jrmctaz

Thanks to those who responded, unfortunately I have been busy earning a living so the car had to wait until my break. Today I pulled the starter again - went to a junk yard and pulled a complete battery cable set up (+&-), a neutral safety switch and the backside of the ignition switch. I took the starter apart and cleaned it up and did some resistance checks to make sure it was in good shape. I started with the wiring harness and installed the starter - it worked? not really confident as to why but in ops checking it it starts ~90% of the time and there is a "new" clicking sound - kinda like a chattering solenoid - coming from somewhere in the lower dash region - I think I will go ahead with the safety switch but hold off on the ignition switch to see if I can pin point where the problem was. Thanks again...

I have a 93 Legacy L that has had a tricky starting routine - I would have to mess with the clutch with the key turned to the start position to find the sweet spot with the neutral safety switch - but it would start after a few attempts. Now the problem is, when you try this routine you get a couple clicks and nothing (the engine never cranks) - it appears to be a short somewhere because once the starter tries to kick the engine over, within 2 seconds the battery appears to be dead (the "door open" light is dimly lit and nothing else works). Now if it sits 15 - 20 minutes you can do it all again with the same result. Here is the list of things I have tried - New Battery, even swapped my optima from my truck - not the battery. A new starter, bench tested it - worked fine, even hooked up the electrical in the car without mounting it - worked fine - no massive power draw. I thought maybe the ignition switch - I unhooked the starter solenoid wire and went through the routine and no loss of power; reconnect it and same issue. I even disconnected the alternator (not sure why, but I did) still no joy. I have been considering trying to push start it to see if it is mechanical, seized, but that doesn't explain the massive electrical draw - it almost acts like it has some sort of thermal overload protection somewhere - the power returns when it adequately cools, but in all the threads I've read I have seen nothing quite like this. Any advise... I am running out of ideas.