Im having the most bizarre starter problem I think I’ve ever seen. I’ve looked everywhere on the internet and never saw this issue anywhere else.

my starter cranks, sometimes. Cranks every time I cold start it. When I drive the car to run errands, the starter will begin to not crank. The solenoid clicks every time, it has enough power to crank, but it just doesn’t until I turn the key a few times. Sometimes it still wont after turning the key many times. This results in me either push starting the car, or getting a jump. As soon as I hook up the cables, it cranks just fine.

The car has a new battery and starter. I run all my tests on the starter, it passes everything. I have no idea what I need to test next. Is it a heat related issue? Do I need to do a voltage drop test? Is it some other issue entirely?

i an currently trying to track wires to a fabled “starter relay” but haven’t come to it yet. Im kind of lost at what to do because theres nothing wrong in all of my service manual tests and Im not an strongly experienced in electronics.

 

Probably a bad cable, connection or possibly heat soak. Though heat soak usually gives a hard slow crank when hot. Sounds like a common cable problem. I once had all the symptoms of a weak starter getting heat soaked, it was just a corroded connection to the cylinder head. It wasn't even that rusty but clearly rusty enough.

 

First step is cleaning and then tightening both ends of both battery cables. Solenoid clicking is telling you the start circuit from the ignition switch through the safety switch and to the solenoid is working. What tests are you running on the starter? "New" means nothing, test everything with a meter. Yes on a voltage drop test if you know how to do it, if unsure do the google.

 

I don’t remember what all the tests were, but it was pretty much everything in the service manual for the ‘88 model year. I saw another reply to this post about checking cables, thats something I will have to wait to do until I have more time on my hands and am not daily driving the car unfortunately. Sometimes it cranks slow when it gives me trouble, so Im guessing Im having a similar issue as you’ve mentioned. I’ll do a detailed wire check eventually when I have time.

I figure a loose/old wire could be a culprit as well, considering when I jump it, it makws enough voltage to overcome the issue and crank

 

I don’t believe Im having heat soak problems. Maybe the starter getting hot contributes to it, but idk if the starter gets hot enough to have heat soak failure. Im just stumped because if I had a bad wire somewhere or something, I would expect to see abnormal high resistance somewhere that would indicate that. Like every test I did, nothing stuck out. Unfortunately I probably just have to take the time to inspect all the wires eventually

 

U need a heat shield about the starter. Been there & done that on a 1981 Cutlass. Same symptoms as u. But do clean all cable connections with the starter.

 

Check Major Ground Connections first.

Before the Electrons can flow through the Starter Motor...
They must first flow from the Battery through the Negative Cable.