I'm hoping someone has experience with this because I've tried doing a forum search and can't seem to find my issue. This happened a few times to me over the last few years, but it was intermittent. Now, the problem is consistent:

1. Battery fully charged. Horn works.
2. Turn key to "on", turn signals, radio, etc all work
3. Turn key from "on" to "start" - hear immediate click, then entire car goes electrically dead
4. If I wait, nothing ever happens i.e. no reset occurs
5. If I disconnect positive cable on battery and reconnect, car is electrically up again as if nothing happened. But if I go to start again, same thing happens and car goes dead.
6. After resetting, I can leave it for days without starting and it is fine, but if I go to start it again, bang, all dead.

I suspect that some sort of relay is the culprit here, but not sure what relay would turn everything off, but then not reset itself - unless it is de-energized by disconnecting the battery. I've tried looking at the wire diagram in the shop manual, but can't seem to find that one place where all the current goes through a single place.

Before I start hunting and do something like jump passed the starter solenoid to see if it will start, I'm hoping someone else has experience with this. I know a bulkhead connector can cause problems ( similar in Mopars!) but have trouble thinking how that could somehow be "reset" by disconnecting then reconnecting the battery. Any help appreciated. Thanks in advance, John

 

Welcome to the forum. Have someone tap on the starter when attempting to start.

 

Here's the saga:

Each time I did a testthe car died. Disconnecting the positive battery cabke and immediately reconnecting would " reset" the car.

Tested starter out of the car, worked fine, then reinstalled. Result same problem "SP"
Bypassed ignition switch SP
Disconnected coil SP
Bypassed positive battery cable SP
Hooked up auxiliary starter battery directly to starter, bingo, starter worked. At this point only thing not bypassed was negative battery cable
Neg battery cable bypassed, Result: Yipee! Who woulda thunkit? Here's why:

The battery cable was not factory but rather a 2 screw crimp the cable type. Upon disassembling, it was all carboned up at the wire to connector end at the battery neg. What must have been happening is the carbon could pass a small current, but as soon as the current spiked it would shut down. It weirdly acted like a circuit breaker! I ordered stock battery cables, but in the interim I took out my grinder and just cleaned the heck out of that connection. Worked thereafter without incident. New cables now installed.

Moral of the story: Check battery cables first!

 

The corrosion was creating a high resistance connection that would pass a small amount of current but since starters need somewhere in the neighborhood of 100-200 amps, it wouldn't pass that much as it just looked like an open circuit. Glad you found it. Perseverance paid off.