HELP! Electrical problem!
 

Literally i just have to fill my coolant and hook up my battery and start it, however when I hook the positive then negative onto my battery, it just sparks and does nothing! The negative even semi welded itself to the terminal! I haven't done anything weird of different to the wiring, and ive never had this problem before. I hooked up my starter and the ground from the trans to the firewall. I dont know what could be happening

Wired your starter wrong or have the batt cables crossed at the battery.

Sounds like you have a massive short, crossed wires, or the terminals are backwards on the battery.

I just realized that my ECU isnt plugged in, could that effect it? And I tried the battery cables both ways, same thing happened. There's only one way to put the starter on, right?

As far as the starter is concerned, HAILERS is pointing you towards the "wiring of the starter," and not the mounting of it. And don't switch battey cables back and forth as you'll end up creating more havoc regarding your electrical circuits.

have you recently changed the starter .you might have the wires reversed on the starter or the positve wire is jammed under a motor mount,or rubbing on a ground ..causing a dead short PS do not plug in the computer untill you sort out the short it will burn up the blue resisters in the Comp. which will make it(FLOOD)and hard to start good luck

Having the ECU not plugged in shouldn't cause the problem you described.. you can however, burn up the ECU by switching the cables on the battery back and forth.

and blow the main fuse....

I only touched the terminals backwards for about a millisecond before thinking to myself wtf am i doing I know thats not right. As far as the starter being wired in, the bolt closer to the trans clamps on the piece from the harness right? I have a couple of wires that i saw looked like they were clipped or disconnected from a plug. The only plug I couldn't find a match for was the white one coming from what looked to be the oil pan.

The B/W wire clips on to the solenoid as this wire will have voltage w/key to start.

Black/Yellow cable goes on the neg post of the batt. The other cable goes to the pos post of the battery.

The other end of the Black/Yellow cable gets attached to a bolt that holds the starter on the transmission case or can go to any of the bolts that hold the trans/engine together.

The Positive cable of the batt terminates on one of the starter SOLENOID studs. There are two threaded studs on the solenoid. The cable goes on the stud on the solenoid THAT DOES NOT ALREADY HAVE a cable going to it from the guts of the starter.

It could be other wiring going to gnd instead of where it should be going. Like the alternators output cable being shorted to gnd around the alternator ...somewhere or???? lots of other places.

Leave the ECU disconnected til you fix the problem. Is the key to LOCK or is it in the ON position. Put it in LOCK.

Okay thanks guys, i will try some more troubleshooting tomorrow, hopefully get this mess sorted out. I cleaned all my grounds while it was out, and even then they were just dirty and no corrosion.

I disconnected the ground from my trans to the firewall and all the electronics started working, and then HOLY SHIT MY SPEEDO IS ON FIRE! It literally caught flame and melted the odometer and the needle fell right off, then went out. I have no clue what is going on, and that was just scary. Key was in but in the off position. I'm hoping my wiring for that side isnt done because swapping it is not fun. Anyone know what could have caused that?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/globekidd/6297184914/http://www.flickr.com/photos/globekidd/6297184914/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/globekidd/, on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/globekidd/6296654183/http://www.flickr.com/photos/globekidd/6296654183/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/globekidd/, on Flickr

I dont know if this would conrtibute to it, but this is some random wiring that was all messed up from the PO trying to wire in some gauges, but I don't know why it would effect the freakin speedo catching on fire??

That wiring is disgusting.

i think you might have the positive of the battery hooked to the wrong place, and then when you removed the firewall ground, the speedo cable becomes the ground, and obviously it couldn't handle the amperage.....

you're being dangerous... you need to verify that the battery cables are correct at the starter before you burn the car down...

okay I'm going back to he car now and checking everything. Does anyone have any pictures of how the starter should be hooked up? Because at this point I'm just clueless.

You need the cable to be on the correct side, have you tried jsut unbolting it from the started and going onto the other point? Also have you checked your engine earth?

I am ready to accept the criticism I may receive. For one, the starter was bolted on right, however the black connector that goes onto it for the ground was not on. Next, the negative cable was not bolted on. I never saw it because I could not see past all the other wiring and never saw it or even gave thought to it. This is definitely one of those live and learn moments, and like I said, it was my fault and I should have known better.

It got too cold and dark to work on it outside the school so we packed up and left, so tomorrow I will sort that out and put my other cluster in.

Thanks for all who helped.

Edit: here is the aftermath-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/globekidd/6433439991/http://www.flickr.com/photos/globekidd/6433439991/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/globekidd/, on Flickr

Electrical Issues
 

By removing your ground wire you forced the speedo cable to act as a ground wire .....which caused the speedo burn...Be carefull ... check every thing again .. and test all the wires with a circuit tester you have a positive to ground short...

And now everyone come help with my issues. =D https://www.rx7club.com/2nd-generation-non-technical-pictures-198/snails-ongoing-electrical-thread-978761/#post10882206

Yikes man that sucks. Well hopefully you get it all resolved and learn a good lesson. Good luck!

The small blade connector on the solenoid is the trigger signal from the key to start.

The single black cable on the solenoid is the cable from the batterys Positive post to power the starter.

The ground b/t the starter and the battery is the large cable you found unbolted and should go where I mentiioned in a earlier post.

There is no ground "wire" to the starter. The guts of the starter gets it gnd from the body of the starter making contact with the bell housing/engine. Those are grounded to the batt neg by the large black cable colored black/yellow.

Seems you did a SWAP. What was the SWAP? Same series car? Turbo to non turbo? What harness did you use on the engine if so. The one that came with the car or?

959595Rotor had it right as to why the speedo area of the guage cluster lit up. Even though the black/yellow gnd wire from the batt is also split off and terminated just at the bottom of the left strut tower...............so at least the chassis to batt ground point was there.........else noting at all would have happened 'cause without that chassis to batt gnd there is no path back to the batt positive post. No path no electrical action anywhere much less the tach needle lighting up.

Sumthin else is wrong here. SWAP related me thinks.

The swap was simply the engine and engine harness (passenger side harness) from an 87 Sport to an 88 GXL. NA to NA. The PO did a lot of harness hacking it seems like... The single black wire that was attached to the positive terminal went through the firewall and went to a switch in the cabin. The wire continued to the fuel pump harness, which was also sorta hacked. If worse comes to worse I'm going to fully swap the harness from the 87 to the 88. Ill explain a little more of what's going on and post some pictures after dinner.

This is where he wired in the fuel pump switch to.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/globekidd/6439062871/http://www.flickr.com/photos/globekidd/6439062871/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/globekidd/, on Flickr

Then there's the question of what this green wire is supposed to go to or do, and I have no idea why it is like this...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/globekidd/6439063019/http://www.flickr.com/photos/globekidd/6439063019/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/globekidd/, on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/globekidd/6439062939/http://www.flickr.com/photos/globekidd/6439062939/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/globekidd/, on Flickr

Also, after looking through the FSM, I can see that the starter is indeed wired wrong. I was dumbfounded to find that out because the way it is seemed like the only way it would work? Or it could have been when I took it to autozone to have it tested, the guy switched the cable that goes from the starter to where the two bolts are. Because I never touched it after it came off. And it worked when it was on the Sport.