Engine not shutting down

[mazdamike]

Ok brain trust.

          My sons 85 Eagle will not shut off. Help

[carnuck]

Was anything done before this? If not, then the ignition slider broke in half. Pulling the coil horse shoe connector will shut it off without zapping you but I pull the coil wire (not near the end!) at the coil a lot. Then unhook the battery till you get a replacement switch.

If anything was done, then backtrack what was hooked up (ie: MSD box needs a diode due to this issue. Radio hooked up wrong can do it)

[IowaEagle]

If its an I-6 then suspect the starter relay (solenoid).  This does occur from time to time with this Motorcraft part.

[mazdamike]

So far we have replced the starter solenoid and ignition switch trying to fix phantom lights on the dash when the car is off. the problem started a couple weeks ago before we replaced anything, it origanally would click the starter solenoid as if the battery was dead, even if it had a full charge. When this would happen my son would take a jumper pack and hook the negative to the battery and the positive to the "s" terminal of the silonoid, this would fix the problem for a couple weeks. Recently this happened to my son and he again tried his fix, this time it didnt work, we replaced the starter solenoid thinking it was the problem, it didnt work either. After playing with the solenoid we managed to get it to engage and start the car, the only problem with it was it wouldent shut off the starter after the car was running! To get the car home we unhooked the starter cable and drove it home. We again played with the solenoid and managed to get the car to start and the starter to shut off after the car was started, now the engine wouldent shut off. In an attempt to shut the car off we took out the battery and the car magicaly still ran! We finally were able to shut the car off by choking out the carborator. Now the battery was dead, and the cab lights wont shut off.

Any ideas?

Oh ya and the back blinkers are kicking in and out randomly, we have checked the ground and it is good.

[eaglefreek]

I've heard of new solenoids being bad right out of the box. Also, I had an alternator that had a bad diode and it would cause the some lights on the dash to be dim.

[mazdamike]

Ok, so we worked on it some more using a multimeter to find out that our brand new battery cable was shot, replaced it and it fixed part of the problem. My multimeter is showing that i have constant power to my "I" terminal, is that normal? The solenoid that is on it right now is a ford part.

[eaglefreek]

There should only be power to the I terminal when trying to crank the engine. It is used to bypass the resistor to the coil so that it gets full battery voltage during starting.

[IowaEagle]

Is the actual ignition switch rod adjusted correctly.

[mazdamike]

Last night we took apart the dash and completely in hooked the ignition switch and the power to the terminal did not shut off, when we unhook the wire yellow and red wires from the solenoid the dash lights shut off, does this mean we have another bad solenoid? Could it be that we are using a ford solenoid?

[IowaEagle]

Auto our manual trans?  If auto you really should have the solenoid with the stud for the neutral safety switch.  If you just grounded that wire that MAY be an issue.

[carnuck]

I terminal in the solenoid has a short. With the wire off of it, the car should start and shut off like normal.

[mazdamike]

We finally got another solenoid and put it in, this one had the hook up for the neutral safety switch. the new solenoid works perfectly, the car shuts off! Thanks everyone for the help!

[eaglefreek]

Wow, there's been a few bad new solenoids here lately. It's amazing how many bad new parts are being sent out nowadays.

[maddog]

Wow, there's been a few bad new solenoids here lately. It's amazing how many bad new parts are being sent out nowadays.

this is what happens when everything is made in china.

[eaglefreek]

Wow, there's been a few bad new solenoids here lately. It's amazing how many bad new parts are being sent out nowadays.

this is what happens when everything is made in china.

It's not just a China thing. A friend of a friend works quality control for a major home A/C manufacturer. He was telling us recently that stuff that he flags as not meeting standards, is installed in HVAC systems and sent out. It's what happen when bean counters with no regard for turning out a quality product are put in charge.  A while back, I worked as a warranty tech for one of the biggest window and door companies. I gave them recommendations on what needed to be done to eliminate many of the warranty calls. All it would take is a little more training of the guys on the assembly line and possibly slowing down the line just a little bit. It wasn't an option to them. They would rather  let a defective product show up in a store then try to fix the problem. I've been away for a few years and recently talked to some guys that work there. They sped up the line and the quality has gone down even more. I've driven 4 hours one way to replace a $1.50 piece of weatherstrip that was cut a 1/4" too short.