[V8] starter fail

[Jason Wilkerson]

If any of this has been mentioned then I apologise - if not here you go.

DISCLAIMER - If you don't know what you are doing then don't do it - I WILL NOT be responsible if you burn your car to the ground or kill yourself.

1. If you hear a loud click from under the hood when you turn the key to 'start', then check if you are getting power to the main wire to your starter (big wire attached to solenoid) if you are getting power then you either need a new solenoid (bad contacts) or the starter motor itself is bad.  If you aren't getting power then you must check this wire and ground wires all the way back to the battery.  (NOTE: Sometimes - just sometimes - these wires can go bad and still show voltage when not under a load - meaning that when you stick a meter on it it will show that you are getting voltage, but when you go to crank it, it will drop to zero - you can check this voltage while having someone hold the key in start to see for sure if it is bad.)  

2. If you don't hear the click mentioned in #1 then you must check the signal from key switch to solenoid - easy check - disconnect signal wire (there is only one small wire going to solenoid) connect one lead of multimeter to that wire and the other lead to ground, have an assistant try to 'crank' the car with the key.  It won't crank, of course, but you should see voltage on the multimeter.  If you don't see voltage then it could be a few things.  You will probably need to look at some wiring diagrams, but off the top of my head I will mention a few.  

 a. Key switch - hard to get to but easy to check, if you take the drivers knee bolster off, you can lay on your back with your legs hanging out of the door and look up to find the back of the key switch.  if you pull the plug off the back of the switch you can decifer which wire goes to the starter signal (I think it is black with yellow stripe?) Anyway you can connect that wire to battery + and see if it trys to start, if it does then you have a bad key switch.  If it doesn't then look below.
 b. Interlock mechanism - there are some interlock features - I think the main one is in the shifter (automatic) it must be in either drive or neutral.  I know the switch can get out of adjustment or break.  You will have to try to figure this out for yourself - to complex to do in an e-mail but not hard to figure out from a wiring diagram.
 c. Starter signal wire - this one is pretty self explanitory - if the wire is bad - fix it. 


Hope all this helps.  Jason