Weston
06-18-2006, 04:52 AM
I put my car all back together after doing the clutch, went to start it, and the starter just went *click*... I've had this happen before and knew what was up; it seems to be a position issue with the starter and it has always worked after I just pull it out and put it back in. But I had already installed the upper charge-pipe and everything, so I decided to just try it a few more times, and try to turn the crank a little by rolling the car and putting it in gear. It did the click thing the first few attempts, and then the car suddenly lost all power. Thinking that the negative battery cable came loose or something, I went to look at it, but discovered that it was smoking. I quickly grabbed some pliers out of the car and went to disconnect it, but the smoke was already much worse and the insulation was melting pretty badly, so I took out my big swiss army knife and cut it, burning my finger in the process. This is the aftermath...
http://turbols.net/pics/MeltedGround.jpg
I yanked the starter and went to AutoZone and had it tested... it turned out to be fine, so I bought a new negative battery cable and tried it again... it works great now and the car fired right up. I figure what happened was that on the last unsuccessful attempt, the relay in the starter somehow stuck, so the starter motor and stuff was getting power, even though it was jambed/blocked and unable to function. So, it wasn't quite shorting to ground, but was still drawing enough current to overload the battery's ground wire, since a jambed motor draws a lot more current than a spinning one.
http://turbols.net/pics/MeltedGround.jpg
I yanked the starter and went to AutoZone and had it tested... it turned out to be fine, so I bought a new negative battery cable and tried it again... it works great now and the car fired right up. I figure what happened was that on the last unsuccessful attempt, the relay in the starter somehow stuck, so the starter motor and stuff was getting power, even though it was jambed/blocked and unable to function. So, it wasn't quite shorting to ground, but was still drawing enough current to overload the battery's ground wire, since a jambed motor draws a lot more current than a spinning one.