I started having an electrical problem immediately after having replaced my starter and reconnecting my battery. While reconnecting my battery, it shot off a spark (bigger than just the small spark for the radio, hood lamp, etc.), and now it seems that a fusible link is blown, which my main concern is what caused it to blow?

First, there is a bundle of 3 wires that merge into one connector for
the batt term on my starter's solenoid. I inspected the bundle closer and
found that each of the 3 wires have fusible links in them. One of the wires was thicker (and either dark blue or grey or faded black) which seemed to be the one with the blown link. Here are some observations, and would like to know whether what I've discovered is normal or not. Keep in mind, I am not an electronics geek, and have never really messed with any vehicle's electrical system beyond stereo systems, and ignition system (distributor, plug wires, etc.)- so I don't really know what to expect. Here goes...

1. Using a multimeter, I measured resistance between the 3-cable bundle
from the starter and the positive connector for the battery: open circuit
(infinite resistance). ==> I expected this because of the suspected fusible link being blown.

2. Measured resistance between the positive connector for the battery and
ground (case on the alternator, block, and other places of ground):
closed circuit (0.00 resistance). ==> Is this normal???

3. Measured resistance between ground and the other end of the cable
bundle for the batt term of starter: closed circuit (0.00 resistance).
==> Is this also normal???

4. Measured resistance between ground and the single cable that attatches
to the 's' terminal on the starter solenoid: open circuit (infinite
resistance).

I am 99.9% positive I hooked everything up correctly, because

a) The solenoid connecters are completely different sizes - both are washer-style connectors attatched by a nut to the solenoid, but are totally different
sizes and are not compatible with the other.

b) I am putting everything on exactly as it was when I removed the old
starter. And, yes, the starter is the right one, I compared them before
bringing the new one home and they were identical. The only difference
was that the new one has an 'r' term on the solenoid that I don't
remember seeing on the old one, but the diagram with the starter said the
'r' term was rarely used.

One last thing I did notice was that there is a bracket/shield thing that
kinda covers the knock sensor, and was really close to the plug for the knock
sensor which has a slightly exposed wire - I removed the plug and the
cover from the knock sensor before doing any of these tests. Any ideas here?

Any suggestions on where to start trouleshooting? Could it be my digital dash, I've heard of them going bad and draining batteries, but had it repaired a few years back.

Thanks for any insight!

:confused: :confused: :confused:

 

Just a thought but you might want to remove your new starter and bench check it. Perhaps it's the starter's solenoid that bad. I got a rebuilt from Delco that was bad write out of the box.

Good luck..

 

Thanks for the reply, but would a bad solenoid cause a fusible link to burn out?

 

2 & 3 are absolutely *not* normal. You are getting 0 resistance due to the short somewhere in your system.

I've never messed with starters before, but if it's possible to easily disconnect the starter leads, I would go ahead and do so. Then test #2 and #3 again. That should give you a quick start (no pun intended). It will tell you if the starter/solenoid is shorted internally or not.

Hope that helps!

 

Thanks for the reply JasonL, I will try that this weekend. At first I didn't think that would be normal, however since there are components (radio, hood lamp, clock, etc.) that have a continuous draw from the battery (closed circuit), I thought that might be the reason for the 0.00 resistence reading. Not that I don't believe you JasonL, but has anyone ever verified this reading??

Is it common for a solenoid to short bad enough to blow a fusible link? I've never heard of that happening, but then again I'm not a mechanic!

Thanks for the help!

 

I know 1 thing-a solenoid blew a fusible link in my boat! :mad


[Modified by rick lambert, 9:01 PM 3/25/2004]