Alright so I'm stumped. I was installing a switch for some neon lights in my car and grounded them. The lights popped and my car shut off. I disconnected all the wires and tried starting my car and now it wont start at all. Theres no noise no clicking so my starter seems fine. I am able to have my brights on but they dim a tiny bit when trying to start car. Had it jumped but still no start. Checked the ignition feed fuse as well as the fuses under the hood and there all fine. I havent taken the starter out to test but i cant see why that would be the problem being i was driving it literally a half hour beforehand. If you have any ideas please post. I have a 96 neon 2.0 4 cyl. dohc with about 160,000 miles. Help needed asap

 

you checked all Fuse Under the Hood and Inside the car? you have a test light? Or just use you Neon Light as a test light.
You really dont have to bench test a starter, unplug the Starter solenoid wire, and stick a Test light in, crank the vehicle and see if you are getting power to it. If you got power to it, then u have a bad starter. If you don't get any power to it while cranking, you might have to back track what u did.

Where did you tap into for powering the Neon Light? trace that wire. you probably overloaded that circuit and pop a fuse.

 

I just tapped the ground to the outside of the ignition switch since it was the closest to me and it was metal. I jumped the starter but all it does is spin and wont engage the flywheel. Idk if thats normal or not. I think i might have screwed the ignition switch up but Im trying to figure out how to just put a push button start in and just hook it up to the starter solenoid but am having troubles figuring that out. Help would be mostly appreciated since its my only car and i dont have the money to bring it in

 

The power was coming from a 12v constant in the fuse box and i just momentarily tapped the ground wire on the casing around the ignition switch since it was metal not knowing anything like this would happen. But all fuses check out ok

 

I got it goin!! It ended up being the ignition wire. The previous owner must have hotwired the vehicle at one point because with all of the wires i was moving around the ignition wire that had been spliced came undone. So thankfully that was all. My starter not engaging was because the ignition wire wasnt connected so the signal was reaching the solenoid to engage the bendix gear.