My 97 is down and i just replaced all the battery cables and i hooked everything up and its wrong. something started smoking really bad so i disconnected everything again. is there a diagram for the starter and batterys anyone has?? i really need one to finish this..
What was smoking? A wire or a component? Where is the smoker?
If it is the box on the firewall behind the air filter, the PCM, your problem could be serious.
If it was just a wire that goes to the starter or between the batteries, you might be lucky enough to just have a short.
Are you sure you didn't put the connectors on backwards on one battery? If so, you would short them out and I suspect that the heavy gauge battery cables (or a smaller ground cable) could definitely start smoking.
where does the smaller wire from the starter go? i thought it was connected with the main positive on the battery but when i touch the wire with any power the engine starts to crank..
That would be the solenoid wire, it is more or less a huge relay mounted on the starter. When it gets 12 volts, the contacts close and the starter gets current.
I don't know where it goes specifically, but I can look at my 94 and also my 94 service manual if you like. It will likely go wherever it went before changing the wires
From looking at my truck, it seems as though that little wire goes to the grey connector just inboard and beneath the fuse box in the engine bay. I'll go scan the page with the wiring diagram
If it is wired the same as a 94 (which I am not sure of) there is a relay in the fuse box under the hood that controls that.
You could just put that to a push start button, but that wire also needs to the "latch" wire of the fuel solenoid so that when you crank the engine it pulls up on the rod.
Under the hood, find the fuel shutoff solenoid. Look at its position, then go and turn the key to the "start" position and see if it pulled up. If so, your start system is probably working and probably the best place to hook that wire up is wherever you cut the old one off
Ok, I looked in the wiring diagrams for a while longer and I think I figured out the fuel solenoid "latch" deal. On the firewall there should be a big relay mounted at the very top/front of the firewall. At the bottom, there should be a little brown wire coming out of it. If you cut that and put 12v to the relay side of it, the relay should click over and pull up the solenoid. Don't hold it too long, because it draws too much current to operate for long periods of time.
Anyway, to hook up that start button, you want to find an ignition on source of 12v and put it to one side of the switch. Then, run a wire from the other side of the button to the little starter wire and splice the brown wire into it somewhere.
That way, when you go to crank it, the same voltage that operates the starter solenoid will pull up the rod in the fuel shutoff solenoid.
If you are going to go to that much trouble, you may as well just find the wire coming out of the steering column that is hot when the key is in the start position.
Sounds like the best option would just be to keep it the way it was designed unless you want to make your truck haywired. I find that taking the time and doing the research to properly repair something tends to pay off in the long run.
Hey, the easiest way to do this in the short run would be to turn the key to "run," go and pull up the solenoid, then touch the little starter wire to the battery + and there ya go!
thank you for your input. this truck is pissing me off so i am calling it a night. i want to keep it stock and on the key so i will just try to find the hot wire tomorrow.
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