72 Satellite
Well-Known Member
Quoting my own recent post, to see if anyone else has encountered this level of nonsense while troubleshooting or upgrading their electrical. In summary, my Starter relay was hidden 6" from my front tire, under a rubber cover/shield.
The good news is I found the Starter Relay.
The bad news is I found the Starter Relay!
Started tracing and documenting the circuitry. At first, things were going fairly well, as correct color and gauge wires were following the path from the engine side bulkhead, to there intended destinations. However, as I dug deeper and started peeling back the layers of the onion, things got weird and bad real fast. I couldn't find the origin of the 12 gauge red wire that was landed on the Ignition terminal of the Starter Solenoid. Understand that the previous owner relocated the battery to the trunk, and re-routed the leads coming from the Ignition Box (Passenger Side Fender), along with all of the leads that would terminate at the firewall, through the Drivers Side wheel-well, then back into the engine compartment directly below the Power Brake Booster. Looking in the wheel-well, everything was neatly wrapped in black flex-split wire conduit, and snugly in place. I needed to track down the red Ignition lead from the starter solenoid, so began the removal of the wire covering and tape. I expected to see a splice here and there, since things were re-routed, but the more covering i removed, the more splices I began to see. I still couldn't find the solenoid lead, and the only thing left I hadn't looked at, was a square rubber patch that almost looked factory (to these untrained eyes), located right where the wires left the wheel-well area, and re-entered the engine compartment. I know some of you probably know what comes next, I certainly didn't! Suffice it to say, I'm always amazed at the lengths some people will go to. They had to spend 3 times as long doing it incorrectly vs doing it right.
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