My starter died today.

2 push starts, and i managed to get home.

I;ve never even looked for the damn thing... can this thing be removed easily, without pulling off the intake manifold?

I figure pulling the batter would be a good start :-)

Thanx all!

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Darin Chalifoux
92 Laser AWD
"Fat guys can drive, too!"
Edmonton

http://www.cadvision.com/whitecd/CADSM/darin.html

Darin, you're in for a real treat!!! I finally found where the little bugger is hidden a couple months ago, and man, I do not EVER want to replace it. If you look under the rats nest of hoses and battery cables and assorted crap under the passenger side of the intake mani, buried WAY under all that stuff, you will find the starter. It can barely been seen from under the car. As far as I can see it involves pulling the battery, intake hoses and just about the rest of the pass. side of the car apart to just see the thing. I don't even want to think about trying to reach the bolts All I can say at this point is, better you than me (furiously knocking on wood!!!)


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Darren Schoff
90 Laser Turbo

Thanx man!

Makes me happy to know that it's so damn easy to get to <sarcasm modde off>

:-)



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Darin Chalifoux
92 Laser AWD
"Fat guys can drive, too!"
Edmonton

http://www.cadvision.com/whitecd/CADSM/darin.html

nah, it's pretty easy.

Take off the intake piping and you can get in there with the 14mm socket with 3" extension.

I have a spare starter for an auto tranny car if interested, just converted to manual tranny and it's a different starter.

After much swearing, I managed to pull it out.

I pulled through the top, next to the intake manifold... I've now heard that it can be accessed form the bottom easier... not to take the bolts out, but to physically get it intop place.

Can anyone else comment on this?

I also went and got it tested... it's fine. That upsets me. Means it is elsewhere in the wiring... Does anyone know if the ECU has *anyhting* to do with the actualy cranking of the engine?

I don;t think so, but after lookingat my Haynes Manual, it says that the signal for the starter relay is from the ignition ST, whatver in hell that is.

My reasoning is: I just hacked my maf, and then all the troubles came up. I'm really grasping at straws here, but could it be? A few years back, I was messign with the maf and forgot to plug it in... well, the car still cranked, but kicked a code, etc. The prob is it won't even crank. I'm thinking relay somehwere??? or possible bad clutch switch? I dunno.....

Any Ideas?


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Darin Chalifoux
92 Laser AWD
"Fat guys can drive, too!"
Edmonton

http://www.cadvision.com/whitecd/CADSM/darin.html

Just a thought, but when you were mucking with the MAS, did you have the battery disconnected? A few years ago I had the positive side of my battery cables off the battery when I was doing some work on the car. When I put it all back together....no start. No click, no nothing. It turned out that one of the cables in that bundle didn't make it back onto the post, thus no start. Just an idea.

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Darren Schoff
90 Laser Turbo

The starter gets a direct positive and negative cable from the battery, it's not run through a relay at all. The only thing that is on the relays is the solenoid.

Did you have the battery tested at the same time as the starter?

There really isn't too much by the MAS for you to bugger up, could the 2 problems be unrelated???

Sorry, thought you had a slow start. Wasn't reading close enough I guess.

Check for power at the end of the + cable from the battery to the starter and ground the multimeter on the engine. You should have 12Volts.

Next attach the solenoid lead to the +side of the multimeter and the negative on the engine, have someone turn the key and see if you get a reading.

The starter is much easier to put in/remove from the top of the car, I was muking around in that area for a week in January and couldn't imagine crawling under the car to do it. The shifter cables are really easy to disconnect if they are in your way.

Well, figured out my problem.

Thomas Yung came over to take some pics of my hacked MAF (oooh boy, I know) and was helping me try to figure it out. I got the starter back in, and put it all back together.

No cranky. I'm was pissed.

So my old man is an Electrical Engineer. he shows up meter in hand. We started tracing the wiring... we figured out a way to get it to crank, but that would involve using a button int he car to start the thing (applying 12V directly to the solenoid trigger (: ) Anyways, we get to the wiring under the dash... start pulling the dash apart. Took my dad a few minutes to figure out exaclty how the damn thing was wired, then Thomas saw it.

The alarm console under my dash.

Then the valet switch in the vicinity of my feet.

Put two and two together... size 12 feet, a valet switch. Hmmmm.

having never even used the cheap ass alarm that was installed in the car before I bought it 3.5 years ago, I forgot all about it.

Moral of this story: I'm an idiot.

See you all at the shootout in London.

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Darin Chalifoux
92 Laser AWD
"Fat guys can drive, too!"
Edmonton

http://www.cadvision.com/whitecd/CADSM/darin.html