I just put my engine back in the car and finished tightening my steering column at the same time and the engine won’t turn over not even the little clicking the starter makes with a low battery. And now I know I should have waited on doing the steering column because I think that might be the problem. All the lights work, my windows roll down, and every thing. However my fog lights don't turn on, and my headlights won’t go back down but the headlights turn on. When I put the key to the on position the security light turns on for a few seconds and turns off, I think that’s normal though. But the engine light dose not turn on, I think that is supposed to turn on when the engine is not running. I can’t find anything that connects to this connector under the steering column. (The picture below) does any one know what it might go to? And could the battery be bad because it has been sitting for a year and a half? Also before the engine rebuild and column it would die while driving sometimes and it wouldnt crank so i would have to wait a random amount of time before it did crank and start. Please help me fix this problem! http://www.thirdgen.org/techboard/at...r-hpim0299.jpg (link to the Picture)

Your starter may not be hooked up correctly. I have a sneaking suspicion that the wire that goes to your solenoid is not hooked up. Otherwise it also sounds like your starter may have been going bad previous to the new motor? ( if it wouldn't crank over when hot ) Did the starter click when you tried cranking it with the old motor?
If your lights work your battery is not dead, it may be low but starter should still click or try to turn over the car.

The starter is kind of new it has about 5000 miles on it. But I guess it could be defective. And it didn’t click with the old motor it just didn’t do anything till the car decided to turn over. I replaced the fusible links going to the starter because some got milted a while ago.
I just noticed that the orange wires that go to the lock cylinder in the steering column is pulled out of the connector a little but they don't touch
I don’t know if this problem of it not cranking is related to the problem before. But I’m hoping it is, Ill make sure the starter is hooked up right, if it is Ill take it out and get it tested.
Thanks

This is not the right way to do it but will work.
Take a screwdriver and touch the positive lead on your starter and the lead for the solenoid at the same time, your starter should engage. If the starter doesn't engage it's hooped, if it does you have other problems

I fixed it someone said to put a test light to the S terminal and try to start it to see if it was getting signal so i did and it got the signal. Turned out the wire that should go to the S terminal was on the wrong post because their are 2 little posts for a signal wire and I just put it on the wrong one

But thanks for the help and sorry for taking so long to reply to this message.

I have a '91 5.7 TPI out here in sunny CA and mine used to inexplicably die sometimes and after an indeterminable amount of time crank up again. It had several different symptoms going simultaneously. Sometimes the starter would turn it over and it would not start and other times I would turn the key and...NOTHING!!!
I never did figure out what the cause was. But I did replace everything that I could get my grubby little mitts on including...fuel filter, pump, regulator, injectors, IAC, TPS, MAP sensor, EGR valve, distributor module, cleaned out the IAC section of the throttle body and new ECM and now it runs like a champ. Out of all these components the two that I definitely determined were bad were the fuel regulator and ECM. If you've installed a new motor in your car most of this stuff would be a joke for you to replace.

Oh yeah I forgot to mention that when the car would die and I would get nothing when I turned the key, a counter guy out here where I buy my parts mentioned that when the starter would get hot on these cars the solenoid would stick and not move. I replaced the starter and solved the problem. I also googled this and found some other posts that concurred with his assessment.

That sounds expensive... However it might be what i have to do. It seems to be happening a lot more after the engine rebuild. So far I replaced the fuel pump and the starter was just tested and it was tested like 5 times in a row so if it was going to stick I think it would have warmed up and stuck. I think...

Is there a way to take out an ECM and get it tested? Or just get a new one see if it helps and if it doesn't return it?

You can test the ECM in car with the right code scanner. ALDL type?

I'm not a big fan of parts changing diagnostics. Unless the part is cheap and old and in need of replacement anyway, I prefer to diagnose the problems first unless it costs more to spend the time than just replacing the part. ECM is probably $80 plus the exchange of your old one. And if the old one was fine, now you're out your original ECM and stuck with this Discount Auto one. Check your grounds also. Many electrical gremlins come back to bad grounds and shorts between circuits. Relays going bad, etc. The ECM is probably the last thing it will be unless you had a heater core explode in there and it soaked the ECM with coolant, then it is more likely I guess. Not to say it isn't, I just would think it is somewhere in the ground circuit, starter, or security circuit giving you an intermittent problem.

I ran in to a problem with lifter noise so I haven't been wanting to start it till I get my recorder back from a friend and get feed back on if it is a lifter or not...

Anyways I looked at all the wires and I didn't find any unhooked connectors and no ungrounded wires. I was wondering if I could use winaldl on a laptop to find the problem.

Also if anyone has any experience with computers is it possible to use a USB to serial port adapter than have the ALDL wire going to the car? I ask this because my laptop doesn't have any serial ports on it but only USB and I found some adapters.