No crank/no start

[toybreaker]

Assuming no surprises, I think this issue is wrapped up.

... that's a very dangerous and bold assumption to make, sir ...

May I recommend you park on a hill henceforth? :rofl2:

 

[yubh8tn]

I'm not sure if you came to this conclusion already or not, mk2davis, but when you're replacing the starter you may as well follow their suggestions and rebuild / repair the small harness that goes with it.

 

[mk2davis]

You are right. The wiring sub harness needed and received some attention. The trans ground was missing about 3 inches of insulation, the positive lead off the back of the starter was missing about an inch of insulation. Both got some shrink tubing and electrical tape over. A reman'ed starter will be here by 3 tomorrow. I'll retest the starter with and without the harness and repair and replace what's needed. The harness tested good with a DMM, but I want to test it with high load.

Until then, I'll be driving the NSX.

 

[toybreaker]

The truth changed.

^^^ lets go with that ^^^

The vexxing thing about inermittent problems is their inter~mit~a~cal~a~tiv~ity

I've gotten my ass kicked so many times by electrical problems, I never assume it's fixed until I've started it a hundred an fifty two times, ... hot ... cold ... late for work ... got a hot date ... girlfriends parents went outta town ... you know, real world gotta go situations that stress the system beyond a few test spins off the car.

... The automotive gods will humble those with the hubris to say "that's fixed"

 

[toybreaker]

After 190k and 25 years the unmolested factory B+ terminal had wiggled loose similar to what you're describing and the heat from the poor connection melted some of the solenoid plastic and left it down in the wiring making for a poor connection despite tightening the wires back up.

This is an excellent post!

It highlights one of the most important facets of electrical failures.

... bad connections lead to increased resistance, ... increased resistance leads to heat ... increased heat leads to more resistance ... which leads to more heat ... pretty soon shite gets melty ...

 

[mk2davis]

So far, so good! The starter is in, the connections are cleaned, and they are tight. it started right up, now time will tell if it stays that way.

For future people, the hardest part of it is getting the starter in and out. This maybe an indicator that I need to clean up my engine bay a bit. Just be patient and use a flashlight to see what is hanging up; I had a vacuum line that caught on a stud and this was problematic until I figured it out.