I need to know how to clean the grounds at the igntion switch. I have the steering wheel and steering column cover off. I just need to know which ones to clean.

 

The ignition ground is in the engine bay. My car had a bad ignition ground and it wouldnt get any spark. There is a clip under the trailing coil between the strut tower and firewall, take a wire wheel to the clip which is like a bronze piece bolted down with a 10mm bolt. Thats the only ignition ground I know of.

 

is there a ignition positive that needs to be cleaned. my car is runing after the key is out of the ignition. and I heard that it chould be the positive and negitive wires but they never talked about cleaning them.

 

THERE IS NO "IGNITION" GROUND! Not at the switch or in the engine bay. Where do you guys get this info? Why would they be a ground at the ignition switch? Power passes through it out to the car's systems. The ignition coils are grounded to the chassis through the ignitor bodies being bolted to it. The ground point under the trailing coil has nothing to do with the ignition system.

 

The ground under the trailing coil does to matter. If its bad, it wont ground the coils and your car will not get any spark. It will turn over, but it will not start. I know this for a fact because my car had a bad ignition ground. I read the FSM. KTHXBYE

 

That's BS.

The coils ground through the ignitor bodies.

There is no "ground" under the trailing coil unless you are talking about the big grounding plug that attaches to the shock tower. Off hand I don't remember all the circuits that ground through that plug but the ECU is not one of them. There are two capacitors in they are both just filters.

 

Thats what I am talking about^

 

The ignitors/coils are grounded thru their base. Unbolt the coil assy and place it on a rag there will be NO spark.

That said, the ignitor/coils are grounded thru the chassis as described above. The chassis is grounded to the batt negative cable at the strut tower and the engine is grounded to the batt negative cable at the negative cables far end (at the starters long bolt in most cases).

So make what you will out of that. The coils/ignitors get their gnd from the chassis where they are bolted down.. IF that negative batt cable isn't bolted to the chassis below the strut tower......that isn't good.

But I'd bet my car would start anyway because of the numerous other places the engine mates with the chassis like the bonding straps b/t the enging and the place next to the wipers and a couple of other places similar to that.

How's that for a wishy washy response???

 

so if i clean the base of the coils then the engine should stop dieseling when I take the key out of the ignition right? Because that is what mine is doing so I thought it chould be the electerical connections. and this should also I am hopng that this will also stop my battery from being drained.

 

No. Not really. I can install the coil assy with just one nut and that nut only finger tight and the engine will run.

I've never seen a RX-7 diesel. That does not mean one won't diesel.

OR, does the engine just keep running after the key is turned off? That would be unlike dieseling which is more or less a chugging type of running of the engine.

Turning the key to OFF and extracting the key and the engine keeps running sounds more like some sort of backfeeding of the ignition system. An example is having the two wires on the back of the alternator crossed. Little hard to do but can happen under unusual situations.

Series four or five? Series five alt in a series four?????

And our favorite question on the RX Forum *have yuh done did any Radio werk on the car lately?*.

 

my car is a 1988 se with no mods done to it what so ever it has 98,000 miles and has the stock raido in it. and when i take the key out it runs fine for maybe 2 seconds and then sputters and then turns off. and it still has the stock alternator and starter so chould it be the sterter soloenid that is draining the battery?.

 

the sterter soloenid that is draining the battery?.......................................... ..........

Possible I suppose. Not likely imho. Been wrong before.

Try this. With a fully charged battery, at the end of your day, pull the small plug off the back of the alternator.

Get up the next morning and see if the things still being drained or not. Not being drained? Alternator problem.

 

It's odd. You have a batt draining problem to go along with the engine running after the key is out. Could be a ignition switch problem too.. That's make some sense.

How long does it take for the batt to go south? Overnight? Or????

When you turn the key off and pull it out, do the Warning Lights come on. Probably not, just asking.

 

it takes the battery maybe an hour or so to fully drain. and the warning lights dont come on.

 

Actually that ground point is used for the Main Relay (as well as many other systems), so if that relay doesn't close then the entire EFI system doesn't get power. It's unusual for it to get that bad as very little current is required to close the relay, but that's probably why your car had problems. So saying that ground has nothing to do with the ignition system wasn't 100% correct, but it's not grounding the coils, and it's not the "ignition system ground". Look at page 50-120 in the wiring diagrams, the connector in question is JC-01, which is for ground points 2-7.

 

Almost sorry I asked. That's darn fast for the battery to go flat, IF the battery is a good battery.

Not to drag things out, but have you ever tried to charge the battery up good then at the end of the day remove one of the battery terminals? Then put the terminal back on hours later to see if the battery is still good or has gone bad on it's own? At least if you did that you'd find out if it's the battery or something car related.

Oh, and as an side note, I went out and undid the ground at the bottom of the left strut tower and the car started just fine. It only took five minutes to undo a 10mm bolt to disconnect it and start the car.

Coil assy's are grounded thru their base mating with the chassis.

 

the batery in the car is A new battery only a couple weeks in the car. and to get the car running i have to jump start it with my 240sx and when I jump start it it runs just fine. no warning lights or buzzers. I dont drive it right now because it is winter and it is my summer car and I want it to stay rust free. so im going to jump it and charge the battery and then pull the plug on the back of the alt to see if its that.

 

Just in case...............don't actually drive or run the engine with the small plug off. It's harmful to the alternator. Just remove it overnight then put it back on to see if that gives us a clue about what is wrong.

There is a single black wire that runs downward from the Engine bay fuse box. That black wire connects to another black wire about three to six inches below the engine fuse box.

That wire feeds the ignition switch. So. If you should disconnect that wire below the engine fuse box, you eliminate power to the ignition switch. You might try leaving that wire disconnected overnight and see what happens in the morning. By the way, the starter won't work if you leave it disconnected, so be sure to reconnect it in the morning.