Flame Red

Gentlemen,

I am very discouraged. I had completed polishing my runners on Thursday. Car ran great, took it out for a nice spin. No problems.

Friday, I wash the engine, done it a gizzillion times. Nice and clean. Normal technique, Simple Green and a hose. No Opti-Crap so never a problem.

Go to start it up and no start. Acts like a dead battery. The soleniod engages, starter starts to turn, turns a little and hits a dead spot. All the lights in the car go dead. Like I said, been there, done that, usually a dead battery.

So I take the battery out and go over to my friendly Pep Boys. They stick it on the batery tester comes out good. Hmmm, had that happen before too, get a different tech and they just swap it out. OK, so they send me home and I stick the battery back in clean and tighten all the terminals and try jumping it with my truck. Same deal, the starter enguages, starts to turn, hits a dead spot and the lights go out.

Now I'm concerened because I think I have other problems.

I started to think that the engine locked up. So I put a socket on the balancer bolt and tried to turn the engine over by hand. I could not. Now, I'm not a very strong guy, and I usually could not do this in the past either. Need more musles :LOL

I got very dis-heartened. You know, you finish a nice job and then something else breaks immediately. That has happened to me before, probably will again, and I get discouraged.

So I suppose that it could be the following:

1. Bad battery - just I could just go get a new one.
2. Bad starter? Car has less than 30K miles, but that is a possiblilty.
3. Hydro locked engine? - washed it a thousand times, I think that is unlikely.

I suppose that it is possible that a shorted cell would cause it not to start even though I jumped it. I guess I should disconnect the old battery and try jumping it from my truck again, without the battery connected just to see if it starts.

If it doesn't then I am so dis-heartened that I suppose I will get it towed to Mike Norris, if he will work on it. If it is a starter, I could probably do it myself, but I just too beaten down.

If the engine is frozen, then I'm scr3wed :cry

Can't affort an engine now. Got too much into it not to have it running either.
:cry :cry :cry :cry :cry
:cry :cry :cry :cry :cry
:cry :cry :cry :cry :cry

Suggestions? Support please!

LeadFoot

It sounds like a connection problem between the battery and the starter. Check the condition of the positive cable at the battery and the starter,and also the negative cable. The engine will be hard to manually turn with the plugs in. Good Luck.

vader86

give it alot of time to dry out(then pray), if it dont start, take out the starter and have them test it. I would bet its the starter, sometimes its years, not mileage.

PeteL

You have a bad battery connection. You have to remove the bolts on the battery cable to clean. Also check below the battery where all the heavy leads bolt up. Also check the battery ground connections.

stuntman

Heck, why not just take a screwdriver (or remove starter switch) and jump it directly at the starter just to see if it will crank? It won't start and run because you're bypassing the brain, but it sure will tell you if:

A. The starter will engage

B. The engine will crank

That would be my next move. It would only take a minute.

Joe

Flame Red

Update,

I cleaned the terminals on the battery and tightened. Same result.

I disconnected the old battery and used my truck to try to jump it. Same result.

I suppose it is not the old battery.

So that leaves me with the connections on the pos and neg terminals where they go to the starter and the block.

I was not aware that a starter could go out because of age too. Figures.

I think I will go look for a better 1/2" ratchet so I can get more leverage to try to manually turn the engine over before I remove the starter. My breaker bar is big enough but it it hard to get the socket on wince it is not a ratchet. I tried use a large orque wrench, could not get it on. I need a large 1/2 wrench with a flex head to get the angle.

Car is parked in an odd position (of course) so it would be hard to jack up to get underneath to check the starter or connections.

Thanks for the suggestions.

jfb

Don't bother removing your battery and trying to jump to your truck to start, that won't work because of too much voltage drop in the jumper cable and connections. Charge your battery up! Your symptoms sounds like you got water in the intake and some entered a cylinder and on compression of that cylinder, the water stops the cranking. Or....you got water or condensed moisture inside the distributor cap and the spark is jumping to wrong cylinders causing ignition way too far advanced, stopping the starter motor. Connect your timing light and see if the timing is correct after you charge the battery. Also, you can remove the spark plugs and turn the balancer and observe if water shoots out one cylinder.
Oh yeah, measure the battery terminal voltage while cranking. It should not fall below 9.0 volts or the battery is discharged or at the end of its life or the battery cable connections aren't clean and tight.


[Modified by jfb, 12:10 PM 3/24/2002]

Flame Red

:smash: :smash: :smash: :smash: :smash: :smash:
:cheers: :cheers: :cheers:

OK, I found it. After removing the starter, and having it tested, it tested good.

I took the wire brush to the battery terminals and it cranked, all but slowly and then started.

Let it heat up and turned it off. Seems to be great again.

So I assume it was a combination of corosion and H20.

Nothing like a free fix. Free? Well, just a set of busted knuckels :sad:

Thanks for all the help.