Jerry Curl

According to a repair manual I have, the neutral safety switch is located under the console next to the shifter on the right. Shouldn't I be looking there?

my 76 ray

That's for the automatic transmission. I just realized that in my other post I said it is on the brake pedal. I meant clutch.

Jerry Curl

Hmmmm... You're right. I notice now the chapter I see this in is for automatics. I just looked it up in the index and didn't think to see what chapter it was actually covering.

What's interesting is this part isn't even covered under the manual transmission section. This is a Haynes manual. I just looked it up in a Chilton manual and I can't find anything on it there either. Except for automatic.

Can anyone show some pictures of what I should be looking for?

MIKE80

I was just starting my vette yesterday, it was cold and I don't have a choke, so it stalled a couple times. Went to start it again and nothing, no click, won't crank, nothing. The battery has a full charge, all connections are clean, safety switch which is on the side of the clutch pedal I bypassed a while back when I swapped in my T56 trans, tapped on the starter, still nothing. I ran out of time so I'll have to check it out some more when I get a chance.

Jerry Curl

Just got the multimeter. But I'm confused. In order to connect the meter to the posts, I'd have to disconnect the battery. So what good would trying to crank it be if it's not connected?

lionelhutz

You just touch the probes to the cable bolts. As long as you see metal you can connect to it and measure there.

hereigo

I am a novice but I think you are out of vacuum pressure and have a loose ground on your starter...

ctuinstra

The cables should be connected to the battery during the test. The reason I wanted you to touch the meter leads to the posts and not the battery cable clamps is that if there is a bad connection between the two, you don't want to pick this up on the meter. I want to make sure you are measuring only the battery and nothing else. I assume we are looking at a top post battery and not a side post. With a side post, you have no other choice.

Jerry Curl

So no disconnecting anything? Just set each one on the pos and neg and turn the key?

Jerry Curl

Side post. Terminals face the rear of the car.

ctuinstra

Yep.

Sorry about the confusion with the side posts. I was thinking about my own car and it has top posts.

Jerry Curl

Well apparently I don't know how to use a damn multimeter because touching the metal part on the cables yielded zero. And the only person I have to hold the meter to the cables is my 10 year-old son, so I had him do that while I cranked it, but it still showed zero. But who knows if he was holding it right.

This is really starting to **** me off.

AirborneSilva

Good point, I had that happen to me. I just jumper-ed the plug by the fuse box as I always start the car in neutral anyway, habit from my truck driving days.

ctuinstra

I can understand your frustration. We'll get you through this though and you will have gained some very useful knowledge.

What is the make and model of your meter so I can look it up and tell you the exact setting you should be on? It should be set to the volts-DC. It might be on the AC setting, that will give you zero.

Once you get comfortable with a meter, you'll find yourself using it often.

Jerry Curl

Yeah, I went by what the manual said, but I'm guessing that's not the same for a car battery. This is the one I bought:

ctuinstra

You should have your meter set the same as the picture is right now. Make sure red lead is in the right-most connection and the black lead is in the center. You should be able to measure the battery that way. Make sure you have a good contact with the leads and the battery post. Sometimes you have to poke and scratch around to get a good connection and accurate measurement.

Jerry Curl

When I set it to that position, the display just starts showing numbers fluctuating, and I haven't even touched a thing. Any other setting and it drops to zero.

And to verify, I need to disconnect the cables, right? Because I have no way to directly contact the posts otherwise.

lionelhutz

I can't see you getting it wrong, maybe the meter is defective. Black lead in the middle jack and red lead in the right jack. Meter set to DCV. Touch the red and black leads on the battery positive and negative terminals and it should read the battery voltage.

Jerry Curl

I guess it's defective. Here is my meter with the settings I'm supposed to use. whenever I set it to that, the display just starts showing random numbers.

Edit:
I popped the batteries out and put them back in. Seems OK now. I get a constant reading of 12.38 on the battery.

ctuinstra

There's nothing wrong with it showing some random numbers without the leads touching. It's basically electrical noise. If you notice on the meter in your photo it's displaying "mV", that means the meter has automatically switched all the way down to the most sensitive setting of millivolt scale and it's just measuring noise. Very common and nothing wrong. Once you have it connected to a actual power source it should change scales and then give you your reading.

Try removing the covers on the tips of the leads. You will need to make sure the metal leads are making good contact with the battery. Try it on a 9v battery or even a flashlight battery to test it.