Stumpy

Re beating with a hammer. 2 tow truck drivers and I have all tried that without success. Personally I am now convinced there was nothing wrong with my starter from word one. Let me clarify. I can get the starter to work if I simply disconnect the trigger wire at the junction located beside battery. If I jump the black purple lead that runs to the starter and the positive post of the battery the starter cranks fine and vehicle starts even hot when it won't start off the key. If I can't trace the problem I plan to wire a starter button from that point and simply use it in place of key to start. I am still trying to trace the fault where it appears to occur somewhere between the key and the junction just mentioned. I have tested this line when vehicle is at fail to start and there is no power feeding from inhibitor relay and that junction by the battery. I opened up steering console to look at ignition set up. There is no heat build up on these wires at all. When key is turned to start I get 12.7volts from hot red/white wire and the black/yellow wire feeding to the inhibitor relay. By the way this is a Canadian version of the wagon and does not have the Interlock(USA models) near the battery on the right side. Inhibitor relay is gray relay on left side by windshield washer reservoir. Black yellow feeds into that relay and black purple continues the circuit back to the the starter. Because this appears to definitely be heat related I am suspecting the fault is somewhere near the radiator although where exactly I am still trying to figure out.

Thanks for your input. I stripped out both pos and neg cables to check all connections, cleaned all contacts and re-installed both cables as they still look good. I have also just made certain both trigger wire and Pos cable are fully enclosed in the protective flex cover. There were a few places where the trigger wire was bulging outside the flex. This time I made sure the cable and trigger wire were both as far from engine heat sources as possible. Ran it for fifteen minutes and shut down. Started fine first try. Going to try a longer test run tomorrow and see if anything has changed. If no cure will start at ignition and work out to inhibitor relay. Stumpy

For a few years have had an intermittent starter problem. Usually started fine cold but after driving often needed several tries to get starter to engage. Recently drove for 20 minutes, Stopped went for a walk came back and truck refused to starter. Single click sound at starter. Finally called tow truck. Driver checked all contacts same as I had. Said try it again. I did. 3 tries and started fine. Seemed like bad starter so had starter rebuilt by reliable firm.Installed it. Started first try. left truck 2 days and went to start it. No go.Replaced all 3 relays on the drivers side engine compartment. Truck started and ran. Started well for about 3 days. Drove across town did some shopping. No start again. Checked all connections. Tried tapping starter. Nothing. Another tow truck. Replaced worn looking fusible links on positive cable. Started fine. Worked for a few days. Took it for a run. No start again. Seemed like a heat issue. Thought perhaps battery 3-4 yrs old. Put in new one 800 cc. Started first off. Ran it for about an hour. Shut it down. red lights on the dash but not even a click on the starter. Left it for 3 hours to cool down. Tried it. Went right away. Tried it 3 more times with brief runs. Started okay each time. Sounds like heat problem to me but what have I missed in relays etc that would fail under hot conditions. Any ideas?

Not an offroader but love my Pathfinder. Did my off roading a lot of years ago in Landrovers, jeeps and what have you back when that was the only way we got where we were going when we lived in the Outback.