97 escort, no start - replacing battery cables?

[billvp]

Well, the starter is fine on my 97 escort, and the battery is perfect. When I turn the key, I get the click from the starter, but then nothing. The guy from autozone said that it wouldn't be the neutral safety switch since it wouldn't even get to where the starter would click if that was bad (which makes sense). He said that since the battery is also perfect, it must be the battery cables. There isn't any corrosion on the battery posts (there was a little bit, but I cleaned it off and it didn't make any difference).

What all is included in replacing the battery cables? I assume this means all the wires that end up connecting to the battery, or is it less than that? Where is the place that they hook up to, to disconnect them? If I have to do this, I will definitely get them from a junkyard, since I'm sure they will be very expensive through a dealership (unless someone knows otherwise). Of course then I could possibly get a malfunctioning one, and if so I wouldn't know if that part was still malfunctioning, or whether there was something else wrong with the car.

I have 2 cars, but they are both having this problem recently, and now I have no running car and no money I had to ride my bike down to the autozone today with the starter to get it tested.

someone please help with any info or other possibilities - or if you know how I could test the battery cables

thanks

[billvp]

also, there was a problem with the battery being drained by something if it wasn't driven for a few days in a row, and that was ongoing for the last 6 months or so

that may be connected to the same issue - I forgot to put that in the first post

The battery is fully charged at the moment though, and tested out good - I can turn the headlights on at night and they work fine, and if I try to start it then they only very slightly dim while the key is being turned

I did a search and read some other posts about bad grounds (testing it with a jumper connected between the negative terminal and both the engine block and the firewall *separately*) - can you test these using jumper cables, and if so does it matter which one you connect to them (the two negatives, or whatever?)

[mightymoose_22]

Just curious... have you tried jump starting it?

How do you know the starter is good?

Give a jump start a try and report back with your results...

[billvp]

I had it bench tested at Autozone. I haven't tried jump starting it with a car recently, although I hooked up another good battery to it w/ battery cables and that made no difference. Regardless, the battery reads 12.5 volts.

I noticed that what I think may be a ground from the starter to the engine block wasn't pushed down all the way, but I don't know if that affected anything or not. I had already taken off the battery stuff and the upper starter bolts so I went ahead and finished taking off the starter w/o testing it just pushing down the connector. I put everything back on it today and it started up, but it was occasionally starting before, so I don't know if it was just a random start or if the connector had something to do with it. Does anyone know exactly what that connector does? It's the one that connects to something that is closer to the ground than the other starter connectors.

[mightymoose_22]

Well a bad ground would make sense.

If it continues, consider a bad ignition switch. There seems to have been a lot of those lately. With the car in neutral, try running a hot wire direct to the solenoid and see if the starter goes. If it bench tested ok, then a hot wire should do the same thing.

Or, if you consider yourself savvy enough, just unplug the wires from the ignition and hotwire it there. If it works, your switch is bad, if it click like usual, then I just wasted your time :P