Hey,

Does anyone have an automatic and want to do me a little favor ?
I can't figure out where my starter signaling wire is [the little tiny one that goes to the spade on the solenoid]

I'm down near the end of my 5-speed swap and can't find where it went to

If you could take a pictures of which bundle it comes off of I'd really appreciate it! ^_^

On my 87' Base[turning sport]

 

comes off the body harness on the Drivers side of the car.Follow the Thick positive wire on the Harness to the starter,it should be On the harness there.Thers is also a BIG thick Negative(with stripe) and that has a bracket type connection,that would go through the Long Starter bolt at the Engine/bell housing).That is your Main harness ground.

 

Hmmm.... That's weird..
On mine it's not there, the starter signal appears to come from the 4-pin connector that goes to the automatic.
Looking at the body side connection. the bottom left is the starter signal. [clip on top]
Also the car knows it is in neutral or park when the two left side pins are bridged.

So I connected both the left pins and then the bottom one to the starter solenoid..
[the two pins on the right side of the connector I believe are for the reverse lights.. as per the rotary resurrection directions]

But having done this, it doesn't work.

It cranks and that's it. No gauge readings, no radio [except on ACC, turns off when I hit ON], and the interior lights are dim..
But the engine cranks at 90%~ speed so I can't figure it out..

I tried unplugging the auto ECU and now it wont even crank.

[Yes I did connect the main negative correctly, it wont crank unless that is connected]

Any suggestions? Pleaseee... [tomorrow is the last day of good weather.. please respond quick if you have an idea]

 

Ok, so I tried disconnecting my wiring adapter and still nothing.. [head/parking lights dont' work and the switch makes a buzzing noise, radio still looses power when the car is set to ON, the dom light is still dim]

The starter could be bad.. but could that cause these other problems? I think this is the starter that came off of my 87 GXL that started to fail [wouldn't do anything at all and didn't cause any weird stuff like this before..]

Also, I fully eliminated the battery as a problem - I attached the known good battery from my vert, with no effect [same symptoms]

Is there a way I could trace the second positive cable to the interior? Something? Any ideas?

 

Looking at the service manual I remembered something else that's happening:
when I turn the dom light on and off the Circuit Opening Relay (for EGI) is clicking [or something else in that area]

Is that any help?

 

...Since no one had any advice, [except one friend who figured it out independently] I'll explain:

The ground to the body was bad. [the one at the base of the driver's strut tower that *appears* to just be a holder for the wires]

...That's it for the weirdness [the starter is indeed the one from my GXL - it works if you tap the solenoid with a hammer].

I cleaned up the bolt for the ground, badly tried to clean up the threads that it goes into, coated the bolt with dielectric grease and boom: the dome light, clock, gauges all came back to life.

 

here's my diagram of how to adapt the automatic transmission connector [4-pin] to use a manual.
Warning: This method does not offer any clutch safety switch connection.

This is looking at the connector on the body side.

The green loop does mean you have to bridge those two pins and connect it to the starter. [Those two pins being bridged signals that the car is in neutral]



I hope this helps clarify things for someone! ^_^

 

Sorry to bring this from the dead, but is this diagram with the EC-AT unit disconnected?

 

Wasn't this thing a manual for like a year already??