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This is more for the help of folks that might find it in a future search. 1894 240 non turbo.
Yesterday, I made a quick stop at a grocery store, came out not 5 minutes later, and the car wouldn't start. No crank, no click, no nothin'. Fuel pump was running fine. One of the black relays under the dash board would sometimes buzz when the ignition was in the 'run' position, but not in the start position. Dash lights behaving abnormally, bright, dim, on, off, O/D light coming on in start position.
Went through, checked fuses, battery connections, even tried jumping the starter solenoid directly, all to no avail.. was just about to give up and get a tow, thinking that buzzing relay and/or the computer gave out, but got the thought of a bad ground doing odd things.. of course, the battery to chassis ground was fine, as the headlights shone brightly and all other accessories worked fine.. but on a whim, I hooked my jumper cables to the intake manifold, and to the strut mount bolts...
Sure enough, she cranked right over. Took a while to start, as I'd dreadfully flooded it, but it came back to life and seems fine.
One other oddity, the temp gauge was reading quite high immediately before this happened.. figured I was just low on coolant. There is that ground strap from one of the valve cover studs to firewall, but that's been disconnected on my car for years (I always thought it was just for AM Radio noise suppression). I hooked it back up though, and all is well with the world again (including the temp gauge)... I expect there is a more serious ground strap somewhere... I'll be looking for it, or adding one, today.
So.. time and time again, odd electrical stuff is often attributed here to bad grounds.
Believe it!
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-Matt I ♥ my ♂
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