Don't you just hate throwing money at a problem only to find out it was something else?
Silver's been moping in the garage since last fall when on it's last ride of the season the alternator went south and I had trouble even getting home. The starter has been iffy for some time, meaning sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. I just plain didn't have time to put into fixing it until recently.
I ran to the pull-it yard last wednesday and lucked out when I found a Tracker the same year as silver semi-hidden far away from the other Track/kicks in the yard. Thanks to it's odd location in the yard, it was still almost intact!
Not only that, but someone else had already unbolted the alternator, but couldn't figure out how to get it up out of the engine compartment. Two bolts later and the charcoal canister was out of the way and the alternator was in my hand. It tested out fine at Autozone and into Silver it went.
Got it all done and tried the key and I got the dreaded click with no movement.
I was out of time until today, so back to the pull-it yard I went and right back to the hidden Tracker and 10 minutes later I had the starter in my hand. I had it tested at Autozone and it came back fine, so into Silver it went. Got it all done and tried the key and voila, she started right up. Not bad for sitting for 6 months or so. I used my air tank to partially fill up the flat tire and headed to the service station to fill it up the rest of the way.
After airing up all 4 tires, I hopped in to head out and got the dreaded click again.
After a few minutes of fiddling around it fired up and I headed back to try to fix the problem. I figured that maybe it had fallen victim to the dreaded clicky starter problem common among some Zuks, so I quickly fabbed up a relay harness and hooked it up following the clicky starter fix directions explained elsewhere in the forum(actually I didn't need the directions, I knew how to hook up the relay without them from years of automotive wiring
). I tested the starter with a jumper wire direct from the battery to the relay and it turned over right away, so I hopped in and tried the key with my fingers crossed. CLICK CLICK CLICK... grrr....
I noticed while messing with the key that in certain positions it would try to kick over, but if I moved the key at all, it would stop trying to move. A-HA! Bad ignition switch!
Over the last couple years, Silver has gone through 4 or 5 junkyard starters and while some of them might have been bad, it was probably the ignition switch the whole time!
Oh well, at least I never spent more than $15 for a starter and I have 2 spares that are probably good...
I did a quick re-wire to bypass the "start" position of the key with a switch and crossed my fingers again and gave it a try. Success!
The starter now engages reliably and with authority. The key is still needed to unlock the wheel and turn on the ignition, the switch just engages the starter. Next trip to the parts store and I will find a nicer switch to mount permanent-like, maybe one of those covered toggles like fighter jets use so I can't bump it accidentally...
Anyway, Silver is alive and well and patiently waiting for new shoes(I am planning on giving him back the TSL's like he had before...) Sorry for the book and thanks for your time to muddle through it. I just had to rant a little...
