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95 XE Standard - No Juice getting to the starter relay.


Paulmall
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I'm stumped, the battery is good, the ignition switch is good, I tried jumping the clutch switch and it won't start. It's been giving me trouble all year, not wanting to crank every time but usually would start right up after I couple of tries. Well this last time whatever it was that was dying went ahead and have up the ghost. I turn the key and the pump, radio, lights come on but try to turn it and nothing. The starter relay doesn't even click. I got a volt meter and tested for juice at the starter while my wife turned the key and nothing. I tried for juice where the relay goes again with wife on key detail and nothing, but there was ground continuity where there was supposed to be when she pushed the clutch in so its not the CSS. I don't get it, all the wires seem to be in decent shape. This truck did come with a security system that never worked, would it have a starter kill switch that could be giving me problems? What else should I check?

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Check battery terminal connections- are they good and tight? You might want to also try testing the voltage. It's gotta have at the minimum 11 volts to start the engine. At rest, batteries should have a voltage from 12 - 12.7 volts.

Secondly, check the wires going to the back of the alternator. Is it secured and tight? Try pulling at the wire to see if it's loose.

Third, check the fuses under the dash next to the driver's seat. Nothing blown there? Ok good.

Try taking off the battery terminals and clean everything with a wire brush until it's shined up with no corrosion. Take the negative cable off first, then the positive cable to ensure no sparks. Reinstall positive, then negative. Tighten clamps.

To me it sounds like the battery might be on it's way out. You said it would start after a couple of tries. That is symptomatic of a failing battery. If it's manual have you tried push starting?

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Sorry I should of mentioned this. All in cab fuses are good, the cig lighter 15amp fuse was blown but i replaced it and still no luck. I have cleaned the battery posts and everything is OK on the alternator. At rest the battery is reading 11 point something, probably due to it not running for a few days and all the failed starting attempts. Even when I tried start with a jump from an angry rev'd up v8 still nothing.

No current is making it to the starter relay, I pulled the relay and tested it, even with a low battery it should still read something when the key is turned right?

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Correct. Ok, please check your ground wiring for the starter. Even remove the bolt to the chassis, wire brush the metal until it's clean then reinstall the ground connection. The connection to the starter is good too?

Also, if you can push start it, check the voltage of the battery with the engine running. It should be somewhere from 13.8 - 14.5 volts. If it's around 12.5 or less then alternator isn't charging the battery but you said the alternator was ok.

Wouldn't hurt just to double check it. Also, do your headlights work but nothing else? If that's the case then check the wiring near positive terminal on the battery, check the fusible link isn't busted.

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Everything works but the starter. I'm going to do everything you said in the morning and I'll update. I currently have the starter pulled. Was there a ground wire going to it or just + wire and the ignition wire? I thought it just got its ground from where it boots to the engine

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My bet is that the starter contact in the ignition switch has given up. It makes sense with how the problem started (contacts getting slowly grungier and more pitted until finally they don't work). If you've verified that there's no power from the ignition switch at the relay, then there's no point fooling around with the charging system or the starter itself.

Remove the clamshell over the column (make sure you get all the screws, also the tilt function is your friend) and locate the solder terminals on the ignition switch. Find the one going to a black wire with a yellow tracer. Check from that terminal to ground with a meter while you're trying to start it. If you get no power, your ignition switch is bad. If you get power, check the alarm next. It's under the driver's seat on the trans tunnel side. There's one big long connector on it but there should also be a small connector with two black wires with yellow tracers. Mine even had "starter" printed on the insulation. Jumper those two (I used a paper clip in the plug) and you've bypassed the security system. (My '95 didn't have a starter kill hooked up, but I suspect the PO may have bypassed it already.)

If the ignition switch tests bad, you could try hotwiring it. Again, it's the black/yellow wire.

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The alarm box under the driver seat only had one wire cluster plugging into to. I unplugged it, turned the key and it was great to hear my starter work again. Unfortunately though it just cranked and didn't start. The battery sounded pretty drained so hopefully that's all it is. I have it charging now, will report back later.

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Well this sucks. Plugging the box in gives me no start, unplugging it gives me no spark. So I plugged it in then ran a hot wire to the starter solenoid and after a few seconds of cranking it started.

 

I let it run for a little bit and soon it started spitting white smoke and a pool of water out of the exhaust. Ice recently changed one head gasket and I didn't think the other was that bad, willing to write it off to it sitting for a while and its cold out. Except when I went to give it some gas, it died and will start no more. This sucks, I don't want to lose my pathy :/

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It started, ran, started making white smoke as it warmed up, then quit and wouldn't restart. That's not how flooded works.

 

Check the rad to see if it's obviously lost coolant, check the oil to see if there's coolant there. If you have a compression tester, you might get some idea of which cylinder(s) are acting up. It does sound like a head gasket (or lower intake gasket) failure... there's not much else that blows white smoke from a warmed-up system. You will get some steam/water just from condensation on a cold start, but that's supposed to taper off as the system heats up, not get worse.

It does seem odd that the alarm and the head gasket would act up at the same time, but I can't think of much else it could be, given the symptoms. If you don't find a smoking gun in the cooling system, you might try running the codes on the off chance there's something helpful there.

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Side note: there's a small flat ground wire that's attached to the frame under the hood with nothing attached to the other end, it just has a circle connection on it like it was meant to go through a bolt. Anyways I accidentally let that touch the engine while it was running and thought I heard something spark. It died soon after.

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On my old Pathfinder there where one or two of the flat braided copper ground wires that were originally hooked to the heat sheilds. It ran great with out them. I did hook them up again though.

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Update. Timing belt is broke. But at least she was nice enough to do it while idling, at home, in the garage, while I was working on it. Could of been worse.

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