sounds like a bad starter, or bad line to the starter.. make sure the connection is solid and not loose on the starter.. if it is a tad loose, the car will make a clicking sound.



Is the car auto or 5spd? It could also be a bad clutch switch... if its 5spd...which would cause the car not to crank, because it isn't registering you pushing in the clutch.



Battery could have dead cells... another possibility...



But if it was grinding, i'm sure you stripped away your starter... which is probably fried now.. hope you didn't do any damage to the flywheel...

No - there was zero grinding. I tried cranking to see if it would grind at all, and it didn't. So.. I'm going along with your theory ... bad starter, bad connection to the starter, or a combination.



edit: yes, it's a 5spd. Brian at Maz-Max also mentioned the clutch switch. Is this switch the same that is used by the cruise control? When I'm in cruise and hit the clutch, the cruise disengages - so that particular switch is functional. Are there 2? 1 for starting and 1 for cruise disnegagement? I doubt it, but I don't know much about these cars https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...DIR#>/wink.png



Thanks guys, I'm going to pull the starter today and see what happens.

you dont have to pull the starter off the car just use a jumper wire to send 12 volts to the solenoid (where the little wire goes)

Holy smokes. Okay, I can answer my own question - there are 2 switches. One forward of the clutch pedal (the one I saw) and another on the firewall (the one I missed). Apparently there is a bracket that travels with the clutch as it swings and this hits the switch on the firewall. However, mine has a hole in the bracket (probably had a rubber bumper on it?) and the switch was passing right THROUGH the hole!! So... the cpu didn't detect that the clutch was down during startup.



The weird thing is this happened suddenly... I bought the car on Friday afternoon, drove it for a couple hundred miles (with multiple start/stops) and no problems. I go to fuel, then the car refuses to start... hmm... I don't see any parts on the floor mat so I can't figure out what happened. The bracket on the clutch and the switch on the firewall so I don't think they got knocked or moved around.



Anyway... problem fixed... https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/smile.png

good to hear!