• Hi Guest!
    If you appreciate British Car Forum and our 25 years of supporting British car enthusiasts with technical and anicdotal information, collected from our thousands of great members, please support us with a low-cost subscription. You can become a supporting member for less than the dues of most car clubs.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Starter problem

Share this page

Nelson

Nelson

Jedi Warrior
Country flag
Offline
Yesterday I tried to begin the process of starting my engine after a rebuild. I pulled the plugs and connected the new battery to only the starter pull switch and the engine block. The engine turned over when the switch was pulled. I was wanting to get a buildup of oil pressure prior to having the engine run. It turned over for maybe 20 seconds and just stopped. Continuity of the switch was OK and so were the battery connections. Then I connected the battery directly to the starter and it still did not turn. Today I pulled the starter and with it sitting on the floor it spun very quickly and the bendix gear seemed to be working properly. With a wrench on the crankcase nut the engine can be turned over by hand. Is there such a thing as a weak starter. Tomorrow I'll take it somewhere to get it tested if that is possible.
 
it is possible, but I would check first for the grounding strap. If it's not there or has a bad connection on either end you could have started out grounding through any other connection the electricty could find and if that burned out then there's no path for the power back to the battery and thus no current flow through the starter.
 
The grounding strap is secure. Having run out of ideas, I will be picking up a new starter tomorrow at Autozone. It comes with a lifetime warranty and then if I still have a problem I will have eliminated one possibility. This is very frustrating being so close to having my restoration complete after all the years of working on it.
 
tap on the solenoid?

m
 
Actually there is no solenoid just a pull switch in my model Sprite and after it checked OK with an ohmmeter we connected the battery directly to the starter terminal. It would not turn even then. It turned manually by grabbing the square shaft but not with voltage applied.
 
Back
Top