jackel200269

AllDATAPRO says there is also a starter enable relay in the car. You might check this one while your at it. The other is under the hood. Number 10 is the realy

jackel200269

opps

jackel200269

Sorry I got the realys confused. Dont pay attention to the fuel pump relay.

camarorsssss

iTrader: (2)

lol its all good. I found out that the 86-88 corvette starter relay is the same part number and i found a guy on ebay who has 9 of them if anyone needs one. teh part number is 14093107

Slow2.8

No idea either since I'm stuck in practically the same boat as you. I will drive for 20 minutes or so and my starter won't don't anything, even click. After it cools down for about 2 to 3 hours or so it will start up, usually after a few rounds of the single "click" that you are experiencing. New "rebuilt" starter with a heat shield wrapped around her. The starter is about a yr. old and I've recently put on the heat shield to no avail. Will post again if I ever find the culprit to this problem...

camarorsssss

iTrader: (2)

did you check all of your ground straps? check the power to the starter via the thick red wire to make sure you are getting full battery voltage.

Slow2.8

ok let me get this straight, check the big red wire going to the starter when attempting to start the car when the problem happens right? Assuming that I'm looking for 14 volts...

86White_T/A305

This may sound stupid so forgive me (not trying to step on toes) but as someone who works on car electronics and no stranger to intermittent hair pulling situations I do have a few questions and suggestions.

Get the car to start and let it run to full temp and then shut her down.Have a multimeter on hand.If you have 2 people would be great.From your description the car shouldnt start since its hot..meaning somewhere is a big enough resistence causing a major voltage loss to the starter solenoid at the starter agreed? Have the second guy sit in the car and turn the key and hold in the start position as you measure and record what voltage you get from the purple with and the ground directly on the battery.

Then work you way backwards always using the same ground reference point and check both wires of the NSS,then check the relay etc. This will help narrow down where your problem lies.I also cant stress how much the ground straps on the block itself can be the real issue because when you think about it..the starter solenoid for all intensive purposes is really just a massive relay.It needs a few volts to trigger it..usually 10v to be safe Id say and it will engage and draw power directly from the battery.Now where most of you havent checked in everything Im reading so far is the main battery ground to the frame.

Im saying this because When I had this issue I did a ground upgrade And havent had it since in over 5yrs.Grounds straps look nice but corrode easy and the places where they are bolted to on the back firewall arent great for a grounding point which doesnt support a sufficient ground to the block..which the starter grounds itself to.

Now the easiest way to decide whether your issue is wiring under the hood..meaning from the battery to the starter itself and all the needed grounds.Or if the wiring from the key through the relay and nss down to the purple starter is this.jack the car up enough so you can easily get to the starter wires.Get it to run and get hot.Shut it off..if the car doesnt start with the key now that its hot..leave the key turn on to ignition,get under the car and disconnect the purple wire..use a short piece of wire the same guage as the purple wire and splice open both ends, and quickly tap where the red main battery is on the starter with one end.Tap the other end to the terminal that the purple wire would go. This is the biggest easiest way to bypass all the other crap.If the car starts up right here and now even being as hot as it is then you know for sure that the solenoid is not getting enough voltage on the purple wire from inside and I would suspect the starter relay since its job is to take small trigger voltage and allow power to be drawn and sent out from the main power source(unplug the relay from the harness and replace it with a bosch relay of equal rating).

***If your car DID NOT start doing this test then your problem lies right infront of you because your only dealing with 3 things.The battery,the starter,or the power/ground cable between the battery to the starter.Key thing to watch for here is while tapping the 2 terminals ..do you hear the starter solenoid click which sound be loud infront of you.If yes then you have a bad starter and is still gettin heat soaked.If if doesnt click..or while tapping the terminals does the piece of wire your holding start to get hot and burn then start by tracing the fusible links( I did away with fusible links btw and replaced the main cable with high quality 4guage wire ran up to the battery and bought one large fuselink with a reset button).I Would then add the same size 4 guage ground wire in 4 spots.I added one from the battery down to a bolt on the frame..keep in mind the sand down the frame to clean bare metal,I added one from the battery to a bolt directly to the driverside head on the motor.The third went ontop of the factory ground strap at the back of the motor on the firewall and connected it to a bolt on the head back there aswell.The last one I added from the frame bolt and upto the passenger side head.I highly recommend this regardless of issues or not because the benefits of the entire electrical system improved overall anyway,and I changed the power cable from my altenator from the wornout 8guage wire to 4guage and ran it to the battery.

I used gold ring terminals and soldered all the ends nicely,I even used red and silver 4guage to give under the hood a little color.I never had starter issues after this and when the car is running even with the stereo on loud and a/c on full blast..the voltage holds a steady 13.5v at idle using the stock altenator and 14.4v with nothing on..before all of that it would struggle to keep 12.8v with everything going.The starter doesnt even sound like it draws a huge amount of power anymore either and I wasnt using a mini starter at this time.The starter used to sound slow and draw alot of power to get going.

Hope this helps,I know its a long *** post but This is what worked for me 5 yrs ago and Im still using the same battery since then.Report back what you find and this will greatly help get you closer to underlying root problem..there isnt much involved for our cars regarding the starter circuit as a whole.

86White_T/A305

Oh I have to mention for those of you that have Vats..this is also common..VERY common for no starts.The pellet in the key does change resistence ..even though it technically shouldnt being a resistor.I have seen a few vats cars not start because the vats module can be very picky at times for reading the value of the key when the key itself gets warm..the resistor tends to fail.

In this case I bypass vats all together for many of my customers..but with fair warning that once vats is permantly bypassed..anyone can hot wire the car and it will start!

To do this you need to use a multimeter and measure the ohms of the pellet on the key from one side to the other and right that down.buy a resistor as close as you can to that same value.Go to the steering column and look for the vats wire(its an shiny orange wire that looks flat).Cut this in half,you now have 2 sides..one side goes upwards to the key switch(tape this up,you no longer need it).The other side when you look closely at it you will see that there is 2 very small wires inside of the orange plastic.carefully strip these 2 wires apart.Connect one of the white wire to one end of the resistor,then connect the other white wire to the other end of the resistor which will result in a loop of the wires with the resistor in the middle.Tape this up and tuck it away and kiss vats good bye if its causing your no start situation.

camarorsssss

iTrader: (2)

I know for my situation it was the relay behind the driver kick panel. From what I have heard these cause problems. An easy test would be to remove the relay, jump the large green and yellow wire (The wires on each end of the connector) and attempt to start the car. If the car starts everytime you have found the issue. Relays can have that effect of intermittent starting whether it is from heat or if they are just starting to go. Mine has been acting up for 5 years now.

86White_T/A305

yes relays are an easy culprit and an easy fix.You dont have to try to source out the exact same relay from other cars aswell.Any 5 wire relay that is rated for what you need will work just fine.

Think of how many times that one relay has had to click over its 20+yr life span on a daily driver to start your car..its probably pretty tired of you lol..especially now if its acting up and you keep clicking that key lol.

camarorsssss

iTrader: (2)

Ugh as much as i love this website, i wish i was not here posting again on this thread. Thought i had the problem licked, started the car up no problem the last few days but go out today to try some datalogging and "click". WTF. checked my connections everywhere and nothing. So i guess the relay isnt the problem. the only thing left is the NSS or a bad wire somewhere in the ignition system, everything else has been replaced and tested.

shelad

Hi, what a bummer. I didn't go all the way back, but I seem to recall you replaced the starter. Did you also replace the starter solenoid? The contact inside can go bad.

camarorsssss

iTrader: (2)

yeah the entire starter is brand new, have tried 3 different starters so i am doubting thats the problem

86White_T/A305

Question..do you hear the click coming from the starter..or just from inside coming from the starter relay?

I went through a few bad batches of starter solenoid because of the cheapy hitachi re-mans I was using.Usually when it did this..I just kept turning the key off then on trying to start it really fast and it would start.Try this..if it indeed works..you got a crappy solenoid..regardless of it being new doesnt mean anything sorry to say :S

camarorsssss

iTrader: (2)

Well after more hours than i wish to count the problem has been fixed. The problem was indeed in the wiring, which I had a feeling it was. It turns out the purple wire from the NSS to the solenoid was rubbing on the bellhousing causing it to ground. This is the whole reason i was getting the voltage drop from 12v to 8 v from the switch to the solenoid. I did not find the actual crack in the wire where it was rubbing because it was more of a pain to rip out the entire wire from the harness, but a friend of mine did a continuity test on the wire and found it was grounding whenever we moved the wire in the area of the back of the motor. So i replaced the wire with a new wire, from the NSS to the solenoid and behold the problem is fixed. It was a real pain to find the issue, but thanx to everyone who pitched in I was able to narrow it down to the wire which was causing the problem.

jmoney91

i really hope thats what it is for mine. if it is ill let you know im about to get mine back on the road. it did the same thing. im getting by rebuilt trans back soon.

camarorsssss

iTrader: (2)

what might help you and what i did was simplify the system. I ran a new wire from the nss to the solenoid and i also ran a new wire from the battery to the yellow wire on the relay. Assuming your relay and switch are good it is a fail safe system at that point. Oh and depending on how long you have had this problem, how old your battery it, I would have your battery tested, because to add to my headache my battery was drained so many times it failed to hold a good charge.

jmoney91

ok its been a while i was wondering if you have had any more problems with the starting?? you have no idea how thankful i am that you have figured this out. i worked on this problem so many times, with no result.

camarorsssss

iTrader: (2)

i have not had a problem since replacing the relay and running a new wire from the nss to the starter. You are still having a problem? I would say if you have checked your nss and you know your relay is working than the problem is in your wiring somewhere. How old is your battery? Because my battery went through so much and I kept recharging it I had to replace it.

jmoney91

i havent even gotten a chance to look at mine yet. im just glad that i know where to look when i work on it in a couple of weeks.

RobSS1113

did a search and found this for this is Exactly what my car is doing !!!


But you know whats the hard thing is when you buy a used car from someone and they totally did a hack job of splicing wires and taping here and there and you just thinking "why in the world did they do this or that" ? its a guessing games at that point

love this site !