MACS Service Reports - 2016 - DEC7

Figure 9: Step 3c - Trace Each Control Circuit's Path
ECM Applies Ground on BOTH Terminal 54 & 41 = High Speed Cooling Fan
All 5 relays are now on and the fan runs on high speed.

the starter relay's solenoid output was showing 0.1
ohms to ground. That might explain the no crank
but what about the 25 amp fuse being fine? Something wasn't adding up.

Avoiding Disasters by Learning from Others

December 2016

Dave Hobbs

When something doesn't add up - STOP! There
is most likely a reason it doesn't add up. In my
case, I didn't stop. Dad's timeless advice to me in
the service bay was always this; "Quit for a while.
Walk away. Work on something else. Get a cup of
coffee." Well I never acquired the taste for coffee I
guess. On the Sonic, I became impatient, assumed
the schematic was wrong and totally forgot that a
good starter solenoid indeed has about 0.1 to 0.3
ohms of resistance between ground and its switch
terminal. What looked like a short that couldn't
be (0.1 ohms would be 120 amps of potential current draw) would have turned into around 7 amps
on that little yellow wire coming from the starter
relay as the pull in winding switches over to the
hold in winding. Had I have waited and thought it
out I would have simply checked that starter "S"
terminal's resistance to ground directly at the solenoid with the relay control wire disconnected. But
I was working in Southwest Florida in July where
it was 95 degrees in the shade and 100 % humid-

Figure 10: B.E.C. (Bussed Electrical Center) after the fire! Relay had been
removed in order to activate a circuit with power using a fused ammeter.
A simple bit of confusion on which terminal went to the load and which
was the relay's ground. 10 amp Fluke 87 meter fuse survived but the
customer's B.E.C. was not as fortunate!

ity. I was hot and miserable and just wanted to get
this car diagnosed and repaired. So what did Mr.
Impatient do next? I switched my supply of fused
B+ (fused at 10 amps through my Fluke 87 ammeter
jacks) to another terminal in the empty relay slot on
the B.E.C.

7

MACS Service Reports



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of MACS Service Reports - 2016

MACS Service Reports - 2016 - JAN1
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MACS Service Reports - 2016 - SEP1
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MACS Service Reports - 2016 - OCT1
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MACS Service Reports - 2016 - DEC1
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MACS Service Reports - 2016 - DEC7
MACS Service Reports - 2016 - DEC8
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