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Starter Relay

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tr6ster

Freshman Member
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I have a 74 TR6. Anyone know where the starter relay is?

I was driving the other night. Got home, shut off engine.

Tried to start it 5 minutes later, and now I only get a click which seems to be eminating around the distributor.

I may be imagining things, but I think I saw smoke coming from under the hood when this happened.

Thanks for any advice.
 
The smoke is the Ghost of Lucas. Included in all cars, no extra charge.

The relay is on the left side of the car, at the fender, near the fuse box. Like right here:

Paint Shop 042 (Custom).jpg


This is what it looks like from the front: https://www.zeni.net/trf/TR6-250GC/157.php
 
Can these get cooked? And what may have cooked it?

It's strange- the small starter solenoid wire goes from the starter into the dash. If it is a direct connect to the relay why go into the dash? To keep it clean in the engine I suppose.

I just had the clutch and brake master cylinders replaced. Maybe the monkeying around bumped some of the wires.

I still don't understand the clicking in the distributor, yet no movement of the rotor or noise from the starter....
 
When the ignition switch is turned, the starter relay should close to send 12 volts to the starter solenoid and also to the ignition coil. For normal running, the coil gets 6-8 volts (I think), reduced through a resistor wire.

Anyway, sounds like the relay failed somehow. There are ways to work around it by direct-connecting wires at the relay. After months of such fiddling, I finally replaced mine with a simple $6 headlight relay from Advance Auto. It doesn't have the 12V to coil function for starting, but works great otherwise.

Gotta head to work, but keep us posted.

Jeff
74 TR6 CF13816U
 
Brosky --

Is your (tach?) cable in contact with the shaft of the steering column? I have had this problem (on a TR4) and finally used a short length of split fuel line over the cable as I was concerned that constant rubbing would wear thru the outer cover of the cable.


Cable.JPG
 
I checked the signal from the relay to the starter solenoid with a multimeter and got no voltage when the ignition key was turned.

When I was checking the hot battery lead to the relay the post on the relay broke off. I hope this was the problem. I have new relay coming from VB.
 
No, it's actually three to four inches above it. Just a bad angle to photograph accurately.
 
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