Well, when it gets cold outside, my starter wont grab the first few times, im thinking it could be a bad drive. Possible when it gets cold the spring is lossing pressure and its not engaging? Well anyways just wondering if u guys had anyother idea wha tcould be wrong with the starter, dotn really want to spent 50+ on a new one.

RECAP: Go to start car on cold days, starter winds up with no engagement, and no grinding, just free spins not hitting anything, as of late its taking me 6min to get my car started. Also if it means anyting its a 2.8 v-6.

 

The spring actually disengages the starter. It will be slightly stronger at cold temps, but not enough to make a difference like this.

You may have a weak "Bendix", or possibly the starter is just gummed up.

A new starter & solenoid should resolve the problem.

 

could be a poor connection. clean your terminals at both ends(battery and selenoid).

 

if you can buy a new starter for 50 dollars i'll take all you can get. you might want to try trouble shooting it a little bit. most likely you need a starter

 

Yea i know its getting the juice it needs, but im going to take it off and Advanced Auto can benchmark it for me, to test and see what exactly is wrong. If its bad then ill get a new one while im there =].

How much time u think it would take to pull one off and put a new one on, its realy cold here and no place warm that i can work on my car, so i was thinking ramps, and crawling under the car, i wasthinking 25 tops at taking it off and probly 30 getting it back on.

 

Bench test in this case is about 50/50.

Tell you a story: '90 Bonneville, Great Falls, MT, February 2003, visiting mother/brother-in-law. Car sits out all night, won't start in zero degree F weather. Battery seems okay, so push it into garage, jack it up, pull starter (put charger on battery in meantime). Set starter on the floor of brother-in-laws van, drive to Checker 4 blocks away. Take inside, set on counter, wait 10 minutes until someone can bench test it. Works fine. Okay, must be battery.

Take it home, put it back in, car starts right up. Head for Sears, 2 miles away. Parked outside, takes them about an hour to get out to check it, but battery checks out. Even with new battery nothing happens. Call back to house, brother-in-law comes over with van and we put camping mat on packed snow parking lot to verify voltage at starter. Yep, it's getting full voltage there, so remove starter again (it's up to 6 degrees F by now). Take to Checker, exchange starter, reinstall in Sears parking lot/snow pack (it's up to 8 degrees now), car starts right up. Hasn't been a problem since.

Bottom line: The starter would work when it was warmed up a little bit, but when cold, it was completely dead. Okay, slightly different from your symptoms, but just saying the bench test may not tell you whether or not you have a bad starter. Especially if it's the Bendix drive.

And, inclimate working conditions come with the territory.

 

Horrible story, sounds like a fun day, yea as it gets warmer it does stop, but im going to try and rebuild first, then im going to get a new one if i feel like it. I was told its better to rebuild or repair due to shimming, eather way ill get it taken care of with in a month

 

I have seen in rare instances where the starter sometimes grabs and sometimes doesn't (you can hear it spin, but it's not turning the engine) that the spur gear on the starter actually gets "loose" on it's shaft. Sometimes it'll hold onto the shaft well enough to flip the engine over. Sometimes it just can't hold on and the shaft spins inside the spur gear but the motor doesn't turn over.

If I had not been laying flat on my back WATCHING the spur gear engage while this was happening I would never have guessed it. It CAN happen.

Buy a replacement starter and put it on.