Hi all, after a long year away from the Mavs I am back and ready to work on them. Well, I went down to fire up the Grabber and get it moving again. Dang thing won't start. In fact it won't ever crank. Just a little clicking, and that's it. The battery is fully charged, and starts up my other car perfectly fine. The battery terminals and cables are clean, and have good contacts. The grounds are all tight and clean, and the cable on the starter is tight as well. I thought maybe it was the starter relay, so I swapped it with another that worked fine in the car it came from, and nothing.... I am thinking iginition switch possibly, but I really don't know. Maybe the starter is junk... Just looking for opinions/tips. Another funny thing is that when the fully charged battery is in there, and I turn on the parking lights it is fine, but when I flip on the headlights, the parking lights go out, and then gradually come back on a few seconds later. Would a bad headlight switch cause these starting problems? I know a lot of stuff is run through the headlight switch, but before I go in replacing things, I want to make sure I'm not replacing things I don't need to. Thanks! -Corbin It's a completely stock electrical/starting/ignition system.
check the battery connections and the ground connections from the motor to the body sounds like a corrosion problem.could be a bad solenoid also
You can tell if it's the ignition switch or switch wiring by shorting the starter solenoid battery terminal to the closest small terminal with a screw driver. If it turns over then, the problem is your switch or wiring. If it still doesn't turn over the problem is the solenoid, starter, or ground cable.
This definitely sounds like a bad ground somewhere. This is why I personally hate electrical, you'll have to double check all your grounds to make sure they are all secure and clean. Also, you may want to check the whole wiring harness if this doesn't rectify the problem, I've seen nasty little (and sometimes big) messes created by rodents, especially if the car was parked for a while. Hope this helps and good luck.
Thanks for the replies everyone. I will double check and reclean all the grounds tomorrow. Hopefully this solves the problem. I only need it to start a couple more times with this engine before the V8 goes in, so hopefully it's only the grounds, and not something bigger. -Corbin
Well, it's running again - sounds like there are some loose bolts flying through the cylinders, but it's running. It's sounded like that since I bought it, lol. No, I don't drive it on the road, but it would be fun to see how long it lasts like that....... Anyway, I cleaned all the connections and grounds, and replaced the battery cables and now I am good to go. Damn thing is that I cleaned them and swapped cables before, but nothin'... who knows, but it's working now. Thanks all. -Corbin
