drgon

Okay, so some of you may remember that I bought a 85 944 awhile back with a "cracked head". Well that turned out to be a blown oil cooler gasket. Well we fixed that. So we thought. Turns out there was a pin hole somewhere in the oil cooler. So we bought one that had been pressure tested and confirmed working. So we installed that, all new vacuum vines, new rollers, new belts, hatch struts, shift boot, all sorts of new crap.

So I woke up at the crak-O-10am today and proceeded to get my dad and brother to come help me put the finishing touches on the car today.

-power steering rack
-belts/front of the engine stuff
-radiator/fan
-sway bar

Everything went fine...and oddly enough there wasn't much weeping and nashing of teeth when putting the PS rack in. well, 11 hours later everythings back together and everything works......except one. Unfortunately I think I have angered the Porsche Gods for owning a BMW first instead of a Porsche....

So the only thing thats keeping the car from running is a ground wire *somewhere* from the fuel relay. I figured out the relay and its good but when I do a continuity check from ground to the number 1 slot on the relay board, I get nothing. So a ground somewhere is bad. So tomorrow after church we will begin the search for that little bugger. Bad grounds are like the Osama Bin Laden of car wiring. If anyone has had this sort of problem lemme know any tricks you have for fixing it before I turn into this >


its %99.9999999999999999999999999999999 complete

ButtSled

This one wire was not fully seated in the socket for the DME/Pump relay. Caused me YEARS of consternation. Good luck.


Dean

Houston

drgon

Okay so its not that ground wire after all. So my next question is, what sensor in the engine bay would have to be unplugged for the fuel pump to not engage ?

Techno Duck

Have you tried jumping the fuel pump, meaning take the relay out and using a pair of jumper wires in its place to be absolutley sure its not the DME relay.

http://www.clarks-garage.com/shop-manual/fuel-05.htm

Are you also sure the fuse hasnt blown?

Honestly i cant think of any reason the fuel pump is not getting power other than a problem with the DME relay.

drgon

My dad has allready check and rechecked all that. The relay is fine, we've tested mine and his from his car and they are both functional. I have jumped the fuel relay from 30 to 87b and the pump starts right up. So the pump and relay are good, and also the wires going from the relay socket to the dme pins are good. Fuse is good, though the contacts were a bit dirty so I cleaned them up as well as the contacts at the box. The wires going into the back of the relay board are all good and fitted into it.

Would it be possible to try out another dme, or would that be ill advised ?

Techno Duck

If you jumped the fuel pump and it works, that means your pump works and your relay does not.

drgon

So even though we've tried two seperate relays that would still be mean theyre both bad ? Thats a little odd.

Charlie

The best I recall a few years ago I was working on an 83 944 with similar problems and the it turned out to be a burned contact in the ignition switch. It seems like the car would turn over but the fuel pump would not run because of the bad contact.

SidViscous

Ignition switch is a good place to look.

But the second connection for the ground on an early car is behind the fuse panel there is a multi spade connector that is round attached to the firewall.

But the ignition switch is a good place to look. The way the wiring goes in is a real pain and easy to pinch something.

drgon

Okay, so Im at a loss. Dad hasnt checked the ignition yet *but* we did the relay testing according to clarks test, and also did the emergency startup using the jumping procedure from clarks as well, which consists of 87 to 87 to 30 and it started up within 5 seconds and ran absolutely fine. Can that still mean its a problem in the ignition ? Or would that mean that somewhere in the dash there is a bad ground.

Charlie

Pull the DME relay and turn the ignition switch to the "run" position. Check and see if you have voltage at terminal 86. If not then it very likely is the ignition switch. Clarks garage has a some trouble shooting on this.

drgon

Okay, sorry for all these questions. Dad just did a bunch of electrical testing and "the pin at 85b on the dme relay socket is not getting a ground from pin 20 on the dme unit." Meanwhile if this makes any sense to you guys im going to go read up on clarks garage troubleshooting guides...