Hard starting ...sometimes!

[BERNARD ROSE]

196alpine 1 S

 

[BERNARD ROSE]

Let me start over. Latest improvements to my 1961 Series 2, Alpine. New voltage regulator last year, rebuilt generator last year, rebuilt starter last week.
The car stalls easily when I am stopping, but I can usually get it going again by shifting to second gear while it is still rolling. This coming winter, I intend to have it overhauled and hopefully fix most of these "niggling" problems.

Now the latest problem which started a few weeks ago is that the battery often seems almost dead when I try to start the car, but then on the next click of the ignition, it jumps to life. My mechanic suggested that the starter might be the culprit, and sure enough, when we examined it, you could see that it had overheated so I went ahead and had it replaced. The battery is fully charged but yet this happens quite often. Today, I tried a brand new battery in the car and the same problem occured. New battery, new starter...same old problem.

Any guidance from some of the experts on the forum would be greatly appreciated"

 

[hartmandm]

What do you mean by the battery seems almost dead? Is the starter cranking the engine very slowly?

Mike

 

[Tom H]

"But on the next click .. it jumps to life" Sounds like an intermittent/bad solenoid. Or maybe even just bad connections to the solenoid. Could even be a bad ground connection - the solenoid ground is through the solenoid mounting screws. I once had a bad ground: Turn the key, hear the clunk of the solenoid, Starter just starts to turn, but then the ground path fails, the solenoid releases, starter stops,and I only hear silence. But it may also be the heavy duty contacts inside the solenoid that make good contact sometimes but not always.

Tom

 

[pruyter]

I have exactly the same problem with my Rapier series IV with one difference.....it only happens when the engine is very hot for instance after having been driven and parked for about ten minutes. It won't happen every time, but sometimes and never when the engine is cold. What could be the cause? I thought the cause must be bad earth (ground as you say in the USA). Could there be another cause?
Thanks in advance!

Regards,

Peter

 

[Tom H]

Peter, I think I have always had a similar occasional problem when the engine is quite hot, exactly the situation you describe. I do not think it is any electrical or earthing issue. I have always assumed it was some kind of compression issue, putting too large a load on the starter for it to turn the motor. Maybe a piston stopped in a high compression position when the engine was turned off and the latent heat of the block caused the compression pressure to increase past the point where the starter was strong enough to overcome?? Just about every time it would stat on the next click or two, once the crank turned a bit past the "sticking point". One time I DID have a grounding problem that at first seemed to be an example of this phenomenon. But when the engine failed to crank after several clicks I found the problem was a loose solenoid mounting screw.

Tom

 

[BERNARD ROSE]

What do you mean by the battery seems almost dead? Is the starter cranking the engine very slowly?

Mike

Yes.

 

[pruyter]

Thanks for your thoughts Tom, I guess I have to live with it.
Anyhow I have not to spend time at searching for a solution that isn't really there....

Regards,

Peter

 

[hartmandm]

So what Tom H said previously - solenoid ground, internal solenoid contact issue, or wire/ground connection issues.

Here's what I would try in order:
1. Start with the solenoid mounting screws to ensure the solenoid has a good ground.
2. (First disconnect the battery...) remove each wire connected to the solenoid (one wire at a time), clean the wire connector & the connection point on the solenoid, then re-connect.
3. Check the connections at both ends of the battery ground cable.
4. Check the engine to chassis ground cable. The cable is a bare metal braided cable that is usually located at the gearbox mounting bracket.
5. If items 1 through 4 don't address the issue, then try replacing the starting solenoid.

Mike

 

[puff4]

Mine also occasionally fails to run the starter motor when very hot. It turns a bit, slowly, then stops, as if the battery were dead (but it’s not). I also noticed when this happens, the connection to the battery gets very hot - like ‘burn your hand’ hot. I am thinking this is due to too much resistance in the starter motor which, when the engine is hot, is exacerbated (since hot wires have more resistance than cold). Connections have been checked for tightness and the ground strap at the transmission is new. Thoughts?

 

[Bill Blue]

Battery posts and cables clean and free of oxide? Lead oxide is an insulator and hard to detect. I always scrape the connections with a knife, a wire brush only polishes the oxide. Does not help.

Bill

 

[puff4]

As for my situation, yes all the connections are clean, tight and corrosion free.

 

[hartmandm]

Kevin,

What's the history of your starter?

Mike

 

[Tom H]

Kevin, Anytime the battery terminal gets hot, you can be sure that there is a poor connection at that post. The high current (100 A) drawn by the starter runs through the connection and if that connection is not real good, it is said to be a "high resistance connection", by high resistance we mean just something like a tenth of an ohm. Note that 0.1 ohm x 100 A = 10 watts = getting hot. When you find one battery terminal hot, check the other post. You'll probably find it not hot, meaning that connection is good, but the other is not. The same amount of current flows through both terminals.

Tom

 

[puff4]

It’s the original starter, Mike.

Tom, I’ll give it a good look, but I did firm up the connection earlier.