Engines Dead!! Wont start

[Lefton Lefton]

Hello all, looking for some advice here!

 

So, i stripped off the starter motor and removed the battery along with the leads for the spark sparks however didnt remove the distributor cap (i now have and put back on) so basically everything that came off was put on the same way it was before and i took pictures before to ensure it was all correct. so i believe its all back together properly, im getting 12v at the alternator power line and smallpower line when on ignition stage 2 and when i go to crank the engine. Im getting 12v at the input to the distributor (the cylinder shaped thing attached to the side bulkhead again on stage 2 and on cranking. 

 

But the engine does not crank try to start or anything...... it basically does one click like a relay is moving position and then nothing else not the faintest hint of it trying to turn over.... ive been over everything and cant figure out in my head although i am new to carb systems what it could be. 

 

any suggestions. 

 

also there is a loose red wire from the middle of the ignition barrel in the inside of the car after removing the console and a loose brown wire coming down from infront of the heater matrix should i connect these and try to start it?. but i assume it has been like this from Day1 of my ownership and the car has run before without issue..... 

[halboyles]

If the power wire from the battery and the ignition wire from the starter switch are connected correctly on the starter, you might try hitting the starter solenoid with a hammer a few times to see if it is stuck.  Even better if someone can try to turn the engine over while you are hitting the solenoid.

[Stevenc22]

Main ground to engine block? Main power wire to starter motor?

 

Loose brown wire at back of motor is probably the electric choke wire and is fine to be disconnected. No idea what red wire under dash is but probably not a problem since it was probably disconnected before you had the problem.

 

The starter solenoid is either jambed or you forgot to connect a wire or connected the wires in wrong order.

Edited June 6, 2017 by Stevenc22

[Mark92131]

From Healy3000

 

If the wiring is unmodified, your problem should be limited to just a handful of components - battery, wire from battery to starter, ignition switch, starter solenoid, starter and the ground strap from the block to the battery.  That's pretty much the complete pathway for electrons.

 

As has been suggested, check the quality of the positive wire and the quality of the connections at each end.  Do the same for the ground strap.

 

Connect a voltmeter to the battery across its terminals and note the voltage.  Disconnect the wire to the solenoid terminal (the one fed by the ignition switch).  Take a separate wire and connect one end to battery positive.  Keeping an ear on the solenoid and an eye on the voltmeter, touch the wire in your hand to the terminal on the solenoid.  Anything?  If the voltage dropped significantly, you may have a bad battery.

 

If it cranked, your problem lies elsewhere; if it did not crank, you have a bad solenoid or starter.  To determine if its the starter or the solenoid, take a beefy cable and connect the starter directly to the battery positive.  If it does not crank, you have a bad starter.  Otherwise, it is your solenoid.

 

If you have determined that the problem is not the starter/solenoid, you have some sleuthing to do.  Inspect the ignition switch and wiring.  Remove and reseat fuses.  It has to be there, somewhere.

 

Hope this helps!

 

 

[Lefton Lefton]

Iv'e just realised my battery cable only has 1 earth on it, i.e the one from the negative on the battery to the engine block, the one that connects onto the battery tray is broken off somehow cannot confirm it was roken previously but maybe could this be the main cuplrit? anything to test this theory just run some wire between to act as an earth?

 

[Stevenc22]

Yes. Run a ground wire from negative terminal of the battery up to the bolt hole just above the battery as shown in this picture

[Lefton Lefton]

Still no luck! 

 

put volt meter on the main power to the starter 12V, then cranked it (no noises) voltage dropping to 11.5V+-. 

 

think i should take it out and plug it straight into the battery? 

[jgerock]

Fully charge the battery then try again. Are you certain the starter is securely bolted into the block and the original wires are connected properly?

[hchueh]

Sounds like a bad (or discharged) battery to me.

[Healey3000]

HI,

 

I have a feeling it's your starter solenoid.  The way it works is that upon applying power to the solenoid terminal, current flows through the winding, pulling the armature in.  This movement causes the closure of the heavy duty contacts in the solenoid, sending power to the starter motor.  When that happens, it cranks the engine.

 

The fact that you only see a drop from 12 volts to 11.5 volts at the solenoid terminal suggests that the winding is drawing current.  I'm thinking that if you connected the voltmeter at the battery, you'd see no drop (losses along the wire to the solenoid are the reason for the 0.5 volt drop).  However, the solenoid is not pulling in the armature and therefore the starter is not turning.  Sometimes, applying current directly from the battery to the solenoid with a separate wire will jar the solenoid loose.  It's the sudden connection and disconnection that helps.  Going through the ignition switch doesn't have quite the same effect.

 

If that fails, you may have to remove the starter.  You can manually move the pinion back and forth and sometimes, that's all you need to get things going again.

 

Good luck!

[TobyB]

Quote

cranked it (no noises) voltage dropping to 11.5V+-. 

 

Yeah, I'm with Mr 3liter, above: the solenoid coil draws quite a few amps, so it could pull the batt down.

I've taken a couple of dead starters apart, and the contacts inside have been fried.

That said, a fully charged battery should be 12.6v or so, after it sits for a while.

So you may replace the starter only to get the 'click-click-click' of the dead battery...

 

t

 

[halboyles]

5 hours ago, TobyB said:

a fully charged battery should be 12.6v or so

 

A battery that shows 12.0v is mostly discharged.  If it won't charge up to 12.6v it is probably defective.  

 

Many folks think that if it has anywhere near 12v that it should be able to crank an engine.  Not true.  Here's a commonly used chart about battery voltages and the level of charge.  Note that 12.0v is only 25% charged..

[TobyB]

The stinker here, being, that batteries have a 'memory', and a 'recovery', so if you've just been cranking for 5 minutes, it might be

as low as 12.0 right after, but still be at an average specific gravity of 1.2.  The chemical reaction happens immediately at the

transition points, but then evens out a bit over time.  And the voltage 'recovers' to indicate the true state of the battery.

Likewise, if it reads 12.6 just after it came off the charger, it's very unlikely that it's at a specific gravity of 1.25....

 

I think that chart usually says something like 'after resting for 15 minutes' or so...

 

But no matter, the switch inside your solenoid's not working.

Don't you want a nice, new, lightweight starter?

 

t

 

[halboyles]

1 hour ago, TobyB said:

'after resting for 15 minutes'

Yep, should have included that caveat!

[Marsattacks]

Hey guys — old thread but I didn’t see the point in starting a new one.  Anyway, I had a similar problem after getting my 74 out of storage.  Started fine in storage (was on a tender).  Started a few more times just fine.  Then (luckily in my driveway) it refused to start.  A click then nothing.  After following the advice above, here is what happened:

 

1.  Battery voltage as checked with multimeter was 12.65 or so.  No problem there.

2.  All connections seem tight.

3.  A few taps with a rubber mallet (hard to get good contact due to the location.  Nothing changed.,

4.  Connected a jumper cable from the starter solenoid (bit of a spark) to the battery positive.  Then she started right up.

5.  Removed jumper cable.  Moved the car out of the way to the garage.  Turned it off.  Started right back up again.

6. So, I assume from the above that the starter solenoid was stuck.  So, two questions:

 

A.  Is that assumption above re the stuck solenoid a solid one?  (Meaning that if it were the cable then it wouldn’t have started the next time) (Seems so, but I realize that with these old cars sometimes there are mysterious coincidences that confound straightforward conclusions).

 

B.   Should I proactively replace the solenoid or is this likely to be a pretty rare occurrence?  Not looking for guarantees just what you’d do if it was your car (not a daily driver but also not one I’d really care to be fooling around with in a parking lot somewhere).

 

Many thanks to all above who shared their insight and of course to the forum in general!

 

John

Edited May 5 by Marsattacks