The Camaro Club (UK)

So i started the car last week. Yesterday, tested all the lights, everything works as it's supposed to. I start the car it cranks once and everything dies. WTF.

I check the fueses, evertyhing intact (tested with an ohmeter too).

I'm not testing for continuity and everything has continuity to ground. What actual f. I've disconnected all of the dash now. I've disconnected the rear fog light and fuel pump.

I found that the grey wire that goes to the dash has continuity to ground. i disconnected it from the fuse box (2 pink wires) now everything from the fusebox on (i.e. to the dash) is all ok. So it seems that something at the fusebox or nearby is grounded. It's a new wiring loom. What the f*ck am i supposed to do. I have not idea what to look for. I'm pretty sure that there shouldn't be continuity across every fuse terminal right? It should not read anything when one end of the voltmeter is on a ground and the other end on a fuse box, right? i have no idea what's going on or if i'm even testing right. Any help on what i am supposed to look out for? I wasted my entire day and have does nothing but try and chance this f*cking ground short, so i'm really pissed

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Right, i've just disconnected the negative side from the battery. I checked for continuity between the +12v terminal and a chasis ground. And there is continuity. Wtf. That should not be, right? Or am i on the wrong track here. Far as i know, there should be no continuity between +12v and chasis, if the negative side of the battery is disconnected?

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Just showed your post to my hubby - he likes electrics .

He says:

Try disconnecting all the wires from the starter solenoid and insulate to prevent any shorts then retest the checks you gave already done.

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1988 Pontiac Fiero (my toy)
2009 Dodge Challenger SRT8 (hubby's toy!)
2012 Kia Cee'd (daily driver)

http://www.solent-renegades.co.uk

Thanks for the quick reply and advice!

I will give that a shot next. I have to go to a friends engagement party now but i'll try and leave early and pull a late one in the garage. I think you're right about the starter wiring, that could make sense as it's directly connected to the battery at all times. I did have to remove the starter to get the headers in (about 2 years ago) so maybe i didn't do a good job at looking after the wiring. Below is what i wrote earlier but didn't have a chance to post (but i'm hoping it's a starter issue as you've pointed out) :

Ok, i've looked through the schematic again and by removing the pink wire i have effectively removed the circuits that are from the firewall back. It looks like the only other place that the pink wire goes, is into the distributor. So, i can check to see if this has moved / disconnected (has to have moved into something, if it's grounding). May explain why it turned the engine for a half second then everything died out. I do have headlights, rear lights, but no gauge power (which comes from the pink wire, even though earlier i checked the fuse and put a new one in, still no power to the gauges.) I can't check for a while as i'm going to a friend engagement party, i'll try and leave early #dedication.

Some food for thought... Whilst everything was working (if ain't broke don't try and fix it) i did have a couple of thing to sort out. 1) the fog light relay was not working, so i bought a new one this morning from maplin and switched them over. Tested it and it works now. Also got a new relay for the fuel pump, as they sit next to eachother and were the same type, so thought i may as well swap both as i they were on the car when i got it, so no idea how long they have been around for. But tested both and they worked (before i started the car).

I also rearranged the gauge cluster yesterday. I have a custom cluster with autometer gauges but i had the speedo and the tacho on different sides to how other cars are, so i thought to help with confusion, i'll switch them over to so that the speed is on the left. I did this carefully to make sure all the wires stayed in the same connectors. Not too had actually... 1x power for lamp, 1x power for power, 1x ground, 1x signal wire. It's the same layout on the back of each gauge but checked anyways and they're definitely plugged in correctly. I also swapped over the location of the oil and fuel gauge for the same reason. Now, interestingly, the fuel gauge worked before, but after i switched everything over and put it to run (not starting it yet) the gauge went to fully full (even though there's 1/5th of a tank of fuel). I thought perhaps because i had moved stuff around, it would reset once the car starts. So not sure what happened there, why it showed full. Probably because of the ground in the 12v (that i didn't know about yet), it saw no resistance, instead of the 90ohms it needed? I also ran a new wire for the oil gauge as the factory one never gave me a signal. So there's a single wire that i ran myself, straight from the autometer sensor through the firewall via a grommet and into the gauge. I disconnected this wire thinking that may be causing the ground, but still had a ground. I also moved the running light from the running light housing, into the running light in the main headlamp. I checked visually and couldn't see any places where a wire could be grounding. The lights all work fine.

So the above paragraph shows that changes that happened. Maybe they are all just coincidental. It just seems strange that all was good, then suddenly it's dead. The battery is fine, it's brand new and when you turn the headlights on they are nice and bright. Seems i have lost power to the gauge cluster and starter. The interior lights work. The trunk light even works when opened.

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"It cranked once and everything dies"? Can you illuminate on this? What exactly died and what do you mean by died? And is everything still dead now or will it crank? Will the lights work? Does anything work? What was working before you cranked it that isn't now? When you turn the key is there any noise at all?

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1997 30th Anniversary SS SLP
1993 GMC Typhoon

It turned into a bit of a late night so i'm just about to go an check the starter wiring.
Ye so what happened was, when i cranked it, it did what sounded like half a revolution, then it stopped, along with the electric fuel pump (which gets its signal from the ignition loom, coming out of the spade connector on the fusebox). As i only had the negative battery terminal pushed on, i thought it had come loose so i checked but it was still on there. I pulled it off, had a quick look and smell for any burning / smoke, then reattached the terminal. I turned the key to ignition and the gauge cluster wouldn't come on (autometer gauges - speedo has a digital trip computer and normally the lcd lights up green so you know it's powered on), but it didn't this time. The fuel pump didn't come on, neither did the fog light (which runs off of the same spade connector as the pump... they are only signal wires to a relay, there is no actual draw...i ran an heavy 4 gauge amp wire to the boot, but decided on not having a stereo, so instead used that power cable to send current to the fog light and pump.. disconnected this cable after this happened but no difference). After it died, when i opened the door the courtesy lights didn't come on, which is what made me think it completely died (likely due to the negative battery wire terminal jumping off).

After disconnecting and reconnecting the battery, i was able to use the headlights and the courtesy lights came on. Even the light in the boot. When turning on the headlights, the gauge lights normally come on, and did before, but they didn't after the cranking incident and still don't. The fuel pump and rear fog light also don't come on anymore.

Last week i cranked it and it started, the gauges worked (apart from the oil pressure one, as the signal wire i forgot was disconnected). All the lights worked, courtesy lights, rear fog light, fuel pump. The only thing working now is the headlights, rear lights, indicators and the courtesy lights (but not the gauge lights). The biggest worry for me is that the +12v pink wire that goes to the volt meter has continuity to ground (with negative battery disconnected). I'm about go and check the starter wiring now... will let you know how it goes...

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Ok quick update - i located the BATT wire going into the distributor and it has a connection to ground. On my voltmeter you can choose the option to show resistance or to have beep sound as well... it beeps on initial contact and then the numbers fluctuate.Going to try and get under it now to see the starter wiring...

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Sounds like a ground problem to me, have you checked the ground wire between the block and chassis/battery? If the live between the battery and your starter motor is all good the missing bit of the puzzle preventing cranking can only be the small live feed from your ignition to the solenoid on your starter which is easily checked with a voltmeter or the main ground wire between the battery/chassis and engine block isn't good, it could be last time when you got it started the connection was just good enough but this time it tried to draw the current from the minor wiring as the main cable had arced or wasn't quite tight enough which killed everything else. You only need main earth, main live and solenoid live to crank it over so if all three of those are good then your starter is fubar. I'm not trying to teach you how to suck eggs as I have no idea of how competent you are with electrics but I spent a year a working with diesel plant equipment and the starter circuit is a pretty simple thing when you break it down, can you run a decent sized jump lead from the neg of the battery to the engine block which would eliminate the earth problem and try cranking it? If that doesn't work it's the ign feed to the solenoid or the main live feed

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1997 30th Anniversary SS SLP
1993 GMC Typhoon

Thanks for the advice, that is making sense. I'm semi ok with electronics, my dad was / is an electrician so i learnt bits over the years from stuff being laid out on the dining table lol. I found that all 3 wires to the starter have ground but no obvious contact point where a terminal could be touching another via a wire. I did find a disconnected plug with 3 thick wires. I started pullin this out of the plastic loom thing. Got about half way and found a chopped red wire, which hangs around by the chasis to engine ground cble. Pic below. After making sure this wasnt touhing, i tested for continuity at the dizzy batt and no connection. So, may have found the culprit. Going to keep pulling out this loom, then trace the red wire back to its origin and see if that makes the difference...
http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/q75 ... uftxia.jpg

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Ok, so my dad came around to help out as i was just at a loss and half of the car was unplugged. He pointed out that there will always be a level of continuity between + and - and made the example that if you plug in a filament bulb, you will have a continuous circuit showing, even without power connected. Good point.

Pulled all of the engine side wiring related to the starter, alternator etc. It's a bit of a mess, someone (likely when they put the engine in) didn't do too good a job of the wiring and there's wires running back and over themselves. We put it together enough to make sure all contact points were there and gave it a quick crank and it worked. Cranked again a few seconds later and it worked again. I'm now working my way back through all of the dash wiring to clean it up and make sure everything is ok, not crossing over etc. Lights work, dash lights work, gauges work too. It seems that the red wire which was connected to the starter and alternator in the earlier pic had touched the engine ground strap as they were right ontop of eachother. I probably knocked it closer over the last week when doing various bits on the car, just close enough so that all it took was a slight bit of movement from cranking to get them to touch. So in a way, good thing that it came about now as it was something waiting to happen at a more inconvenient time. Fuel gauge showing full was a coincidence, it had become slightly disconnected at the rear loom when i was working on the fog lights and fuel pump wiring. I tested it with an ohmeter and it was showing no resistance, so worked my way back through the wires until i found it was the last connection.

Need to plug in the fog light and fuel pump wiring now. Then going to have a bit of a clean up. During the week i will rewire the starter / alternator / dizzy wiring to that there are no weird connections and loads of extra wire going everywhere.

So basically, got absolutely no progress this weekend on actually finishing the car. Next on the list it's weatherstipping and rubber panel bumper thingies so that i can align the glass and doors correctly.

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