What did I do wrong?

FaykSaleen · Jun 23, 2013

Alright guys, here's some trivia. I myself am not 100% sure what I've done wrong but I think I might be onto something and I'm going to give it a shot in the morning.

Anyway, here's the results of today's attempt at starting up my car:

I hook up a battery, flip the key open and try to start it - Click - Starter is not turning.. hmm

I open up the casing over the starter relay, unhook the ground coming off the harness coming from the motor (not the one on the battery terminal) and hit the starter relay and the car is cranking over now but the harness ground is unhooked.

I reconnect the harness ground and click! Nothing... except a little bit of smoke

I get a hunch that the block is getting power from somewhere, I hook up a test light, touch one of the heads with it, hit the starter relay, low and behold! The block has 12 volts running through it!!!

What in the world could be causing this?

Cliffs: Block has power running through it when I connect the harness ground wire to the chassis & click the starter - wtf?

MustangChris · Jun 23, 2013

:tard:

FaykSaleen · Jun 23, 2013

MustangChris said:
:tard:

My thoughts exactly :laughing4:

KillNThrill24 · Jun 23, 2013

I'd run a new ground personally from the engine. Then if that doesn't work don't remove it, run a new hot wire from the starter. Hopefully that helps!

FaykSaleen · Jun 23, 2013

KillNThrill24 said:
I'd run a new ground personally from the engine. Then if that doesn't work don't remove it, run a new hot wire from the starter. Hopefully that helps!

Thank you for the suggestion, I'm going to definitely run a new wire from the battery to the starter and try that out.

I tried to ground the motor with a new ground wire lol it melted and it only does this act of craziness when I crank the starter, it won't do it with just the ignition in the on position. It's very strange, there's definitely a hot wire touching something it shouldn't be :angry7:

Musturd · Jun 23, 2013

Yea positive from fuse box of batter to the starter and you need a good chassis to block ground yesterday on a customers vehicle I had the same click the chassis to block ground was weak Sauce then bam 6.0L of awesome fired up and sounded all sexy like

ttocs · Jun 23, 2013

There is any countless circuits that could be back-feeding the ground signal to the block the only question is if they are able to handle the high-current situation you are putting it through by trying to start the car through them.

DO NOT KEEP TRYING TO START THE CAR................ If the ground cable you ran melted that means it wasn't thick enough. I recommend upgrading to 4 awg and be sure to upgrade the battery/chassis and the engine/chassis ground. I used one of the bolts that holds the alt on for my grounds since it is one of the power sources.