Starting woes - Also....

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Wily Dahl

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This forum has been a great help to me. I replaced the entire front suspension on my '95 Mark VIII without any problems, thanks to various threads on this forum. Hopefully, I can get some help with a current confusing issue.
First off, the starter appeared to start dragging, and the battery took a good charge so I pulled the alternator and took it in to test. It was shot. New alternator installed. Shortly thereafter, the car stranded me (at the autoparts store). Would not turn over at all - no click, no nothing - although everything else in the car had power, and the battery appeared fine. Jumping didn't help.
I replaced the Crank sensor, the car started up, and I took her home. Shut her down, tried to start it again, nothing. Jacked with the Crank sensor plug (cut it off and re-wired it), still nothing. Tapped the solenoid with a hammer, walla! The starter started turning again. Not fast enought to start the car, but it is turning again! Pulled the starter (and, despite all of the threads I read about the pain of removing the starter, I had no problems getting it out - nor re-installing all 3 bolts once the starter passed the bench-test). Now I am confused. Not the crank sensor (probably), not the alternator, starter or battery....next step is to cut off the spade connector on the solenoid and put on a new one. Also, I wanted to check the starter relay - and this is where the "help question" comes in - where the heck is it? I know what it looks like (from pictures at the autoparts store), but can't find it anywhere. If someone could let me know the location of this mysterious device, I would greatly appreciate it. Also any advise on where to go next (should the relay be good) would help. Would the Cam sensor keep the starter from running?
:confused:
 
Wily Dahl said:
Would not turn over at all - no click, no nothing - although everything else in the car had power, and the battery appeared fine.

Tapped the solenoid with a hammer, walla! The starter started turning again. Not fast enought to start the car, but it is turning again! Pulled the starter (and, despite all of the threads I read about the pain of removing the starter, I had no problems getting it out - nor re-installing all 3 bolts once the starter passed the bench-test).

Would the Cam sensor keep the starter from running?
Click to expand...

sounds like either a bad starter or high resistance on the power/ground

1st clue: dragging starter (bad starter)

2nd clue: hit with hammer and it turned over just slow (bad starter or excessive resistance somewhere)

yes the cam sensor could prevent it from not starting (i think, might just go into limp mode) but no sensor could make the engine turn over slow. as for the spade terminal ("s-wire") thats common for a no click no nothing scenario but the slow crank points to bad starter, sure it spun on the bench test but theres no load on it, i would of just thrown a new one in if i already had it out
 
Even though the starter was not engaging at all (it engaged every time under test)? It could still be the starter? By the way, it's not even clicking again...
The slow-turn over thing only lasted a few moments before it went silent on me again (even before I removed the starter, and is still not even clicking since I re-installed it).
Can you direct me to the nearest starter relay, just to ease my mind? I know they have hidden it under this hood somewhere......and I am on a tight budget - tossing out $120 on a starter that might not be bad is not an option for me. However, if you tell me that a starter that engages under test and doesn't engage when installed is probably the problem, I'll take your word for it. I don't know anything about starters.
 
It's not doing anything. No click, no buzz, nada. All of the other electrical components in the car work fine. By the way, I tried that tapping-the-solenoid thing again, and it didn't work a second time.
 
are you hitting the solenoid or the starter motor itself, id still be willing to bet its a bad starter
 
The solenoid. Is there any way I can prove whether or not it's the starter? Like I said, I need to put the wife back in this car so I can have my truck back, but I don't really have an extra $120, unless I can be sure it will fix the problem (then it will be worth it to be short of cash). I am going to need that money to fix this car if it turns out to be something other than the starter.
 
just make sure all the power and ground wires are good. the starter relay just sends power to the s-wire the big cable is constant power, so if the relay was bad it wouldnt do anything instead of slowlly turning. hit up max at 5 star ford (banner ad on right) tell him your from LvC and see how much a starter would be
 
Would I do any harm if I tried hooking up the starter direct to the battery, say with jumper cables, just long enough to see if it would engage and turn? (this would identify any problem with the starter hot wire and ground). Wouldn't that pretty much narrow it down to a definite bad starter, or would I be endangering the starter by doing this?
 
just be careful with the cable ends to not short them out it shouldn't hurt the starter unless you short it to ground.

what shape are the connections at the battery?
 
The connections to the battery are good (I clean them with the wire brush on the Dremel regularly), but I am not so sure about the other end of the ground where it connects to the block. It is pretty much inaccessable. Is there any test I can use to see if the grounding cable is getting good connection to the block? All of the other power accessories in the car seem to be working fine.
 
Sorry, I only have access to a computer at work. I have a cheap radio-shack meter, which has variable voltage settings (AC & DC) as well as a resistance setting. I am not an expert with the thing (I lost the instructions about 12 years ago), but if you tell me what to check, I can probably figure it out.....
 
Keep in mind that if you go connecting cables to the main starter wires and or connections, you do stand the chance of ending up with a fried PCM. Just get a new starter because from the description you're giving, that's what's wrong. Clean off all connections before installing new starter. Don't play around and fry your computer because it can happen very easily.
 
Actually, I was thinking more along the line of disconnecting all of the lines going into the starter before hooking it up directly to the battery (sort of an installed bench test).
I am just looking at testing the starter itself, so I would think I wouldn't need any connections between the car and the starter in order to test it, therefore the PCM wouldn't be involved in any way, would it?
 
starter

If you had a bad wire it would only be the big red positive attached to the starter If you had a bad ground you would be seeing all sorts of other electrical gremlins related to the engine. Just make sure your battery, is good if it is, save yourself a lot of time and change the starter. I'm pretty sure your starter has serious mechanical wear from what you describe.
 
:D I am going to learn not to argue with you guys. The whole reason I post on this forum is for answers, and then I go and doubt everything I read. As all of you know (and knew all along), it was the starter of course. I should have just accepted the obvious when I started getting more and more different replies telling me the same thing. A special big thank you to Chicken for helping me out all the way through. Sorry to have dragged this out as long as I did. However, success makes it all worthwhile.
 
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