legacycentral bbs

i shut my car off and ran into the store, came back and tried to start it and all i get is one click, still have power to everything else, i tried connecting the pull off connector and jumping it to the starter power wire but nothing

note: i relocated the battery to the trunk a week ago and i grounde the battery to the frame and the body but i did not reconnect the wire from the negative terminal to just above the starter where it usally is, could that effect it?, it has started fine all week until now?

Thanks for your help guys

Probably not grounding well enough for the starter. The click is likely the solenoid, but the motor itself isn't able to turn. That or you have a dead spot, but I believe things happen for a reason - like, you relocated the battery and it no longer has a good enough ground. A dead spot will usually require a bunch of start attempts to before the motor will turn and it could then be fine for weeks before it hits again.

thanks, before i install the spare starter i have i am going to run a 2 ga wire from the original battery ground by the starter to the fire wall, and hopefully that works. the car should be well grounded because i used proper power sanding tools, thick wire and good connectors however my engine to body ground could be shitty. the battery has also died a couple times in the past two months from leaving the lights for about 30 min and maybe me trying to start it with low juice has put alot of stress on my starter.

what do you mean by deadspot?

do u mean in the starter or the engine

The starter. Although not specifically stated, a main character in my first novel is killed by this very problem giving an assassin too much time to sneak up on him.

Running a bigger cable isn't a bad idea no matter what.

thanks, i just got some bigger welding cable, i'm going to try it as soon as i get off work

how about somebody just call me an idiot... i picked up a new starter and my mechanic lent me one of his for a subie, my plan was to try his used one and if it worked i would install the new one so that if the starter was not the problem then i could still take the new one back. after installing the used starter it still did not work, so maybe it just needs to be jumped again so the starter has enough juice. then i thought maybe i should just check the fuse that was still in there because the wire for the battery was my previously installed amp wiring so it still had a 60 amp fuse in the line, i still had accesory power because the fuse was after my engine fusebox, so ofcourse there's my problem and i got rid of the fuse and it started right up.

the reason it still clicked i guess was because even though the stinger glass fuse was split there were still a few volts jumping the gap through to get to the starter.

so someone just please call me an idiot. thanks

You're no idiot. Good work figuring that out and saving yourself some $$.

It happens. If that made you an idiot, we'd all be one and I'll be damned if I let myself get away with calling me an idiot!