Hi all, I'm troubleshooting my brothers car for him. 1997 honda accord ex, 4cyl, automatic tran. He pulled it into driveway and next day it would not crank over but the lights and radio work. I hooked up jumper cables from my GMC Denali and still nothing. Only one little spark when I hooked up the cables. I could never get the cables to spark after that. Voltage at his battery with the jumper cables hooked up was good at 13.4volts dc.

I pulled the connector(negative side, the other connector looked like it was bolted on) off of the starter selenoid and tested the voltage at the starter selenoid and it was at 13.4 volts(jumper cables tsill hooked up and denali running). I had him turn the key at that point and the voltage dropped to zero or near zero.

It can't be the starter or selenoid because because they were not hooked up. It does sound like it is shorting out somewhere when the key is turned. Does this vehicle have a pcm or relay somewhere?

He needs his vehicle for his two part time jobs, one of which is working for Meals on Wheels of MD managing(only $11hr) and delivery food to disabled people who can't get out to get food by themselves. I trully appreciate in advance to anyone who can offer advice.

Thanks
Rob

 

I am confused a bit by your testing. There are only two wires, the large red wire from the + battery cable and a blk/wht wire. That blk/wht wire is not a ground wire, it is the signal wire. It gets battery voltage when you try to start the car too.

I have two questions. What wire did you disconnect? And where did you hook up the red and black leads on your volt meter?

 

I disconnected the smaller black wire which was a push on type connector. I put the black test lead from my digital multimeter to the black wire. I touched the red lead from the meter to the red cable that was still bolted to the seleniod. the meter read -13.4volts(negative 13.4volts only 12.4 when I disconnected the jumper cables). It should have been a positve voltage reading not negative, unless I had the leads reversed at the meter. I had my the turn the ignition key and the voltage droped to zero.


Voltage(13.4v) was present on the wires before he turned the key which didn't seem right to me.

I will retest and double check everything tomorrow. I have a remote starter switch I can connect to the selenoid to test the starter but I forgot how to hook it up.

Thanks
Rob

 

The way you tested isn't quite right.

The blk/wht wire gets a 12V signal to start the car. You would use the red meter lead on the blk/wht wire. The black meter lead to ground (any bare metal in the car). I use a valve cover bolt or the neg battery post as ground.

The zero volt reading you have makes sense, because the signal wire and the + wire would have the same battery voltage, so the meter would read zero. The meter reads the difference in voltage.

It sounds like you are having a problem with the starter.

 

Thanks for the replies. I found a you tube video and at 16:45 into the video it shows how to test the cables and starter, selenoid.

All test were good except one. With the remote trigger switch hooked up, one meter lead connected to the negative battery terminal and the other meter lead touching the metal end cap of the starter, the meter was not supposed to show no more than .2v when I pushed in the remote switch. Instead the meter reading was 10.5v.

I am going to tap on the starter with the remote switch hooked up and also jump out between the selenoid trigger connection and the positve battery to see if it will crank over. It looks to me to be the sarter/selenoid. Another video below on how to replace the starter/selenoid and mentions tools needed to do the job.


Thanks for helping

 

We replaced the starter and selenoid and that was the problem. It still wouldn't start right away because it sat for about 1-1/2 weeks on a slight incline uphill and wasn't getting fuel at first. I think my brother had to pump the gas peddle twice to get it started.