PennyP

1993 LS400. 284k miles. Car was a daily driver in 2016. Previous owner was driving at very low speed when the ball joint snapped. Parked the car out of frustration/fear and it sat for a year. Gave it to friends who installed new ball joint and battery and drove it home (about 2 miles). 2nd owner then let it sit and the battery died. Attempted to replace battery and could not get lights or anything to come on. They blamed it on the antitheft and gave up. Yesterday I loaded the car on a trailer and brought it to my house. We have put a new battery in and completed the antitheft reset. The security light stays solid for 30 seconds after locking the doors, then blinks until unlocked at the door with the key. Then goes out. There are no key fobs and the remote **** under the dash is turned off. When you turn the key on all lights, radio, etc function properly. When you turn the key to start nothing happens. No click, no dimming of the headlights. The only notable change is that the radio shuts off until the key is released back into the on position. Today we redid the antitheft reset eight thousand times, checked all the fuses with a mutlimeter (driver side kick plate and under the hood), visually inspected the relays and checked for sounds, double checked battery voltage and cussed. A lot. Tomorrow's plans start with checking the neutral safety switch, then bypassing the starter circuit. Anyone have any other ideas or things to check before we declare the starter bad? That project is an absolute worst case scenario. Also, is there a sure fire way to know that the antitheft reset was successful?

dicer

Sounds like your doing the correct stuff. I would look for where the solenoid terminal wire from the starter goes. Well actually first thing of course is fuses, check them.
Check grounds, check the out put from the ignition switch on the start terminal, and the neutral safety switch like you said. It sounds like there is no power to the starter solenoid so anything to do with that circuit is suspect. If you can find the connection to that solenoid wire you could momentarily jump it and see if the solenoid fires off. And also you can check for power from everything I mentioned above. So I guess first would be find that connection and look for power when you turn the switch to start, and if not any power then shift a bunch of times in and out of neutral, and try the start switch. If you have power then do the jumper deal.

Moarpower

Mine did the same thing so i disabled the anti theft. Check that and check the starter as mentioned. Seems weird that a start would just die. They usually struggle first.

sha4000

iTrader: (1)

My starter just died with no warning. Luckily I was parked at home.