98 Neon Sport
I have a can of worms I need help with please.
Sunday my friend put a new valve cover seal on. In order to work on it he had to unplug the wire harness & move the fuse box to the side a bit to allow working space. Did the work needed & completed that project. That evening we drove to the store just fine. Went to start it & it was like to power but the ac blower worked & the radio had power to it. A few cranks later it started with no issues. The remainder of the evening no issues, started every time.
Monday cranked right up, went to store came out and would not start again, same issue. This time I noticed the positive wire to my batter (brand new) was hanging on by one wire. I got that reconnected correctly and it cranked. That evening went to start the car, would not start. So I went to the fuse box to check the fuses, the starter fuse (was a silver 30amp) was so hot it burnt the palm of my hand. I pulled it & it looked good to the eye but should NEVER had been that hot esp when the car had not been running at all. Then I pulled the starter relay and 2 out of 5 prongs were blackened (tarnished looking). I put them back in the fuse box & started the car. It started so I went to shut it off, key in off position and key removed & the car was stuck in cranking mode and running, IT WOULD NOT SHUT OFF. So I disconnected the battery. So I went and replaced both the 30amp fuse and the starter relay, connected the battery & it started like it should.
Tuesday it cranked right up & ran normal till mid way threw my day. Back to the ac blower coming on & power to radio but will not start. I pulled the new 30 amp stuck a 40amp in & tried to start the car, popped the 40amp. Ok now I was thinking, the new started I replaced 30days ago went bad? Had the car towed to friends house & his mechanic friend who did the starter work last month took the starter off, got another new one & installed it.
Wednesday, We went to start it & still same thing, ac blower & radio had power & that was it. He removed the new starter relay took the cover off & it was stuck, so he opened it a bit so it could work again, plugged it in & it started right up. Went to church came out & would not start again! This time it was trying to crank but something would not catch to allow it to run. I noticed a fast tick tick tick sound coming from the fuse panel inside the car or driver side. It was a headlight relay. Removed that, disconnected the batter & left it for the evening.
Thursday, bought brand new ignition switch, had it installed, same thing, would crank but not catch and stay running. Exchanged that for a new cam sensor as the one in there was covered in oil & thought maybe that was it. Nope doing same thing. Pushed the car to auto part store & had computer hooked up but no codes appeared as there was no power going to the dash cluster. Showed the man what was happening when we tried to start it & he said this car is known for timing belt. Cranked it again & it started! Drove it to a friends place & let it run, Shut it off, started it, shut it off, started it, did this several times. Needless to say it began to have purpilish smoke coming from the rear of car so I shut it off. No headlight relay as I removed it the night before as it was making a clicking sound. So with the car in off position key removed, when I pulled the switch to turn the headlights on I not only had headlights THE CAR WAS TRYING TO START!!!
I understand this is probably an entire can of worms going on at the same time BUT I did not have any of these issues PRIOR to unplugging the wire harness & simply moving the fuse box to the side when they did the valve cover seal!!!
ANY ideas what I should look for at this point! I'm thinking wiring somewhere??
Thank you for taking the time to read this,
MsFixIt (single mother of 2 young boys needs her car to run again)

 

[quote=msfixit;2862515]98 Neon Sport
I have a can of worms I need help with please.
Sunday my friend put a new valve cover seal on. In order to work on it he had to unplug the wire harness & move the fuse box to the side a bit to allow working space. Did the work needed & completed that project. That



well for one he did more work then he needed to there is nothing you need to "move" to take a valve cover off u unbolt the coil pack on top of the cover and pull the wires , remove vacum lines from cover and unbolt the cover it comes right off with on unpluging the wire harness so in doing so he must have caused a short in a wire somewhere or pluged something in wrong

 

If your burning stuff up you either have a weak connection (prolly a ground) or you have a short. I would start by checking all connections to make sure they are correct, clean, and tight. Included the wires at the starter, ground and positive. Next make sure all fuses are good, and in the correct location. I would be curious if the wiring coming from the PDC is melted from getting hot and shorting out on the wires. And smokey is dead on. You don't need to move or unhook wiring when you do a valve cover gasket. Something went wrong and hes trying to cover it up. Its actually a pretty bad lie.

 

agreed, neons are known for their electrical issues. its possible that the wiring harness coming out of the back of the PCM/PDC may have been damaged when he was dorking with it. check to see if it is cut, melted, loose, etc.

 

I had those two plugs under the fuse box rattle loose on me while driving down a bumpy road and noticed that they could potentially be reversed if you don't pay attention while pushing them back in. If a switch other than the ignition is turning over the engine, then there is a short across that fuse or relay, probably caused by incorrect plugging in of wires, but could also be caused by two wires with worn sheaths touching somewhere.
Double check all the wires and plugs in the area your friend was working (after beating the truth out of him about what he was doing in that area, of course) and check for current draw at the negative terminal with the ignition off (preferably with an ammeter. Multimeter okay, but you have to be careful not to use the wrong setting) you shouldn't get more than 5ma. 10, 15, or 20 and you know you have a short behind a fuse, in which case you'll have to unplug each fuse in both boxes until the current draw disappears. Its a bit tedious to track those down.