REMOTE STARTER RELAY (1 of 4)
I experienced three incidents with the starter that led to this modification.
The first was on a drive home from the Pomona swap meet. I stopped to get some chow at a shopping center in Santa Ana. It was hot that day, in the 90s. I got my eats, moved the truck to a shady spot, ate my lunch, went to start the truck, and…nothing. I crawled underneath thinking I’d lost a starter connection, then fiddled with the neutral switch and wiring on the steering column in the cab. About half an hour, 45 minutes went by, still nothing. Then, lo and behold, it started.
When I got home, I figured it was most likely a dirty connection at the neutral switch, so I cleaned it up and everything worked fine until the second incident.
The second incident was similar, although I don’t recall the air temperature being too hot, maybe 80ish or so. On a drive back to Carlsbad from San Pedro, I stopped at the view point at the side of I5 in Pendleton. When I went to start the truck, again, nothing. It was getting dark and I was with my gf, fortunately she found someone willing to drive us home. When I got home, I called S&R Towing in Carlsbad and they brought the truck home for $140. In the morning, it started right up.
This time I took out the neutral switch (still a suspect in my mind) and found that it was out of adjustment (Service Manual Electrical-Body and Chassis 12-7, Neutral Safety Switch Replacement). I cleaned and adjusted it and put it back in and everything was good until incident three. I also started thinking about the fact that the insulation around the terminal on the purple wire at the starter was gone and several strands had broken away. It made sense that heat would increase the resistance enough at this point to prevent the solenoid from pulling in. So I added this to my list of suspects.
The blue line to the left is the where the switch was, it should be at the black line as shown here.
The third incident occurred at the Brothers meet in Anaheim. I sat idling for 40 minutes or so in the line to get in. I parked where the event dude designated, but the guy in the truck adjacent to me objected to the closeness. I went to start the truck to move over a bit, and, …nothing. By this time I was certain that it was a heat soak problem, and at the end of the day after cooling down, it started right up.
After this incident I spent some time evaluating the best route to take. I looked long and hard at ministarters, but I couldn’t justify the expense given that I hadn’t pinned the problem to the starter itself. I had considered installing a remote starter relay in the past so I could more easily hook up a switch to bump the motor. Access to the stock starter terminals is difficult and too close for comfort for me to a hot engine block and exhaust pipe. Also, my battery cables needed replacing, there was abandoned wiring flopping around (for the long gone points style distributor) and the battery tray had been hacked up by a PO.
Old battery tray
I checked battery specific gravity and it was fine. I also followed the Service Manual procedure for checking excessive resistance in the starting circuit (Engine-Electrical 6Y-41). I found high readings at the battery cables.