[richxyz]

Heep...this morning I replaced the "little black round thing", aka starter relay, on my Escort. She started right up! Time will tell if this is the permanent fix I think it is. Thanks again for the tip.

The starter relay apparently was a key location in the circuits involved because there's a terminal on the starter relay that the positive cable from the battery attaches to, and guess what else is wired into that same terminal?

Answer: Leads going to the fuel pump relay (brown wire) and the passive restraint system (blue wire)!!! Makes sense, then, that the fuel was shut off to the carb, and the shoulder harness wouldn't activate.

One question comes up, though...it appeared to my layman's eyes that the starter relay only serves as a convenient physical location to tie the fuel pump and passive restraint circuits into the battery's power. That would mean that the problem with the starter relay would be a physical problem, not an electrical one.

But I'm neither a mechanic nor an electrical technician, so I really have no idea if the transfer of power from the battery to those other circuits actually relies on the electromechanical operation of the starter relay.

What do you and your Escort techies say?

..richxyz