no start spider - LIVES!

["David Sisson" <splankin@domain.elided>]

Hi everyone,

First, I want to thank everyone who has given advice.
My spider runs again (as of tonight) - a fairly minor (but hard
to diagnose) repair.

The problem was a bad fuel pump relay - the larger one with
the black plastic case. I determined that the fuel pump wasn't
running & traced the problem to this relay by jumping the relay's
contacts. 

I also determined that the relay was bad by (destructively) opening
it's case. It had burned out. (Visual diagnosis.)

I ordered a new relay (thanks Bruce!).

But the story dosen't end here. I got the following advice from
Dave Miller in Deltona, Florida:

> You have a bad ground inside the ECU.  It's on pin #28
> on the ECU connector but the fix is at the main relay.
>  Locate contact #85 on the relay.  Splice into either
> one of the wires that go to this contact and run it to
> a known good ground.  One of the two wires that
> connect to his terminal goes to pin #28 on the ECU and
> the other goes to pin #31 on the other relay.  You can
> actually insert your ground anywhere in this.  I
> believe the wires are black, but I've seen other
> colors too, so don't trust color.  Look for contact
> numbers and pin numbers.
> This is a very common problem with L-jet spiders and
> the factory fix, rather than replacing the ECU is to
> insert this external ground as I described.
> The problem is, when the circuit board fails at this
> point, it doesn't eliminate the ground completely but
> rather just creates a low resistance open circuit. 
> The relay needs a good zero resistance ground or it
> will open and close intermittently.  Your relay
> becomes a "Buzzer" and, of course, it doesn't last
> long as a buzzer.
> 
> Look at your wiring diagram and follow from ECU pin
> #28 and you will see what I mean.  Pins #5, #16, #17,
> and #28 are all grounds.  In fact, the first three are
> the grounds that go to the cam cover.
> 
> If you have trouble send me a note.  If it works, let me know.

His advice seemed good, as the "burning" of my relay was around
the coil, which would seem to be from it acting as a "buzzer".

Ok, so I did what he said, tapping into the wire on terminal
#31. The car wouldn't start. Tried removing the wire. 
Car sort of started (died right away). Went back and forth.
After awhile (which I'm attributing to the car having sat
for awhile) it started in a rough but steady idle. Putting
this new ground wire on and off of ground showed that it was
helping - taking it off the ground gave a rough idle & the
engine threatened to die - putting it back on & the engine
went to a smooth idle.

FWIW - I think that this should be interesting, in case you
ever have the same problem!

dave sisson
86 spider grad
rainy houston tx

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