Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

Testing with a 5W bulb in a test light won't tell you what's happening when you're trying to ram several hundred amps of cranking current through the starting curcuit. You need to unbolt the terminals of the earth lead and physically check / clean them. I've seen this problem before with poor earths. They run low current fine, but increase the current and they play up. The fact that it starts properly when you're using a different earth (and possibly positive terminal) hints that your problem lies with poor contact.

this is where i am leaning. i've been hooking the spare battery up under the bonnet. i'll try hooking it directly to the battery in the boot. when i have the key in and turned to on position everything works in the car except for windows. so maybe youre right, it will draw small amounts of power but not enough for everything. but once i turn the car on with spare battery, and unhook the spare battery (from under bonnet) the windows work fine. i dunno, doesnt really make sense to me. we'll see.

Perform all the tests i said. checking just the battery voltage will tell you next to nothing apart from if the battery has dropped a cell or more

Crank and check voltage (get another person to check it) and tell us what you get

A stuffed alternater will not stop the car from starting on a fresh battery

Has your stater been out recently?

i have no idea as to car history. bought it 7 days ago... ran fine for a week no issues whatsoever. there is a lot of aftermarket wiring running around this demon. with alarm, turbo timer, sound system... gauges... and a few other little bits, there is a lot of wires and fuses thrown in everywhere, i am not too sure where what goes to.

as for checking cranking voltage i would have, but there was nobody around to check for me this morning.

Check connections on starter mate ....

a starter problem just doesnt make sense though. the starter starts the car just fine when i have jumper cables hooked up to the positive post under the bonnet. i doubt its a starter issue. car starts fine when its getting power. if there were starter connection issues, then it shouldnt start regardless of whether i hook power up under bonnet or boot.

thanks for all the replies guys. i'll keep you informed on what i find when i get home this evening. if nothing, then its off to the shop tomorrow morning. between school and work, i dont have much spare time to muck around, as much as i'd like to.

I would check some voltages at both the battery terminals and the terminals in the engine bay,you may have a problem with the alternate charge getting to your battery and your battery voltage getting to the front of the car

unfortunately i didnt have a second hand to help out with cranking the car while i check battery volts.

however, i did hook up the spare battery to the battery in the boot and try to jump that way. got nothing. but when i hook up to posts under the bonnet she fires up.

so i am betting on some kind of electrical short/problem between battery and alternator somewhere, and this problem is also affecting the ignition circuit.

i checked, tightened and cleaned my earth connections in the rear, as well as the ones under the bonnet (brushed them up with a wire brush, and reattached them) but everything seemed good to begin with. so the problem is electrical. i just have no idea where it might be.

Yeah i was leaning towards that. Best bet is to follow the cables (not sure if they run underneath the car or in the car) and check for shorts or breaks

Not real helpful but seems like your on the right track

i'm still looking to find the bad connection. but i also decided to check alternator on the posts under the bonnet, before i only checked it on the battery in the boot.

it seems that under the bonnet my alternator is charging 15.2 volts... overcharging... but none of that is going back to battery, and nothing from the battery is getting to the front... so i continue to look for my short... but at least i dont necessarily need a new alternator. we'll see if its still overcharging once everything is fixed.

SOLVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

thanks for all the input and ideas from everyone.

ended up finding a bad connection under the bonnet. i didn't trace it all the way around to see where it went. just went as far as i had to. as this car has a lot of aftermarket wiring floating around, and i didnt want to bother trying to decipher it all, i'll do that in the future if i have to.

everything seems to be good. she fired right up when i repaired the earth wire, the earth itself was corroded, and the wire was rubbed through in one place. but that's what you find in a 17 year old car.

checked the charge at the battery in the boot, she is charging 14.1 volts... slightly less than my desired 14.2-4, but what're you going to do. i'll just write it off as a slight inaccuracy in my voltmeter.

cheers all

As long as its around 14V its fine. Mine charges at 14.0V sometimes and 14.5V at other times (Have the voltage displayed on my turbo timer)

Should be all good, glad to see you solved it. Thought it might be something simple like that after you said it worked fine when powered from the front. Amazing how something so small can have such a large effect :)

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • From there, it is really just test and assemble. Plug the adapter cables from the unit into the back of the screen, then the other side to the car harness. Don't forget all the other plugs too! Run the cables behind the unit and screw it back into place (4 screws) and you should now have 3 cables to run from the top screen to the android unit. I ran them along the DS of the other AV units in the gap between their backets and the console, and used some corrugated tubing on the sharp edges of the bracket so the wires were safe. Plug the centre console and lower screen in temporarily and turn the car to ACC, the AV should fire up as normal. Hold the back button for 3 sec and Android should appear on the top screen. You need to set the input to Aux for audio (more on that later). I put the unit under the AC duct in the centre console, with the wifi antenna on top of the AC duct near the shifter, the bluetooth antenna on the AC duct under the centre console The GPS unit on top of the DS to AC duct; they all seem to work OK there are are out of the way. Neat cable routing is a pain. For the drive recorder I mounted it near the rear view mirror and run the cable in the headlining, across the a pillar and then down the inside of the a pillar seal to the DS lower dash. From there it goes across and to one USB input for the unit. The second USB input is attached to the ECUtec OBD dongle and the 3rd goes to the USB bulkhead connected I added in the centre console. This is how the centre console looks "tidied" up Note I didn't install the provided speaker, didn't use the 2.5mm IPod in line or the piggyback loom for the Ipod or change any DIP switches; they seem to only be required if you need to use the Ipod input rather than the AUX input. That's it, install done, I'll follow up with a separate post on how the unit works, but in summary it retains all factory functions and inputs (so I still use my phone to the car for calls), reverse still works like factory etc.
    • Place the new daughterboard in the case and mount it using the 3 small black rivets provided, and reconnect the 3 factory ribbon cables to the new board Then, use the 3 piggyback cables from the daughterboard into the factory board on top (there are stand offs in the case to keep them apart. and remember to reconnect the antenna and rear cover fan wires. 1 screw to hold the motherboard in place. Before closing the case, make a hole in the sticker covering a hole in the case and run the cable for the android unit into the plug there. The video forgot this step, so did I, so will you probably. Then redo the 4 screws on back, 2 each top and bottom, 3 each side and put the 2 brackets back on.....all ready to go and not that tricky really.      
    • Onto the android unit. You need to remove the top screen because there is a daughterboard to put inside the case. Each side vent pops out from clips; start at the bottom and carefully remove upwards (use a trim remover tool to avoid breaking anything). Then the lower screen and controls come out, 4 screws, a couple of clips (including 3 flimsy ones at the top) and 3 plugs on the rear. Then the upper screen, 4 screws and a bunch of plugs and she is out. From there, remove the mounting brackets (2 screws each), 4 screws on the rear, 2 screws top and bottom and 3 screws holding in the small plates on each side. When you remove the back cover (tight fit), watch out for the power cable for the fan, I removed it so I could put the back aside. The mainboard is held in by 1 screw in the middle, 1 aerial at the top and 3 ribbon cables. If you've ever done any laptop stuff the ribbon cables are OK to work with, just pop up the retainer and they slide out. If you are not familiar just grab a 12 year old from an iphone factory, they will know how it works The case should now look like this:
    • Switching the console was tricky. First there were 6 screws to remove, and also the little adapter loom and its screws had to come out. Also don't forget to remove the 2 screws holding the central locking receiver. Then there are 4 clips on either side....these were very tight in this case and needed careful persuading with a long flat screw driver....some force required but not enough to break them...this was probably the fiddliest part of the whole job. In my case I needed both the wiring loom and the central locking receiver module to swap across to the new one. That was it for the console, so "assembly is the reverse of disassembly"
    • But first....while I was there, I also swapped across the centre console box for the other style where the AV inputs don't intrude into the (very limited !) space.  Part# was 96926-4GA0A, 284H3-4GA0B, 284H3-4GA0A. (I've already swapped the top 12v socket for a USB bulkhead in this pic, it fit the hole without modification:) Comparison of the 2: Basically to do the console you need to remove the DS and PS side console trim (they slide up and back, held in by clips only) Then remove the back half of the console top trim with the cupholders, pops up, all clips again but be careful at the front as it is pretty flimsy. Then slide the shifter boot down, remove the spring clip, loose it forever somewhere in the car the pull the shift knob off. Remove the tiny plastic piece on DS near "P" and use something thin and long (most screwdrivers won't fit) to push down the interlock and put the shifter down in D for space. There is one screw at the front, then the shifter surround and ashtray lift up. There are 3 or 4 plugs underneath and it is off. Next is the rear cover of the centre console; you need to open the console lid, pop off the trim covering the lid hinge and undo the 2rd screw from the driver's side (the rest all need to come out later so you can do them all now and remove the lid) Then the rear cover unclips (6 clips), start at the top with a trim tool pulling backwards. Once it is off there are 2 screws facing rearwards to remove (need a short phillips for these) and you are done with the rear of the console. There are 4 plugs at the A/V box to unclip Then there are 2 screws at the front of the console, and 2 clips (pull up and back) and the console will come out.
×
×
  • Create New...