Begin rant:


I got a call yesterday from Heath, who is interested in the Red Car. He said he would drive 3 hours from Santa Clara to take a look at it. So I go out & wash the baby so she'll look good. Get it all scrubbed down & dried off, hop in to move it, and no start! No crank, nada. So I start running down in my head what it could be. Last time this happened, at the body shop, when I had it towed to Cap'n Krusty and he looked it over, the relay board had gotten wet. So, I dry off the relay board, pull & dry the relays, plugs, etc. Still no joy. So I think, okay, maybe the starter, so I jump it. Slow, hard turnover. Okay, gotta go to work, so I'll deal with it tomorrow morning before Heath gets here.

This morning I'm up at 8am after getting in bed at 1am from work. Decide I'll start at the beginning. Check & clean all the fuses, even on the relay board. Clean the battery terminals. Clean the grounds. Clean the starter wiring on the starter. Find that the trans ground wire wasn't tight, starter cranks over strong now when jumped, so I figured at least one thing out. Maybe the ignition switch is bad. I just happen to have a new one in the box, so I swap that out. As long as I'm in there, I may as well install the new turn signal switch I've had laying around. If you've done this before, you know you need to pull the knee pad to get everything plugged back in. Still no start. Swap out the relay board with another good one, with different relays, and new fuses. Nope, no difference. Swap the old one (which is a rebuild) back in. I do this once again with a different relay board, fuses & relays, just in case I had 2 bad boards.

Everything else works, fuel pump primes, all the other electrical stuff on the dash works, battery is strong.

Called the Cap'n, and he helps me run down everything, and I think I've covered all the easy stuff. Hook up another ignition setup (housing, switch, etc) under the dash, still nothing. This is driving me up a wall!

Heath showed up & we talked about the car, which he really likes, but doesn't want to commit unless he drives it. Very understandable.

It looks like I'll be calling AAA in the morning to have it towed to the Cap'n & have him figure it out.

I feel terrible to have had Heath drive all that way to look at the car & not have it run. If I wasn't just recovering from the flu, I'd start

I hope your day was better than mine, cause mine sucked big time.

Rant over.

That sucks.

FYI, you can turn the key into the on position and then jump the starter at the back to get it running.

Tried that, didn't work.

How old is the positive battery cable?

Not that old. It looks decent.

I once saw a bad cable turn into a Starter replacement, Tune up, Battery replacement and Alternator replacement. After all that work and $$$ the battery cable was replaced and the car fired right up. Looks can be deceiving...

Hook up a volt meter to the yellow wire at the starter and see what you're getting when you turn the key to start.

Repeat at the Pos. battery cable at the starter.
Repeat at either of the rear two FI pins.
Repeat at pin 1 of the 14-pin connector at the front of the relay board.

Not up to any more tonight. AAA to the Cap'n tomorrow. So mad I can't fuchin see straight. Took me 15 minutes to replace a fuchin rain tray drain tube. I'm done for the day.

If key on and jumped starter is not starting the car then the starter circuit is not the total problem. Once the engine spins with power to the FI and coil, it should fire right up. More problems are lurking.

Yup, that's why it's going to the Cap'n.

Hey Mark - Once you get it fixed, call the potential buyer and offer to drive the card down to him. That will demonstrate the car is reliable and how you do business by taking it to see him after he came to see you. Hope it all works out.

We've already agreed to meet half way (King City, of all places... ).

try to bypass the starter switch, and see if it goes away, could be an intermittant bad switch contact.

The hot start relay was bad. I pick it back up tomorrow.

Pull that non stock "hot start" relay out of there and toss it in the dumpster. If cars needed a hot start relay they would have been installed at the factory. Those things are a bandaid on a gunshot wound. Maybe if the ground cable would have been tight the relay would not have failed. Or maybe not installed in the first place.

It was an easy drive to make. Plus I like driving, it's good quiet time. I don't care for some of the other people on the road but such is life. I only hit like 30 minutes of traffic north of Salinas heading home. The trip I took the day before to Clovis to look at the other 914 got me motivated, so what's another 500 miles the next day.

I understand the gremlins of cars, especially older ones. I have not owned or worked on a car yet where I haven't threatened to light on fire on more than one occasion.

Now that it's fixed we can get to the business of a test drive.

Thanks for coming down. I've had a love/hate relationship with this car for years. I'm really going to miss it, but I think it's best it goes on to a new owner/caretaker. I'm glad to hear you plan on keeping it & taking care of it. Hopefully we can co-ordinate schedules & get you the test drive soon.