Starter Relay Problems

I am having a tough time with my Starter Relay on my 73 CJ5 (258 I6). It is mounted on the Passanger side Wheel well in the engine compartment and I have had to replace it 4 times now in the last 5 months. This has occured 3 times before I replaced all the wiring with a Painless Kit and once since I have. Amyone experience the same thing? I am thinking this may be an EMP or EMF problem that is not discharging properly. Has anyone put a rectifier diode in on thier relay. I know this is standard practice in High Amp DC Electronics, but haven't seen it in cars much.

 

You shouldn't need a diode. what part of the relay is failing, the contacts or the coil? If its the coil (no click when key is turned) it could be caused by a high voltage problem, a chattering problem due to a loose connection or moisture. If it's a contact problem (a click is heard but the starter does not energize) it could be caused by a defective starter motor or any other reason the starter would draw excessive current.

 

Some thing esle that happened to me was that the battery was losing its charge showed ok but cranking amps not there. I changed cables starters, relay still would not send the voltage nessary to roll the starter. I could jump from the battery and the starter would turn bot when going into and outof the relay there was just enough resistance that it would not work. New battery and all was well. Just something to think about

 

I had similar problems with my '74. I cured it by wiring a good ground to the solenoid. I used a 4ga. wire (probably overkill) to the mouting ear of the solenoid and liberal amounts of dielectric grease on all mating surfaces. I jumpered from this ground to the ignition and voltage regulator because I wanted to always have a good ground. I used a 10ga wire for these. You could test to see if its a grounding prob by using jumper cables between the mounting ear to -ve post on your bat. I also checked all the wiring from the ignition switch to the sol. It turned out that the switch also had a bad ground so I grounded it too. So far no probs starting at 19F. Good luck.

Karl

P.S. One last thing, I also had a faulty volt reg. so I swapped it out too.

 

Great info, I think I found the problem per your posts. I checked the relay and had no ground. I ran a ground like suggested and that hopefully will resolve the problem.

 

Any time I come across some sort of wierd electrical problem, I look for grounding problems.