Thread: Battery kill switch removal help....?

Hey guys. First and foremost, I *never* mess with electronics. I do just about everything else to these cars, but I have some sort of innate fear or something. Anyways the battery kill switch in my 98 SE-R kept engaging for no good reason, sometimes when I shut the car off it engaged (it was installed by the previous owner) so I decided to remove it all together.

The battery itself is located in the trunk and the kill switch in the engine bay. the problem is when I put all 3 wires together and then reconnect the negative battery terminal it sparks like all hell.
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Now that the kill switch is fully removed, I'm left with these 3:
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The one with the red is from the fuse box:
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I popped the hood of my other 97 SE-R (that has the battery up front) and the red one is connected to the positive terminal of the battery along with, well the positive cable. So what do I do with all of these? I didn't install this and have no idea. (Remember, battery is relocated in the trunk). Ground them all separate? Ground the red fuse box cable with the power cable from the battery in the trunk, and ground the "ground" to the chassis? :???:

i dont think any of those are ground. looks like Starter, fuse box, & the non OEM is maybe AMP?

Hmm. They were all connected to the kill switch. My friend Ray K (SE-R Guru) just emailed me about this and said:

"You will need to connect the two red ones together somehow. And then tape them up you do not want them hitting ground.

There should be a ground wire coming from trunk too. Assuming it’s the one in your hand in the one pic. That should go to the main engine ground and should be grounded to car."

Do you happen to have a better pic of the wires as they hooked to the switch? There would have been no reason for a ground wire to be attached to the switch from the battery at all. The battery negative should be attached to the chassis in the back via a relatively short, thick cable. There may be a second cable from the battery negative to attach up in the engine bay to the chassis or the engine block to give a better ground, but this shouldn't have connected to the switch.

Squinting at that pic, was this other wire going through some metal mounting tab ON the switch through to the chassis itself? That would be the only thing that makes sense there.

The two wires you have with red on them should be connected together, one would be going to the trunk (check it with a meter to verify 12v), the other is what would have originally attached to the battery, and goes to the car's electrical system. Find the fattest bolt that will fit (also short) through those two and put a nut & lock washer on that to hold them tight, then tape them up securely, preferably with red electrical tape.

Here's the best pic I have of the setup prior to removal:



You can see the one grounded wire that has nothing to do with the switch with the rubber cover on it towards the top left of the photo

It looks like its an inline in the engine bay cut-off switch so why wouldn't you get rid of the whole thing and just run a new positive cable to not have extra wires in there?

Because I don't know how to do that, lol. I mean I could figure it out but I hate hate hate hate working on anything electrical.

Ok the former owner got back to me, here's what he said:

"The kill switch should only have two wires - one to the rear for the battery and the other that runs to the stock OEM wire. The black is the negative cable for the battery."

^^^ Right here ^^^ But can't stress enough to check with a meter!

Ok I connected the 2 red wires together, and I get power, the accessories come on etc. but it won't turn over the starter. Like it doesn't even try, no clicking sound or anything, etc.

It also does the same exact thing whether or not I ground the 3rd black wire, or leave it hanging not touching anything. Power and accessories come on, but no starter turning.

Damnit?!


Edit: i realized later that the 3rd cable is the power wire to the starter, thats why it wouldnt start