starting fault

Hi everyone i have a 1995 4.6 p38 and on sat morning had a starting fault,i turned the key and it worked fine in all positions apart from pos 3,the relay clicked but no start, tried a few times same thing so left it an hour went back and it started straight away.All fine until monday went to petrol station got there but would not start again so left till tuesday tried again after a few attempts it started so got home now will not start at all .I have swopped the ignition relay, battery is good,on checking the ignition switch wiring at the conector plug there are four wires a black white wire which is live until the key is in pos 3 then nothing and a black red which is live until pos 3 then nothing,a thick black wire not live in any pos,and a smaller black pink not live in any position so when the key is in crank pos none of the wires are live ???? any help would be much appreciated.

Check the fuse box for signs/smells of burning.

Hi thanks for getting back to me to be honest most of the relays have a slight smell of burning are they normal change over relays or have they got a diode or a resistor in them many thanks

iano61 said:

Hi thanks for getting back to me to be honest most of the relays have a slight smell of burning are they normal change over relays or have they got a diode or a resistor in them many thanks

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You don't need relays, you need a new fuse box, common failure. Make sure you get the right one for your car.

Hi many thanks will let you the out come

It's pretty easy to remove the fuse board, and open it up to inspect the boards inside. There are 2 boards soldered together. It's possible to shine a torch between them to look for burning. But if it's bad it will be obvious once the plastic cover is opened.
Take a photo of the fuse board, so you can see where to replace the fuses and relays. There are plugs which connect into the bottom of the fuse board, these are all keyed and will only go back to the proper socket.
There are also a number of lugged cables held on by nuts, these have a clever system of keys on the lugs, so again re building is fool proof.
There are different types of fuse board.

The fuse board is reasonably expensive, but it can be repaired if your handy with a soldering iron, it!s just 2 circuit boards and a few diodes.

Here is a link, sorry from a different forum.
Fuse Box Repairs

The ignition switch does not have a live feed going to it. The feed is actually a ground feed, so when you try and crank the engine the Becm receives ground signal from the ignition switch and not 12volts.
When you say the relay clicks are you referring to the ones in the becm or in the under bonnet fuse box?. The becm clicks are relays dropping out during crank, so ignore those.
If you can reproduce the non crank, then hold the starter motor relay and make sure that it always clicks when you crank the engine. If it does then the problem is one of the following, the relay, the fuse box, wiring to starter motor, starter motor or engine earthing.
When you try to crank the engine(while you still have the non crank condition) measure the voltage across the battery terminals, if it drops by more than ¼ volt, this suggests that there is not a problem on the control side and the issue is on the heavy current side of things ie starter motor solenoid, starter motor, engine earthing or power cable to starter motor.
If you can repeat the non crank issue, its not too difficult to work out where the problem is with a volt meter.

I had a similar problem a few years back and it was a combination of two things one was the cable to the starter was corroded inside and second was the fuse board guess the cable to the starter is the cheapest at about 6 quid from a motor factors

Many thanks for all the reply's i will try them today and let you know the result .