Well, I've had the day to poke around, and things are even stranger than I had
imagined.
Several people emailed saying it sounded like a bad ground or bad battery
connections, but I don't think that's the case, because I've cleaned the
terminals to shiny and tightened them nicely. Also, what I'm about to relate
kind of rules this out.
I measured the voltage across the starter terminals - 12 volts. I measured the
voltage across the ignition terminal and ground when the key is turned - I got
0v. Ok, that tells me why the starter isn't running. So, I go the starter
relay. With the key in the on position, I touch the brown 12v line to the
white/brown stripe ignition line (which should cause 12v to go to the starter
motor), and then the voltage across the ignition terminal is only 2-3 volts
(not the 12v it should be). So, at this point I'm thinking "there must be
something going on here that's a little beyond just a bad part."
That's about when my wife walks out and says, "oh, you've got the lights on." I
was immediately interested in this because the key was not in the ignition
switch! Sure enough, the only way to turn off the parking lights is to
disconnect the batteries. When I reconnect them, the lights come on! And I do
not have anything jumpered or altered from the original circuit.
I don't know if anyone can offer advice on this, it does sound like a
specialized problem, but I just thought I would share it because it seems a
little bizarre.
My next step is to look at a wiring diagram, I guess there is a short somewhere
involving the parking lights.
Thanks for listening!
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Jason B. Lonon
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