Ark's City Goblin #187 (2008 SS/TC donor)

Ark :D

Goblin Guru
DS and JB, thanks for the info. I finally found a way to use a bit from my original donor! I cut up the brake booster hose and used it with a check valve to join the brass fitting on the MAF tube to the little hose on the valve cover.

FWIW a lot of your posts have been helpful to me, keep the ramblings going!
That's good to know, lol!
 

Briann1177

Goblin Guru
It's a little weird, having the longest build thread on this forum, and is making me a little self-conscious. =O
The IT guy in me is wondering how much storage, CPU, memory, bandwidth, and most importantly how much extra Adam has to pay for all of this. :)
 

Torchandregdoc

Goblin Guru
I've been in my own little world the last week working through my own build issues and today I noticed the explosion on this thread. The amount of free help you guys offer is unbelievable.

Way to go Ark. The car is looking awesome. Congrats on the start. Wish I had a clue why your key system is messed up. You are the epidemy of tenacity. I know I've learned from your build and I'm sure many many more will also.
 

Ark :D

Goblin Guru
Yeah, pretty much 10+ pages in a single week, trying to troubleshoot my crank problem. The community is amazing. Lonny even rang me to talk about it. Best community, best support, hands down.

That being said, has anyone else had to resize holes in various brackets through their build?? The little metal bracket that bolts to the alternator and supports the MAF tube with a hose clamp, the **** hole is too small. That's irritating because I don't have a vice! Argh!
 

JBINTX

Goblin Guru
Yeah, pretty much 10+ pages in a single week, trying to troubleshoot my crank problem. The community is amazing. Lonny even rang me to talk about it. Best community, best support, hands down.

That being said, has anyone else had to resize holes in various brackets through their build?? The little metal bracket that bolts to the alternator and supports the MAF tube with a hose clamp, the **** hole is too small. That's irritating because I don't have a vice! Argh!
sounds like a crowd funding opportunity there.......... :)
The first Goblin gathering we are at together, I will be pushing you to the front of the line in honor, my friend!!!! :)
 

Ark :D

Goblin Guru
Good people of the forum, I inch closer and closer to resolution on my no-crank-at-key condition.

Dale E had me run another test. He had me ground one of the control pins in the crank relay and test crank with key. Jackpot! So now we know it is definitely a ground issue and not a voltage issue, a start logic issue, or any issue with engine codes, incorrect sensors, etc.

20200625_220113.jpg

Only issue is, I have family obligations in a little while and I can't get gross and sweaty in my garage today (not until this evening anyway!!). So, can anyone tell me for sure, where the BLUE pin is supposed to get its ground from? If I recall correctly from earlier in the thread, it's supposed to get its ground from the ECM, pins 1, 2, and 4. I've tested ground on those pins multiple times in the last week and they are definitely grounded. I suppose this could still be a logic issue if the ECM is supposed to toggle ground to those pins, but I suspect I have a bad connection in my fuse box, or I am just missing a ground somewhere (I've checked this a bunch of times ... good ground to engine strap, headlight harness ground, a ground to the engine block on the underside of the intake manifold behind the alternator).

 

ToxicBill

Well-Known Member
Good people of the forum, I inch closer and closer to resolution on my no-crank-at-key condition.

Dale E had me run another test. He had me ground one of the control pins in the crank relay and test crank with key. Jackpot! So now we know it is definitely a ground issue and not a voltage issue, a start logic issue, or any issue with engine codes, incorrect sensors, etc.

View attachment 15170

Only issue is, I have family obligations in a little while and I can't get gross and sweaty in my garage today (not until this evening anyway!!). So, can anyone tell me for sure, where the BLUE pin is supposed to get its ground from? If I recall correctly from earlier in the thread, it's supposed to get its ground from the ECM, pins 1, 2, and 4. I've tested ground on those pins multiple times in the last week and they are definitely grounded. I suppose this could still be a logic issue if the ECM is supposed to toggle ground to those pins, but I suspect I have a bad connection in my fuse box, or I am just missing a ground somewhere (I've checked this a bunch of times ... good ground to engine strap, headlight harness ground, a ground to the engine block on the underside of the intake manifold behind the alternator).

Hell yeah man!!! My thought is that you just rig up a new ground for that pin and be done. Sure, it might be a bit cleaner to find why it's not grounded now . . . But easier to ground it yourself.
 

Ark :D

Goblin Guru
I've already sourced a new fuse box (plastic on mine is rough on the inside and the outside is cracked from the accident that totaled the donor), should be here this week. So we'll see what happens when I get that in. If it doesn't change anything, I'll just run my own ground for now, and troubleshoot later, once the car is mobile and/or when I get a proper scan tool talking to the ECM.
 

Briann1177

Goblin Guru
I was going way back in your thread and saw your original fuse box was broken and you got a new fuse box from an LS model? Then I think Lonny mentioned you can swap the guts out. Did you do that?
 

Ark :D

Goblin Guru
I was going way back in your thread and saw your original fuse box was broken and you got a new fuse box from an LS model? Then I think Lonny mentioned you can swap the guts out. Did you do that?
Yep, I did ... which is part of what has me thinking. I did make sure the donor ran before I bought it, but I DID transplant the innards of the fuse box way back when, and have never actually seen a key start using this fuse box.
 

Briann1177

Goblin Guru
Another quick thought. I noticed the metal case on the ECM is grounded. Whether or not it ties back into the internal grounds I have no idea. Just for fun, you could try grounding out the case and see if that makes a difference in cranking. I'm 99% sure it won't help, but you never know.
 

Briann1177

Goblin Guru
Somewhere I got tripped up into thinking the ECM switches the ground. I reviewed the schematics again, and this does NOT seem to be the case. That explains why I was seeing 0 ohms the blue pin regardless of clutch and key position.

If you're not getting a ground on the blue pin in the fuse box, then that's definitely a problem.

15176
20200628_154051.jpg
 
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Briann1177

Goblin Guru
Going back to what Dale had you do.

You basically bypassed the internal wiring of the fuse box from the blue circled pin --> fuse box X1/B12 --> ground.

As long as pins 1, 2, 4 on the ECM are grounded and the blue circled pin in your fusebox is grounded, it should crank. I thought you already said you verified your ECM pins were grounded, but the blue circled pin wasn't?

Another interesting thing is I looked up the original locations of G103 and G105, and one of those was under the left headlamp. I know you said you verified the headlight harness ground was connected so I'm kind of at a loss.
 

Ark :D

Goblin Guru
Won't be able to check anything tonight most likely. At this point, I think I am just going to wait until I have the new fuse box, since I'm going to swap it in, regardless of anything else since my existing one is pretty beat up.

Correct, ECM X2/1, 2, and 4 are grounded, while blue pin on CRNK relay is not.
 

Briann1177

Goblin Guru
When you replace your fuse box, I'd physically lay hands on the ground wire that runs from X1/B12 and see where the other end goes. Maybe you snipped it off?

It could also still be a connection issue on the female side of the plug that snaps into the bottom of the fuse box. I had two issues with that.
 

Ark :D

Goblin Guru
Things to avoid after a day of being forced to do things you don't like doing:

1) Mothers-in-law
2) Chihuahuas
3) Dominator headlight clips

Seriously, who tf designed these bastards?
 

Ark :D

Goblin Guru
BIG UPDATE!

My fuse box arrived today. So, over my lunch hour, I took the original one apart again. I compared pins, and unfortunately, even from a 2008 SS donor (in theory), not every single pin in the fuse box matched. There were two that differed, so I didn't want to just throw the new fuse box in. I knew there was one other test I wanted to do while the fuse box was apart: test ground to fuse box X1/B12 (engine harness, ground wire, black/white stripe).

It tested good to ground.

So I checked continuity between that pin on the underside of the fuse box, and the grounded control pin on the top of the fuse box (which was NOT grounded before). Tested good for continuity. I was perplexed, because I was almost sure the problem was in the fuse box.

I looked closely at the ONLY POSSIBLE PROBLEM that still remained: the big black rectangular engine/fuse box connector itself. The only thing that could possibly still be wrong, in my mind, was that the pin on the underside of the fuse box was not making contact with the pin inside the connector.

BAM, that was the problem. The pin inside the connector was ever-so-slightly different that the others. There's a small piece of metal in there that's supposed to pinch the pin from the fuse box to make good contact. It was bent in a little bit, probably just enough to screw up the contact. I corrected that and now it starts with the key. I had never so much as touched that connector, or even the engine harness at all, except to remove it from the engine for cleaning, so I have no idea how it got bent.

I don't consider the fuse box a completely-wasted purchase though. The plastic on mine was gnarly from the accident and the red cap for the positive pole was missing like 90% of the fuse boxes I've seen out there. So I gutted the new one, gutted the existing one, swapped the existing one's guts into the new one's shell, threw all the fuses back in, re-assembled everything, and test-started with the key. Good to go.

Since I know you guys love pics, I took just one.

20200701_130718.jpg

Thanks again to this forum, and to Briann1177 in particular, for sticking with me and putting up with me through this ordeal!
 
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Torchandregdoc

Goblin Guru
I need you helping me. You did all that during lunch, that's a days job for me. I wish I could blame it on the chair, but I think I'm just slow.

Congrats on the fix.
 
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