96 Taurus won't Warm Re-Start

[wrightbrother]

96 Taurus has this pain-in-the-butt starting problem:

Starts fine cold.
After driving for 15 minutes or so, and turning engine off, car won't re-start.
Everything electrical is powering on, but the engine won't crank.
After a few hours, when it cools, the car will finally start again.
The problem only occurs in spring/summer/fall. In winter, no problem.

Is there anyone with a similar problem out there? Any tips? Ideas? I've had a devil of a time trying to figure out if it's an electrical problem or if there is something wrong with the starter.

Any advice would be helpful!

[ricknarveson]

I had similar problem last night. No history of starting or electrical problems.

Tried to start my 93 Sable wagon and all the electrical stuff was fine but there was no starter action, no click, no grind, no sound, nothing. Lights, pwr windows, fans, everything else electrical was fine.

This morning I had a friend try to give me a jump start, didn't work, same problem.

The I remembered that I had a mechanic pull the codes about a month ago. One of the codes had to do with a fault in the shift position sensor switch or something like that. The mechanic explained that it was an intermittent code and might effect starting.

While holding the key in the cranking position, I tried moving the shifter back and forth across the entire shift range and the engine started to crank as it crossed the line from park to reverse on about the 4th or 5th swing across the range.

Now the car is starting fine (6 out of 6 tries) but I know I've got a time bomb in that switch.

Now I'm trying to find out where this switch is to replace it or eliminate it.

Any info anyone has would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Rick

[wrightbrother]

So the problem with my car got worse and worse this spring, as the weather got warmer, and something had to be done.

If your problem truely is the neutral saftey switch, then we've probably got different problems. I think I narrowed it down to the wiring of the ignition switch, which I believe to be corroded, although I'm not quite sure.

What has finally fixed the problem is simply hotwiring the car, running a wire from the starter directly up to the battery where I can connect the two and start the car in a situation in which I get stuck. I only did this because the car is a 96 with too many miles, and is not really worth putting any more cash into! (I'm a college student)

But the manual fix works 100% of the time, fooling the ignition switch, the comptuer, the thermostat, or whatever else was giving me grief.

Hope that helps some.