pain wouldn't it!!

Will let you know how it all goes, the parts are coming in this week or maybe 1st part of next. I will report back in a couple of weeks.

I miss driving my Carcharodon carcharias
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Great_white_shark_south_africa.jpg

Michael,

I think your problem is the ground strap... Those things corrode on the inside of the plastic wrap around them and it is completely invisible unless you cut one apart... I'd certainly START with that! Has to be the cheapest easiest thing in the world to change out! Ok, maybe not the cheapest but I KNOW it is the easiest because it is something that I can actually do!

I'd say Ken's problem is likely an ignition switch issue...but not yours.

Thanks for that as well. That will certainly be first on the list then - stay tuned.....I don't think mine is coated at all though so I will check the whole thing and clean the termination connection as well.

Well so far - no good... But it is not all bad, maybe.

So far - a fun thing happened....after sitting in the sun for a day at my friend/mechanics house, I just decided to try the Sun roof.....worked like it had never had a bad day in its life!!!! What's up with that? Funny huh. I did not close it so he could take a look inside first. It still had some grease on the rails. I was thinking the paint job or something was not letting it move until the heat got to it....oh well, more on that later.

replaced the ignition switch - problem persisted
replaced the starter - now it is worse....we can hear the piston slingin back into the new starter but no turning at all.
I suspect as James had mentioned, an electrical/ground issue.
We were going to replace the battery and starter/alternator cables anyway, so that is on the plate now. Also, we had pulled the POD and tried this out so I don't feel like that was probably a good way to test it with all those wires hanging around.
Anyway I spray painted the black portion of the gauge cluster and added some aluminum rings from Jaeger around each gauge...looks pretty sharp. I will post a pic of that soon.

It is not convenient to my house, about 40+ miles away, so my friend is working on it alone this week. More news when I get it. He has the fine write up from Wally P on starting issues and a good multi-meter, so I feel confident he can sniff it out in a couple of days.

Oh yeah - I was going to mount a plastic dash cover from Coverlay...did not fit, almost a 2 inch gap in the middle....if they won't take it back I might try to adjust it....or resell to someone with the dash already out. Not sure if we are going to try and remove the dash or not, at least not right now. will research alternatives, maybe try a simple patch kit to hold me over.

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Good luck Mike and let us know how it turns out. Cheers

Ok so long story short - I am back on the road and it is running the best it ever has.
Problems found (- James - you were close, but in the wrong place). The ground on the drivers side under the Pod was bad. Plus we found that there was a loose or all the way off wire in the console. I had not noticed that I saw NO lights when I turned they key (did not know any better since I had never seen them) HA. Now it lights up like a Christmas tree...very cool.

One side note, now that my lights work, I had a Brake PR and flashing exclamation point! So I disconnected/reconnected the battery ground to clear it and voila! NO START!!!! Yep.....I was BUMMED as I had not had the car for about 2-3 weeks. Luckily my son-in-law was over and he offered to get his jack. We got under the car and traced all the new replaced wiring to a point from the new starter to the alternator. It was real dirty and gummed up so we decided to clean it up using vairous small instruments and some De-Oxit spray. We did not take them off....couldn't tell well how to do it.
ANYWAY - varoommmmm started right up. So there is another good lesson. I think I need to go ahead and change oil again and have the oil pan dropped and put a new silicone gasket on and some blue Threadlocker as well. The current drips add to the muck around this connection.
Oh yeah - the Brake PR cleared and has not returned. Probably was from a long time ago that I could not see because of the dash light issue.

SO here is what we did:
- Upgraded to 1/0 Ultra-flex battery cable from battery to the starter
- Installed a new Optima Yellow top deep cycle battery
- Installed a new ignition switch
- Installed a new starter (alternator is already new, a Bosch 90)
- Replaced engine ground strap
- Cleaned 4 ground points, 3 in front and the one on the rear passenger side
- While the Pod was off I installed the aluminum rings around the gauges from Jaeger....awesome upgrade!...but a pain of course.
- Fixed the loose wiring in the POD (original gas gauge now works perfectly!)
- I wanted to replace the wire from the starter to the Alt w 4 gauge, but my guy did not have the time to do it this time. Will do that later at my leisure.
- Install new spark plug wires
- Replaced steering wheel with a new Momo - looks real nice

I probably did not need either the starter or ignition switch or both, but they were not that much and now I know what is new and what is not, starting at about 100,000 miles. I have a nice electrical system at the source. meter reads 12.6 and the battery and 12.6 at the starter. And the Dash seems to functioning like new.

Will post some pics of the dash and steering wheel upgrade pretty soon....busy weekend. I did very little of the above, my friend/mechanic did it, let's just say I am the foreman....

regards,
MM