Well, Saturday, it ran like a champ, pulled it outside, let it run for 10 mins, checked battery with battery tester and the charging system--all good and looked at the Alt meter in the gauge cluster and it was on positive side at 30.
As mentioned, this is not necessarily a good thing. Definitely measure your volts at the battery with the engine running.
If the 30a reading was right after starting, that's normal. But if it had been idling and warming up for a time, it should have gone down to almost zero by then. If not, your battery may be suspect after all, or your alternator is possibly over-charging.
Without reading back, is this a 1-wire alternator install, or is it a standard alternator with external voltage regulator? We were talking about a 1-wire the other day, but I don't remember if it was yours, or if it was another thread I'm thinking of.
- I pulled the neutral safety switch, cleaned it, re-installed and checked for power to the red/blue wire both before the connecter up i the engine bay and down at the transmission and both had power.... can the switch still be bad?
If power is coming in on one wire, and going out on the other, then the NSS is still at least partially good and not causing your no-start issue.
But if you measure on the body-side of that 4-wire connector up in back of the engine, there should be power only on one of the Red w/blue wires. Not both...
Only on the NSS side of things would you see power on both. But how are you able to test this? The connector partially separated? Or probing with the test light down at the switch itself?
- Also, I checked for power at the ignition switch on the green/red wire and it had power with key to "accessory" but not in the "on" position---- would that indicate a bad ignition switch?
Yes, if nothing else was checking normally.
The issue is that, the Green w/red wire AND the Red w/green wire share the same terminal on the back of the ignition switch. So if one is getting power, and one is not, then the switch is fine and the actual connection and/or wire is bad. As you suspect, power should be found with the switch in both the ACC and the ON positions.
- I have removed the brown wire at solenoid and checked for power at the coil---checked ok
Let's dispense with the "checked ok" comments and give some actual numbers. For this you're going to need the volt-meter/multi-meter rather than the test light from now on. We've seen many cases over the years when "fine" and "ok" were completely incorrect because the precise details were not available, or the member was going by visual inspection only. I know that's not the case here, as you are testing things. But if you have a modern LED test lamp, can you even tell the difference between 12v and 3v with it? I don't know, since I've only had old-school lamps where you could see if it was dim or bright. Still didn't give you exact numbers, but was a halfway decent indicator.
For your "checked ok" this time though, that means that your ignition switch is working. Did you happen to check for power on the Brown wire itself?
If you have power at the coil, you should see the same power at the Brown wire.
- Checked all other wires (positive & ground) and fusible link-- all ok
Pretty sure that the fusible link wire is working (at least when your starter cranks) but can't confirm it's working perfectly.
The fact that you have power to the ignition switch and coil and NSS on the transmission, means that you have power and that the ignition switch is at least partially working.
This means you jumped straight to the starter from the battery? And it cranked fine?
- removed red/blue wire from solenoid and jumped from battery side to post--ok
Means that when you jumped the small terminal that the starter cranked normally?
While you were at it, did you check for power at the Red w/blue wire when you have the key in START?
I know I should go buy replacement parts when they might not be bad...
Did you mean "should not" or that you should?
...but I feel like before I have it towed somewhere, I should consider replacing:
NO! Not if jumping the S terminal made the starter spin.
NO! Not if you were able to get the starter crank and turn the engine over
NO! The coil could be bad, but it has ABSOLUTELY ZERO to do with the starter not cranking. ZERO!
NO! Here again, the alternator has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the starter not cranking.
Ok, so maybe you need a new one, or maybe you need a new regulator. But it's easy to test without replacing.
But if your ammeter read 30 amps charge, then you know that the alternator is at least capable of 30amps output. More than enough to charge a battery for now.
- maybe starter
- maybe battery (it is 6 years old but show "goo" on battery tester)
Again, not the starter.
But the battery? Hmm, maybe. But if when the starter is turning the engine over, it's cranking with normal vigor, then the battery is very low on the suspect list.
But as the others have said, go ahead and charge it fully just in case.
And while you're at it, get a full multi-meter so you can check things more thoroughly.
Paul
