I have been having major electrical problems.....I have been battling this for the past week, ever since I found two wires that were broken under the front of the car. I reattached them in hopes that my headlight retractor would work on the passenger, reconnecting these broken wires only caused greif.

My main issue is...... yesterday when I was trying to figure this all out, I finally got things to a point where I had everything working, but then it would not start. The starter would not engage at all. turn the key and nothing, with or without a battery charger on there.... sooo I when and put the charger on "start" and boy did it ever.... It finally turned over, and would not stop doing so.... even when I pulled the key out of the ingition... the positve wire on the battery was smoking, I didnt have to tools to remove a battery terminal to stop the starter so I had to run around like mad to get the tools, then get a terminal off. Not a good time... once I did, I said f*%! it and went out to get drunk. Week after week its something with this car. I cannot just drive it.

Why did the starter do this? I don't get it, where do I start with all this, there are connectors hacked off by the previous owner (in the dash area) cut off wires, extra wires. HELP SOMEONE PLEASE.

 

Ouch- that sucks

If you don't have a complete copy of the wiring diagram for your car I'd start there.
Go through the major systems one at a time and make sure everything is working out right. I hate it when stupid people make modifications and then you're stuck figuring out what they did.

Either the control wire to the starter could have a problem with it, or the relay could be stuck. You might want to pull the control wire (from the back of the starter) then hook the battery back up to see if the starter is still trying to run- that'll tell you if it's the relay or the control.
Be careful when putting those battery leads back on-- if the starter still wants to run you could get quite a spark!

Having a little voltage-present indicator like the screwdriver-shaped voltage probes can be essential in figuring out a lot of these problems, so if you don't have one you might want one of those too.

One last note- When figuring out electrical problems in cars I always find it easiest to start with the gizmo that isn't getting power, and then work back from there with the voltage probe until I find a place that has power. (Though a lot of times I'll check the fuse box before tracing wires )

Good luck!
~enigma32~

 

I just put the negative cable back on, and the starter is no longer turning.... battery could be dead I guess......

 

Well further investigations reveal that..... when I click the key forward to start the car, there is power getting to the starter from the signal wire or whatever you want to call it, but the power does not remain on, it just gives power the the starter when you try to start the car, but the starter keeps spinning after you take return the key to the off position, that leads me to believe that its the starter selinoid or something like that... anyone got any ideas??

 

yeah, this happend to me last year. Your starter selinoid is sticking, you need a new one.

 

I just put in a different starter, and you were right, selinoid is fubar. the other starter seems to work fine tho. Thanks for the help