[TR] Electrical diagnosis: Update

[Dave1massey at cs.com]

In a message dated 6/13/2010 10:39:03 PM Central Daylight Time, 
KingsCreekTrees at aol.com writes: 
> I suddenly remembered that I have a multimeter (not sure why; I can't  
> really use it!). Anyway, the battery has 12V. I changed it for the one out 
> of  
> our old Volvo, which also had about 12V, and found that suddenly I have an 
>  
> ignition light and, with the ignition on or off, the headlights are fine. 
> I  
> pressed the starter button, with everything but the ignition off. There 
> were 
> clicks from the starter motor. I gave it a break, tried it again and you 
> could  hear the (gear-reduction) starter almost turning the engine over, 
> but 
> not quite.  Bearing in mind the car is positive ground/earth, I put the 
> multimeter negative  probe on the starter solenoid and grounded it with 
> the 
> positive probe. 10V  showed. I did the same at the starter motor 
> connection 
> (main power) and also got  about 10V. Still, the engine will not crank.
> 
Where are you grounding the probe?  At the battery?  At the car frame?  At 
the engine block?  You may get different results.  If so that is the source 
of the problem.

The first thing to learn about electricity is that the circuit has to 
complete the circle.  From the battery back to the battery.  You can ground the 
positive probe to the battery positive and then check the voltage at the car 
frame and the engine block to see if you have issues with either of those 
connections.

Dave

PS: I presume you are connected positive ground.