no crank situation

[m_dudey]

so I'm trying to make sure there's oil pressure before firing her up. at first, I thought I can just hand crank it until i see oil coming out from the oil filter housing. but that didn't work. someone mentioned that hand cranking it won't spin it fast enough to get the oil to suck up into the pump. below link as a reference for priming the oil pump.

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=102841&highlight=prime+pump

so now I'm trying to crank it with the starter. I think I have everything hooked up correctly but it did not crank! the starter does not appear to even click. I just want to make sure I have my connnections correct.

I have the correct white relay in the main engine harness relay, correct brown relay in the O2 sensor relay (not necessary for crank), no relay at the moment in the fuel pump relay (not needed for crank).

I have ground straps on both sides of the engine mounting arm to the chassis.

question is, does the DME need to be plugged in, in order for me to crank the engine?



two brown wires are engine harness grounds that mount to the shock tower?




all these wires are hooked up correctly?



you can see in this picture that the positive wire for the engine harness does indeed lead to a red cable. it looks brown at the B+ terminal connection. I guess when the red gets old, the color turns brown.



I'm using the e30 starter. I have my two small wires correct? the 2 big lugs go to the main post and are from the e30 starter cable and from the alternator




I have the correct white relay in the main engine harness relay, correct brown relay in the O2 sensor relay (not necessary for crank), no relay at the moment in the fuel pump relay (not needed for crank). the white relay clicks when I switch power on if I have my DME plugged in and does not click when switched on if DME is not connected.

I have ground straps on both sides of the engine mounting arm to the chassis.

question is, does the DME need to be plugged in, in order for me to crank the engine?

[asubimmer]

That is NOT a ground! Its hot. The e36 has power over there too. I remove those wires on all my swaps as they aren't needed on the e30. I use the original e30 power cable.

[MattM]

it actually is, i traced it back, it grounds out around the block(E34), also, mine is connected the same way and my car runs perfectly. Also, a factory wouldnt put brown wire on a positive, standard simple color code facts tell you that those 2 browns are ground...

[m_dudey]

hmm. my harness actually looked like this before




I just separated the diagnostics port to move it to the driver's side. and everyone says the other 2 wires coming out of the diagnostic cable, red one is harness power and the brown one is harness ground.

that's where those 2 brown wires came from. not correct?

[MattM]

if you follow the wires they go into those big cap things and have a bunch of smaller brown wires that come out that go to all the sensors and stuff on the engines...

When i did mine there was one extra hot wire(red wire) that would power the fusebox in the E34, thats the only wire i chopped from the harness. the rest looks simular to yours.

[m_dudey]

if you follow the wires they go into those big cap things and have a bunch of smaller brown wires that come out that go to all the sensors and stuff on the engines...

When i did mine there was one extra hot wire that would power the fusebox in the E34, thats the only wire i chopped from the harness. the rest looks simular to yours.

yes, the brown wire goes back to caps that connect all the smaller brown wires together on the harness. and the red power harness power wire goes back to caps that connect all the smaller red wires together.

my harness is from an e36, so I don't have that extra hot wire to the fusebox.

[MattM]

try putting 12 volt to pin 18 on the C101, that should crank the engine. Also make sure your other 2 main grounds are clean, shiny metal on shiny metal, also make sure the connections at the battery are clean. More often then not its a ground issue. Also, make sure you have all the nuts on at the starter before you try to crank..

[asubimmer]

Also, a factory wouldnt put brown wire on a positive, standard simple color code facts tell you that those 2 browns are ground...

you mean like the brown POSITIVE wire in our trunk for the battery?

and that is a ground, I looked at it too fast last night but I was referring to this one,



And this is the other side (the unmarked red ones),

[m_dudey]

any ideas about having to plug the DME in for the starter to crank or not?

[asubimmer]

yeah you need your DME plugged in

[m_dudey]

so i removed my starter to see if it may be stuck.

-DME plugged in and grounded
-wires to the starter hooked up the way it was before
-grounded the starter housing to chassis
-white main relay in

still no luck. I know the starter worked before cuz we used it to crank my friend's engine for compression test.

[m_dudey]

okay, I think I finally figured out the problem. I pulled the starter and applied power to it externally. the motor itself works but when I try to engage the gear through the solenoid, nothing happens but a big sparks. Seems like the solenoid is stuck.

no problem, I'll just swap the solenoid from my e36 starter over. when I take apart the e30 starter, I can see why it is stuck. the solenoid cylinder was dry of grease and a little rust started to form on the cyliner wall. so I cleaned it up with some PB Blaster, polished it up with some croqus cloth, and applied some fresh grease. put it all back together, hook it up to the engine wiring and tested before putting it back onto the tranny. and it works!

and to answer some of my questions in the first post. the wiring for the starter is correct.

and you do NOT need the DME to be plugged in to the engine harness in order for the starter to crank!

[e30s50dan]

yea I was at advance auto with 3 starters till I found a good one!

[m_dudey]

put the starter back into the car, hooked up the wiring. cranked over for 5 secs, still oil pressure light still on. tried it a second time, same thing. then I added a quart of oil in the oil filter housing like suggested in the oil pump priming thread linked in the first post. cranked and got oil pressure!