Starter issue

[kzaske]

Well guys, I have a head scratcher for you. About a week ago I went out to start my poor little Baja. It made a clicking noise. Oh great, the starter. About a week later (the day after payday) I removed the starter then went and purchased a rebuilt starter, had it tested and was assured it was working fine. I did not have the old starter tested because it was from 2003 and I figured it was about time it should give me trouble.

I installed the new starter and tried to start the car. Clickly click. Nothing. I then got out my multi-meter and started testing following the wiring diagram. Everything other than the ignition computer tested fine.

I have noted that the dash lights that should go out when the starter is engaged no longer go out. That had never happened before now. The starter motor of the new starter worked fine when tested, now it does not activate. Any ideas would be helpful.

[20Baja06]

How’s the battery? Age? Voltage with key off vs. voltage while trying to start?

[kzaske]

The battery is a few months old, purchassed in January 2024. The terminal to terminal voltage is 13.7 with everything turned off.

[20Baja06]

Disconnect the connector to the spade terminal. With the car and ignition switch off, transmission in park or neutral, securely connect one end of a spare bit of wire to the spade terminal.

When ready, take the opposite side of the spare wire and contact the positive battery terminal. This will test the starter in the car. If it spins, you can start looking at the rest of the circuit. If not, double check your connections at the starter and your battery ground cables.

IMG_3451.png (29.94 KiB) Viewed 432 times

[kzaske]

Everything tested out as working properly. I ended up taking it to a shop. They had it fixed in less than an hour. It turned out that the power cable from the positive battery terminal was too high in resistance. The positive batter terminal was cleaned, the cable was reattached and the car started just fine.
The cable conducted power just fine, but the resistance was high enough that not enough power was getting to the starter. A 200 dollar lesson.

[20Baja06]

Thanks for following up and posting what was done to resolve the issue!