A friend of mine owns an 83 rx7, and one day we drove it to a night school class, it started fine there and when we left, but then the next morning it would not start. We are confused as to what it could be, we know it is starter related because we can still push start the car. We have crawled underneath the car to look at the starter, it doesn't click or anything when you try to start it so we tried cleaning battery contacts and the lot but still no luck. We also know the starter has been replace because it looks almost brand new and the wiring is kind a mish mash of stock and something a previous owner put together. If you could help us out that would be awesome, we will be going out later to work on the car and we are going to clean the contacts on the starter itself to see if that fixes our problem but if you can think of other things to put on the list of things to try that would be great. But for right now this is what we look like ->

 

My 82 had a similar problem. I could push start it, but everything else was no dice. It turned out that one of the wires, I think the (+) had been chaffing against the underside and had worn through. I'd check the connections. You might just have a funky starter tho IMO.

 

Starter has three wires. 2 heavy gauge from battery and one smaller one with a female spade terminal. It should be connected to the male spade terminal on the top rear of the starter. The small B/y (B/w if automatic) wire comes from the ignition switch and is what triggers the starter when you turn the key. This wire falls off no click, no start. That's the one I'd check first since its simple.

 

Does it come off the switch or the starter itself?

 

74rx4 nailed it, the wire he explained was undone just must have missed it, ended up getting the car started tonight and drove it to my house and boy is it a fun little car.

 

Make sure you squeeze that terminal a little, so it will stay on. Once it falls off it often happens again if you don't tighten the female spade.

 

74rx4: Thanks for the heads up will definitely do that, when I slid it on it did click but I will squeeze it just to be on the safe side of things.

 

i wanna be just like you when i get older..lol..