bikedave99

So, the wife and I packed our gear on Friday and drove out to a favorite secluded camp spot of ours:


Heres another shot of our 88 XtraCab fun, just because I can:


Throughout the course of the evening I had to drive back to the highway a number of times to pickup and drop off friends who were just staying for supper. Didn't have any issues all evening. Oh, also, loving the 50/90 watt AutoPal H4 conversion headlights and the dual 100watt KC Daylighter Spotlights! Talk about lighting the way! I probably will need to upgrade the alternator soon, too much fun adding lights and accessories.
Anyway, back to the meat and potatoes, the only thing that gave me pause on all the back and forth journeys was this:



But, having been on this road a number of times, I was fairly confident that it was not too deep, so I forged on through this and one other submerged section of the road a total of 6 times on the trip. Here is how deep it was, not too bad:



As we are leaving we just make it through the water, and there is one of these in the road:



Actually a calf, escaped from the fenced pasture alongside the road. It was pretty scared, so instead of chasing it along the road till we got to highway, I just shut off the truck and we waited till it found its way back through the fence.
Go to start the truck and get a click, just a click. Click...Click...CLICK,CLICK,CLICK! Ok, breathe, no big deal, had this problem on the civic and the camry before. No biggy. Get out the tire iron and tap the starter, chances are my solenoid contacts are going out. Tap, tap, tap... Click, click, click. Hmmm... I feel the starter relay as the ignition is hitting and it is clicking. I check the solenoid trigger wire on the starter and it is on tight, I have had it loosen on me and give me crappy starts. I just replaced my batter to starter, battery to engine block, and battery to truck frame cables so I know that is all good. But just for good measure, I use the jumper cables to positive batter and the positive lug on the starter. Still not joy. When we let it all cool down for about an hour, it cranked very slowly but wouldn't fire. Then would just click. So, I then disconnected the solenoid trigger wire from the starter, hooked in a jumper wire, turned the ignition on, and touched the wire to the positive terminal on the battery. Voila! Nice fast crank! And once it had expelled all of the fuel from the cold start injectors multiple squirts, it fired and drove home like a champ.

So, I had some extra solenoid contacts lying around so I figured it would be worth it to just pull the starter and clean it all out and replace the contacts since I didn't know when it had been done. Pulled it all, cleaned it out, replaced contacts, and tested it. The solenoid, yanked the plunger when it was supposed to and the motor turned on command. Back in with it! And.... click click click.... So... get out the voltmeter, and check the solenoid trigger, it shows it is getting 12V when the key it turned to start, but it won't engage the starter. Once again, I shorted the solenoid to the battery positive and it cranked nice. So.... is my relay bad? I just printed off the FSM page for testing it and I will do that tonight. Just my thoughts so far, and hopefully a nugget of information for someone else stuck in the woods with a clicking starter. I'll update this evening.

bikedave99

Thanks for all the thoughtful responses! Ha ha, well, spent more time trouble shooting last night. Pulled the starter relay apart just for fun to see what it looked like. It was all clean and shiny and activating just fine. Then, once again, I checked the voltage on the solenoid trigger wire just for a fun with it unhooked. I got a nice 12v. BUT.... when I plug it into the solenoid and crank it, I get like 5v. I went back to the relay and checked the wiring from the relay to the starter. It checked out, so the issue is apparently some bad wiring in the power supply line going to the relay. I will hopefully dig it out today or tomorrow. Anyone, know where that wire is routed. Big, black 12V supply wire going through the relay to the starter solenoid.

bikedave99

You guys are a verbose group aren't you! Well, I didn't have the wiring diagram at home while I was working on this but I have it now and I am seeing something strange. It looks like the power for the starter relay and the solenoid come from the ignition. This seems kinda weird to me and like it is defeating the purpose of the relay but maybe it is due to the fact that the system is working with a number of other switches in the circuit like the clutch pedal switch and the clutch cancel switch. Anyway, here is the diagram with what I understand to be the path of current flowing from the battery to the ignition to the relay to the solenoid:



4Crawler confirmed this on his site, way down at the bottom of this page: http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/CheapTricks/Starter.shtml

So, I will do like he says and check to make sure my clutch and clutch cancel switch are working properly. It looks like these switches provide the ground for the relays trigger side. So actually, it looks like if those switches weren't working then the relay would not trip at all, and it is so they are not a problem. Sorry guys, just talking this out, apparently my ignition switch isn't passing current very well, or I have bad wiring between the ignition and my relay. Will update when fixed! Any comment appreciated!

dropzone

iTrader: (6)

seems like you probably found your own answer, good research on your part.

I would think the water has something to do with it.
side note: on that deep water--repack your front wheel bearings/hubs and change your diff oi (have to on front anyway when you check your bearings), unless you extended your breathers i suspect the gear oil is floating on the some h2o

bikedave99

Thanks for the comment and title fix ocdrop. Yeah, I feel like it is related to the water but now that it really seems to just be a bad wire somewhere that doesn't make much sense. Oh well, now the joy of tracing that wire back. What a pain. I guess its that or just use it to run a relay... might fail again though. Might as well chase it. I do have a diff breather extension tube on my diffs so that shouldn't have been a problem. However, I do need to clean out and regrease my hubs for certain. I have the new gaskets sitting around, just want to get it rolling again first.

bikedave99

Well, after running innumerable tests, everything is currently appearing to check out, which sucks! So, in frustration I just used the solenoid trigger wire to run a relay to shoot the current directly from the battery to the solenoid. I put a 30amp fuse in line and it blew it after a few seconds of cranking, does this sound excessive?
When I pulled apart and cleaned up the starter I noticed that a big gasket was missing and had probably let some water into the starter as I was fording the puddle. I guess something could have shorted in there so that it now draws too much current? Hmmm...