badlx87

Ok, yesterday I installed an amp in my car and a sub. I wired the amp right, grounded it, ran the rem wire, power to the positive cable. My car was working just fine on accesory, but when I got to try to start it, It just clicked. The click came from the left side of the firewall. I thought the battery was dead so I tried jumping it. This did nothing, because the battery wasn't dead. So I swapped batterys with my brothers mustang. Accesory worked fine again, but went to turn it on and click. Clicked in same spot obviously. I Unhooked the power cable to the amp from the battery and the rem cable from the amp, and ground wire as well. I Put my battery back in my car, no accesory, no click, absolutely no power anywhere. The click only occured from each battery one, no matter how many time I tried to start, accesory only worked twice with each battery as well. Until my car sat over night, it clicked trying to start it this morning and that was the end of that. No fuses were blown, I checked 3 times lol.

Idk where to start from where I'm at now. Is there a relay somwhere that needs replaced? I would be so appreciative of any info guys, this is my daily driver. Thanks so much in advance

19stang88

try hitting the starter with something

mattdel

Hitting the starter is an absolute last resort. 9 times out of 10, you successfully free up whatever may be sticking, but you also break the internals of the starter, making it more prone to failure, and needing replacement sooner.

The click on the fender is the starter solenoid(relay). It clicks when either
A.) the starter is frozen(thus the posted above suggestion)
B.) the ground for the relay is bad.
C.) the power incoming from the battery isn't supplying enough amperage(bad battery, cable)

Also, the remote wire for the amp should not be hard wired to the battery. This will cause a very large draw, and kill the battery in a matter of hours. You should have a single blue wire coming out of any aftermarket stereo, with a big piece of tape on it labeled "REMOTE". This is one way.
Another way is to hard wire a 2 direction switch(On/Off) directly to the battery, and the other end of it goes to the remote port on the amp. I did this on my Explorer, with a push button NOS style button.

The advantage to wiring the remote wire to a switch, is so you can turn off the BOOM BOOM when you want to, such as McDonalds drive through, late night driving through small neighborhoods, etc etc.

badlx87

Ok, I'll try that as soon as I get home, I'm praying that works. I was hoping you'd reply mattdel, you know your wiring very well. I'll let you know how it goes.

badlx87

Mattdel, I forgot to add in my last post that my battery is new practically(4 months old) and postive cable was purchased with battery. So I'm positive it has to be the ground for the relay. So how do I fix this? And my other question is, does my instaLlling this system have anything to do with my car doing this, or did it somehow surface a problem quicker? This whole thing has thrown me for a loop. If I get it figured out I will for sure run a toggle switch or button along the rem wire like you said.

mattdel

This is what your starter solenoid should look like.


The ground for the solenoid is actually provided by the backing plate. Make sure the bolt holes behind it are clean and rust free, and that the area behind the solenoid is stable and not falling apart(rust), and that there is no corrosion in the mass of cables bolted up to the post pictured on the right.

19stang88

just a question. How do you start the car with the solenoid?

badlx87

problem solved! It turns out it was the positive battery cable, which was practically new. I pulled off the cable to sand behind the solenoid, sanded the body and solenoid plate, did the same to all the little conectors to the solenoid. went to start my car, had a dome light so was excited, but then it clicked. Then I went to disconnect the positive cable again, and the connector fell off the cable. I don't know how my car started everytime with a bad, new cable but it did. I'm glad its a few dollar fix, I was frustrated like no other for 2 days. It felt so good to fire my stang up, I missed it lol. Thanks for giving me a starting point to diagnose guys.

mattdel

Glad to hear it was a simple fix.