Bad Starter relay?

[mydejavooo]

Ok...as some of you may have seen in a previous post, I have removed an old POS alarm system from my 85 na. I made sure to have all wires hooked up, but there are 2 issues that I'm having. First...when I got the car, there were some wires routed around the starter relay, with a little toggle switch placed up front that would activate/deactivate the starter. I removed this (without thinking that there may be other issues). I went to start it today....all the lights come on, but when I turn the key...nada. I see a little voltage drop when I turn the key, but no sounds or nothing.

Secondly, there ARE 2 little wires underneath the dash that were tied into the alarm system, and I have NO IDEA where they go, or what they were hooked to. If you look under the dash, it's the junction box that has like 500 little wires coming out of it....and there are 2 wires...both light blue with white stripes. They look like they are the same wires. I've not pulled that little box down yet, but I presume that they have to go somewhere. I even tried touching the 2 wires together when cracking (I know....scary) and nothing.

I did manage to put a couple of wires on the starter relay in order to short across it, and the starter cranked but it did not start. Bear in mind that I did have it running before I pulled out the alarm system. I did find a wiring diagram page, and if I'm reading it right it looks like the starter relay wires also tie into the fuel injection and engine relays. I'm thinking that if the starter relay is bad, it might not allow the others to work either. Can ANYONE offer some suggestions here? I'm a little frustrated, and I need some moral support and guidance from somebody that has had this happen to them. I absolutely HATE wiring, so this is not helping my already deeply ingrained fear and loathing of electrical gremlins. Please, please, please....help me!!

TC

[mr220v]

The best strategy for fixing this type of thing is to simply reconnect all the like colored wires that are left running from the factory harness.

For example, that light blue pair of wires was probably one continuous wire originally. Then some piece of alarm equipment was added in between to allow the system to disable the car.

When you're fixing this, most of the wires should be the same color, which means you can probably just reconnect like colored wiring.

I had a lot of this on my 91 mr2 when I got it. An alarm system, and lots of poorly wired stereo equipment. I was able to patch it all before I got it running, but it was time consuming for sure.

It seems that alarm/stereo installers generally don't know what they are doing.

[muffinman]

The wires under the dash should go through a relay to the ignition for the alarm starter kill. If you find the relay you should be able to patch the wire back together. The ignition wire should be a heavier gauge then the other wires.

[mydejavooo]

Ok...this one was actually simpler than I had thought. I was rooting around under the dash and was looking at the clutch and neutral safety switches, when I saw that the clutch switch had a wire off of it. I made a little jumper wire and tried to start it. It fired right up!! I pulled the old switch out, used a soldering gun to take out the old solder, and reattached the wire. Turns out that the previous owner had the same issues, otherwise they would not have rigged in a starter relay override switch. Just goes to show that ONE wire can throw a monkey wrench into the whole deal. I can not believe it! I'm just glad that it was something sooooo simple to fix, and I didn't have to buy any parts for it. If anyone out there has had similar issues, look for those issues I mentioned before you just start buying relays and such. Good luck to all of you!

TC