Not the usual starting problem
 

Hi i hav an 87 rx-7 n/a. i drove my 7 back to my house after an errand and bout 30 min later i got back in to go somewhere else, but when i tried to start it it wouldnt start. i tried to jump it thinkint he battery was dead, but that didnt work, then i push started it and it worked, so its not flooded, but whenever i try to turn the key i can hear the a clickin noise fromthe solenoid but thats it. ithought maybe my starter was busted so i replaced that but it still does the same thing. at thsi point my geus is either my ignition switch or the wiring in between the ignition and the starter. plz help thanks guys

where u hear clicking from? if its from starter area, then its bad grounding of the engine/starter or battery terminals
did u checked if battery is good? weak battery might do this as well and yet run everything ok when u pushstart it...

did you try the solenoid?

Loose battery cables?

i checked battery its fine and i checked the wiring from the battery to th starter and thats fine to. the click/tap sound i heard i think actually is coming from the ignition switch itself. also if i put power to the starter and solenoid shouldnt pop and spin too. cause i put power to both my new and old starter and the gear popped up but it didnt spin. so i'm not sure

Unless you've got some wiring malfunction you haven't found yet, almost sounds like both the starters are bad.

If the ignition switch is energizing the solenoid, then the switch is doing its job. At that point, it's up to the main positive cable from the battery to do its thing (and the starter to do its thing, of course).

Where is the negative big cable bolted down at?

ya thats wat i was thinking. i just really dont want it to be that. gosh my luck sucks

the negative is bolted to the solenoid

Since we're on the subject, I just had some starting problems as well. On occation, I'll turn the key to start, there's a click, and all the lights go out, and the clock resets. Major power loss. It will do this every time I turn the key to start. Once I disconnect the battery and re-connect it though, everythings back to normal.
:wtf1:

sorry to threadjakc BTW.

The POSITIVE should be the one on the solenoid, the NEGATIVE (black w/ yellow stripe if stock) should be bolted under the head or nut of the big starter bolt...

I'm sure that's what you meant...

If the negative is on the solenoid, every time you turn the key to start you'll be directly shorting to ground the entire ignition starting circuit...

No the only connections on the starter r on the solenoid itself, there is a ignition one, one that runs to the starter itself, and a negative battery cable one. if the negative batt cable is always hooked to the starter it would spin all the time, the solenoid is wat controls the starter with the help of the ignition switch.

i thought about how i checked my starters and i did it wrong so i did it the rite way and they work fine so now theres only 2 things i can think of. either the ignition is messed up or the wiring in between the ignitiona nd the starter is messed up, like maybe a fusible link has broken.wat do u guys think


P.S. oh ya and to the guy with the starting question, i think ur problem is ur fusible link, because even if its broken u can still get a random flow of electricity and then it stops and randomly turns on and off. it could also be ur power cable from the battery, something like that.

Bad/dirty battery terminals. If there's corrosion, sometimes it'll arc enough to make things very unhappy, and resetting the terminal fixes this.

If you have the old lead terminals that are pretty badly bent, replace them with some new ones. They're cheap, and make a nice bit of difference.

-=Russ=-

ok i did a test on my ignition switch and everything works except there is no conductivity between the ST, L, E, K1, and K2 wires in starting position, but there is cond. between the K1 and K2 alone, and between the L and E alone, but none in between the rest of them in any combonation. so i'm wondering if this means my ignition switch is bad. thanks for input guys, i really appreciate it.

here's an easy way to tell if your ground is bad: take a pair of jumper cables and connect one end to the neg side of battery and the other to any raw metal on the engine. Basically creating another ground connection. This will take you 2 seconds and may answer some questions. I had a ground go bad, and the car acted just as yours, then it dawned on me to try the cables, and it started right up. then of course, if that happens you've got some grounds to replace. Rob

a bad ground wouldnt be the prob for either of us because even his randomly cuts out he disconnects and reconnects the power cable nothe ground cable. and my car works totally fine if u push start it but my starter is fine so i'm pretty sure its my ignition switch. i thought it mite be a fusible link but if i hav no prob with the car after psh startin it then it couldnt be and i checked the conductivity on the ignition switch and all but he last connections inthe start position checked out. so i'm pretty sure thats wat it is. wat do u guys think? do u agree?

p.s. and in this post i put up pretty much every single possible starting problem that FC's hav was addressed, so just a reference for anyone with the same or similiar problems

thanx guys

Mine turned out to be the terminals. (unless it happens again, it's been a couple of days) I cleaned the terminals the last time this happened, but I didn't grease them. After less than a week, the problem came back. This time I cleaned and greased them (the dialectric grease helps prevent corosion). So far so good. As far as the terminals go, I've already replaced them with marine quick release terminals. These things are sweet. No more looking for a wrench to disconnect the battery.