While replacing the alternator with an Aspire one, it wont crank when turning key...

[Larry Hampton]

Belt was a little tight so I fliped it over the pulley and pulled the coil wire to get it on, turned the key to bump it and quickly off, to quick or so I thought. Turned the key again and nothing. Replaced all 3 cartridge fuses with known good ones, nothing. Replaced the relay on the washer bottle bracket, nothing. When I open the passenger door, I can hear a faint clicking of relays under the dash, but only sometimes. Have headlights.

[dalebwilson]

Larry, please don't take offense to this but what do your grounds and battery connections look like? I have seen poor connections on battery posts operate headlights but not crank engines.

[Larry Hampton]

Dale they look great. They were cleaned and post spray applied to them a couple months ago. Maybe I need to check the chassis end.

[dalebwilson]

Ok. Are the connections for the Aspire alternator the same as the Festiva?


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[Larry Hampton]

Everything plugs in...

[harpon]

Although it plugs in, you may still try to spread the male terminals very slightly apart, so that they make more certain contact with the outsides of the plugs-

that;s just a guess because I just did this on a headlamp socket on my Aspire- been having connection bug-a-boos for awhile with one or the other headlight going dim, not seem to ground, and I can take the plug and just wiggle and the light would come on and stay that way til next time

I grounded them individually for awhile and that worked for awhile

recently spliced a new female connector on the harness ends- and the stupid new socket STILL did the same thing

and I was pretty frustrated until this idea occurred to me of bending the male terminals on the light cartridge away from each other- looks like it may finally be working right, and have another new socket for the other side

meanwhile I see they've changed the whole replacement socket to fit a cartridge pre=wired. That's fine, except I still have two extra new cartridges of the old style!

The alternator pulleys are different sizes, though I think the alternators are thae same otherwise-

did you mess up something on the coil? Did you change the pulleys?

[Larry Hampton]

Didn't change pulleys or even check them. But even if there is no alternator on the car it should start, no?

[bhearts]

You're right. You could always bump the starter solenoid hot against the starter hot wire to bypass the whole thing and see if your wires will support a cranking engine

[dalebwilson]

You might try taking a 12 volt lead off the battery + and touch it to the starter solenoid. That will tell you if your starter is functional.

[tooldude]

Be aware of exactly where you make contact jumping these connectors, as the arcing will damage threads. It's better to connections in a way other than against threaded areas.

[Movin]

Have you tried jumping or swapping batteries from a running car?

[nitrofarm]

Larry Two questions-
What coil wire did you pull and then crank the starter. Was it the coil power supply or the the high voltage Secondary?
And did you have it running after the Aspire Alt swap and then noticed the belt tension? Nitro-

[zoom zoom]

Aspire pulleys are multi ribbed (micro v, 4 rib, whatever you want to call them), festys have a v rib belt. Pulleys had to have been swapped or you got something other than an aspire alternator.

I've never had to use a coil wire to jump a starter you just use a screwdriver to jump the two terminals on the starter/solenoid itself. I wonder if you fried the coil wire sending too much voltage through it? Or worse~the disty

[Larry Hampton]

I pulled the wire from the coil to the disty.

I got to thinking last night. Jumping the solenoid on the starter shouldn't work as doesn't the relay on the washer bottle bracket click to send power to the starter?

[Eaglefreek]

I pulled the wire from the coil to the disty.

I got to thinking last night. Jumping the solenoid on the starter shouldn't work as doesn't the relay on the washer bottle bracket click to send power to the starter?

I don't have a wiring diagram in front of me, but usually one side of the starter solenoid gets its power directly from the battery and the signal to energize the solenoid probably gets its power from the relay once the key is turned to start.