aaronbuley
Well-Known Member
- aaronbuley Well-Known Member
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What To Do If The Engine Won't Start The First Time
aaronbuley
Well-Known Member
- aaronbuley Well-Known Member
Are you talking about this purple wire?
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aaronbuley
Well-Known Member
- aaronbuley Well-Known Member
It’s working. 
Fired up.
Fired up.
aaronbuley
Well-Known Member
- aaronbuley Well-Known Member
Yessir! The headlight ground wire wasn’t making good contact. Corrected that and BOOM!
My trouble now is that the engine dies after about 2 seconds. But at least it cranks!!!
- Lonny Administrator
You will need to find the big light blue wire that went to your radiator fan and attach it to the yellow connector. It extends the radiator fan wire to the front of the car.
askiles
Goblin Guru
- askiles Goblin Guru
That doesn’t sounds correct. They usually have the ground lugs to bolt down in the tunnel. You may want to check that. The grounded wires are all at the brake pedal mount, the tunnel, and then in the rear at the ground lug on the driver’s side transmission mount. I’m glad I did my own wiring so I knew where they all were. Give Lonny a call and see, maybe they extended the ground lugs out of the tunnel.
aaronbuley
Well-Known Member
- aaronbuley Well-Known Member
There’s definitely enough fuel.
I primed the pump. Wondering is there a good way to make sure there’s no air in the fuel line?
I’m wondering if I don’t have a vacuum leak causing the issue.
- Lonny Administrator
I no longer put a ground in the tunnel. It is too hard to check if the engine doesn't crank. I moved some of them back near the engine and rest up to the pedal box.
grantcropper
Active Member
- grantcropper Active Member
WOWZERS. To think a headlight ground could be the cause of an engine not cranking. This is exactly the reason why I am so excited about this build process, learning stuff like this about engines is so fascinating and helpful. Last night we got to the part where you empty the fuel by jumping the relay and instead of putting the fuel into gas cans, we just put the fuel straight into our daily driver. Its stuff like that I would have never known you could do had we not done this project, such cool stuff. Don't worry, I tasted the fuel to make sure it hadn't gone bad.
Waterdriver
Goblin Guru
- Waterdriver Goblin Guru
Congratulations!
I would be concerned though, if connecting the headlight ground let you start the car. You still have a ground issue. It's because of the headlight ground that you have confirmed it's a ground issue.
All the cars electrical grounding will be through that one wire, which is not a heavy enough guage. You dont want things to start melting or failing.
Disconnect your battery positive terminal and the headlight ground. Use an Ohm meter to check continuity between your other ground points and a known good ground preferably the negative terminal on the battery. There should be no resistance.
I had a similar issue. Car started once, then died. Checked continuity at all grounds and read zero resistance. Still would'nt crank and dash lights not working.
I disconnected the pedal box ground, cleaned better down to bare steel with a die grinder, reconnected and tested. Cranked, started and all dash lights working again.
I had a ground before, just a poor one.
I then recleaned all other grounds more thoroughly and no issues since.
I would be concerned though, if connecting the headlight ground let you start the car. You still have a ground issue. It's because of the headlight ground that you have confirmed it's a ground issue.
All the cars electrical grounding will be through that one wire, which is not a heavy enough guage. You dont want things to start melting or failing.
Disconnect your battery positive terminal and the headlight ground. Use an Ohm meter to check continuity between your other ground points and a known good ground preferably the negative terminal on the battery. There should be no resistance.
I had a similar issue. Car started once, then died. Checked continuity at all grounds and read zero resistance. Still would'nt crank and dash lights not working.
I disconnected the pedal box ground, cleaned better down to bare steel with a die grinder, reconnected and tested. Cranked, started and all dash lights working again.
I had a ground before, just a poor one.
I then recleaned all other grounds more thoroughly and no issues since.
ctuinstra
Goblin Guru
- ctuinstra Goblin Guru
I believe the reason it's working with the ground on the headlight harness is because that ground provides the ground for relays in the fusebox as well as the headlights, that's all. I don't believe everything else is grounding back through it, at least it shouldn't. I totally understand what you are saying and it would be a huge concern, but I believe it's only providing a ground to the relays which he didn't have before and the relays weren't working.
I don't want to come across as saying "I told you so", but this is the reason I created this thread in the first place. There are so many cases of people having trouble getting the engine to start and too many end up being poor grounds. The Cobalt donors were prone to poor grounding as it is. I was fortunate enough to experience this first hand with Tiffany's car.
Mayor West
Goblin Guru
- Mayor West Goblin Guru
I just found this thread, Chad... looking over it now for help with my issues. Weird to think that headlights could do this, does that apply to build goblins for non-yet-disassembled donors too?
askiles
Goblin Guru
- askiles Goblin Guru
It's not the "headlights" that are doing it, it is a ground wire on the headlight harness that grounds the relays and what not in the fuse box. Hence why if it is not grounded, the whole fuse box is unable to function properly. This applies to Goblins and Cobalts.
