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Engine Electrical

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mikelv

15+ Year Contributor
566
10
Jun 17, 2006
Columbus, Georgia
Okay, I have a problem that I just can't seem to figure out.

A little background:

I just put the whole car back together and now it has absolutely no power. Here is a list of what I did to the car.

Motor/Trans/Clutch/ect....

Battery Relocation, ECU harness clean-up


I pulled the ECU harness out of the car and made an attempt at a fuse box relocation, but decided against it, so nothing was majorly torn apart. I put the harness in the same way I took it out. Every wire and ground is accounted for an connected.

Next was the battery relocation.

I ran a power distribution block in the trunk with the batter and ran 2-gauge power wire from it into the engine compartment. I also ran a 10 gauge wire from the distro-block to the fuel pump relay. Inside the engine bay, I ran that 2 gauge wire to another distro-block which splits power to the starter, and fuse box wires.

I also ran a ground distro block in the trunk for the fuel pump and negative battery terminal. In the engine bay, I ran a distro block for the ground points on the tranny, manifold, and cross member.

Bran new batter, bran new cables, bran new alternator, starter, ect...everything is bran new.

Now the problem, absolutely no power to the ignition, starter, or anything whatsoever.

So I started with a test light.

The test light works all the way to the fuse box if I start from the battery. It lights up at the alternator fuse but that's it. There is no power to any of the fuses. No power under the dash to the steering column or ignition switch.

Also, if I jump a 12v wire from the battery, I can make whatever I touch work, starter, ignition, ect.... (although the car won't crank if I jump the starter wire, which I'm not sure if it's suppose to or not, just the starter makes noise).
Nothing on the ECU harness has 12v, and it seems I don't get anything past where power goes into the fuse box.

I guess my question is why the heck does nothing work inside the fuse box past the alternator fuse. I was trying to read the schematics from the manual without much luck. When and where do the fuses get their power?

I'm trying to eliminate and narrow down the problem, just can't really know where to go from here.


The car has been sitting outside for over a year, but the fuse box was not overly-exposed to the weather. By visual inspection, nothing looks corroded or damaged. Everything is still very clean. Just wondering if anyone had any ideas, or maybe something I'm missing.


Thanks for any help, guess I'm having a hard time explaining this one!
 
I just read the whole thread and I didn't see anywhere whether or not you had a ground wire going directly from your negative post on the battery to the starter bolt. I know it sounds stupid but it could be something that simple. You need to have a ground strap from battery to starter bolt.

Hope that helps. This makes me wary on whether or not I want to do a battery relocation. . .



Taylor
 
So I was able to get a week of vacation from work and I took the car out of storage to see if I could finally fix this problem. Trying to read back over some things that were posted and really not having any luck.

I just took some readings and did some troubleshooting that actually made sense this time to see if I did have some problems with a battery drain or short.

I disconnected the battery ground wire and connected an incandescent light bulb, in between the negative battery post and the ground battery wire. When I did so, the light did not light up at all, which indicates that there is no short or battery drain as far as I can tell.

Bran new battery from Advanced Auto Parts, tested and good to go.

Battery Voltage: 12.5v
Battery Voltage @ start-up: 10.3v
Starter Wire Voltage @ start-up: Same (10.3v)
Started Signal Wire Voltage @ Start-up: 9.7v


Battery Ground Wire to Frame Resistance: 0 ohms
Battery Ground to Starter Bolt Resistance: 0 ohms
Starter Wire to Battery: 0 ohms
Fuse Box to Positive terminal: 0 ohms


I have one question though....

When I set the digital multimeter on resistance, and used the lowest setting and it measured 0.3ohms of resistance across every wire I measured. If I recall, these cheap meters are very inaccurate measuring resistance under 1 ohm, so I even measured bran new separate wires just to see if I got the same results, and every time it was 0.3 ohms, so my assumption is that the wires are fine and it's really the inaccuracy of the meter. If someone could explain the voltage drop method, then I can try that just to make sure, but I'm pretty stumped as to what is going on still.

The only thing left I can think of is I have some problem with the clutch install that is impeding the cranking of the motor somehow. I installed a PTT twin-disc setup, so if anyone knows of some problem that could have caused this please let me know. I mean I have done plenty of clutches and this one was pretty straight forward, nothing too crazy about it.


Someone recommend a place in the South East I can just take the car....I'm about done with this thing, and I just don't have the time anymore. I work almost 16hrs a day, 6 days a week. I mean, this is the first time I've even looked at the car in over a year, just don't have the time for it anymore.
 
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