2004 90 2s bad starter relay?

[monkeyboat]

A few months ago I thought that I had a bad ground because the starter would turn over intermittently, sometimes to get it going I had to jump the ground from the battery to the starter, I pulled the connections off the batteries and cleaned the terminals which were not bad at all, after putting everything back together, everything has worked fine for the past few months. Yesterday, it started again, this time with a clicking sound near the relay, this time the trim would not even work. Once again with me jumping the ground it worked once then it didn,t, I even tried tried to hot juump the starter, that didn't work either, then I tried the ground again and it worked, then the rest of the day stopped and sterted about 10 times with no problem, does anybody have any ideas ?
thank you in advance

[Hamfisted]

Did you try a new battery or using jumper cables from a known good battery? Really what you describe is a weak battery.


-Mike

[Ken]

monkey',
Sounds to me like you just have a poor ground connection from the battery to the starter.
Power goes to the starter via the two heavy battery cables - red and black. The black ground cable is tied directly to the starter, and the 12 volt red cable goes to the starter relay (the clicking you hear). From the relay, the 12 volts goes to the starter thru another heavy red cable.
Check the ground connection at the starter - may be poor crimp or corrosion - or you may have to replace the entire ground cable from the battery to the starter if water has somehow gotten into the insulation of the ground cable and corroded the multi-conductor cable.
Good luck [img]smile.gif[/img] ,
Ken K

[monkeyboat]

all the cables are in good shape, the batteries are less than a year old. what I would like to know is, can the relay operate intermittently?

[Ken]

monkey',
Yes, the starter relay can stick intermittently.
But from what you have described, your problem is in the ground part of the circuit. The starter relay is in the 12 volt side.
Good luck [img]smile.gif[/img] ,
Ken K