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Grounds with fenders off

4504 Views 32 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  Coppertop, 
J
Hey everyone- I have the front clip off and have finished rewiring the front harmess... Since the fenders are off I grounded the neg battery to alternator bracket and them to radiator support where the lights are grounded...

My question is when I connected the battery the right turn signal turned on and stayed on....( key was off)..

Does the fact that I grounded it to the same ground as lights rather than fender caused this???


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Coppertop
Jeff,

Your making way too much work for yourself. :)

What you should/should have done was follow Hank's advice about tracing starter power.

Go under the car, touch the test light to the purple wire terminal on the starter. Have your wife start the car. When she's holding the key in the crank position, the light should come on. If it doesn't, it's time to trace power back and forget about dropping the starter.

Purple wire only gets power in crank, not "on" position. Power leaves the ignition switch, goes thru the neutral safety switch (or clutch switch if manual) then out thru firewall bulkhead connector to starter solenoid. Any break in the "chain" and no power--no start.
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Coppertop
Okay Jeff, time to follow that voltage loss.

Next step, Neutral safety switch. Purple with white stripe is power IN from ignition switch. Purple is OUT to starter solenoid. Check each wire with the transmission in PARK. See if each causes a test light to come on while you hold the key switch in the "crank" position.

Report back and we can go from there. :beers:
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Coppertop
jbrockman said:
I'm sorry for the confusion... No power at solenoid... No power at neutral switch but power at ignition...
Click to expand...
So you don't even get a test lamp to light on one side of the neutral safety switch? You should get the purple with white stripe wire light a lamp in in crank position.

Here's how it works. When you hold the key switch all the way forward to start the car, the ignition switch shorts the incoming power--12 ga. red wire to the outgoing purple with white stripe wire. The purple/white connects to one side of the set of contacts on the neutral safety switch at the lower top of the column by the firewall. If the switch is good and adjusted properly, that power is then sent to the solid purple wire. ----Assuming the transmission is in Park or Neutal. The solid purple wire is then fed thru the bulkhead connector where it mates up with the engine harness solid purple that connects at the "s" terminal on the solenoid.

Usually people have issues with the Neutral safety switch out of adjustment. Yes, the switch can go bad. But you need to verify you at least have 12 volts heading into the neutral saftety switch, otherwise that indicates a problem with the ignition switch.
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Coppertop
No worries Jeff...sorry, on the wire colors, I keep forgetting you have an update harness so you wouldn't have the purple with white stripe.

You need to try to adjust your neutral safety switch. It is most likely out of adjustment. You can adjust it side to side on its mounting so its lever is in the correct position--this is for column mount automatics.

To prove the switch has the issue you can always do this:

Make sure for safety sake the car's transmission is physically in the 'park' position.

Unplug the purple wires. Make a test jumper wire and short the purples together. The car should start when you try the key.

Just do this as a quick test. Don't leave it like that as there is a reason it is called a "neutral SAFETY switch" so the car can't be started in gear.
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Coppertop
Jeff,

It more safety then anything. I've been assuming this whole time you have a column shift automatic, correct?

Just turn the key "ON" so it unlocks the column, then shift through the whole range of gears and then shift it back into park. That's all I'm saying. Moderator Dean's son's friend was killed when the vehicle he was working on was left in gear and he shorted the starter to activate it and the vehicle rolled over him and killed him. :(

Anyhow, the thing to try is short the purple's together and see if the car starts.
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Coppertop
Jeff,

Glad you got it resolved. Thank you for the update as well. I know you were probably getting quite frustrated at times, but the key is to simply work out a plan to "divide and conquer" when dealing with circuits. You did and it is now fixed.

:beers:
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