thought i had heat soak problems with my starter, but new starter with heat shield acts exactly the same as before. f i derive the car for more than 10 minutes and try to start it, I get nothing. If I jump it, the car starts fine or if I let is sit for an hour to cool off its good. Brand new Optima battery and new starter points to the alternator, but its only a year old and it must be charging the battery if I can let the car sit and cool off overnight it will start up in the morning. Don't know what else it could be.

 

I still think that it's a heat soak problem. I had a similar issue, so I replaced the starter with a OE replacement and a heat shield. The problem came back and I was pissed. I bought a Powermaster mini starter and that problem went away but it caused a new, much more dangerous issue (the Powermaster was a POS to say the least). Flames man. So I replaced it with a Summit Nippondenso style one (no heat shield) and have been driving the car like that for 1.5 years with NO problems at all. I did have to do a little trimming on the corner of the mount of the Summit one, but nothing major.

 

Do a voltage test on the battery once the car is off so you an see if the alternator is properly charging the battery. if the battery has power that eliminates the battery and alternator and your problem is the starter. Low on power could be the battery or alternator but with the new battery it seems more likely to be the alternator.

 

Make sure that you have a good ground directly from the battery, to the starter and engine block itself. That will usually solve alot of problems.

 

just put a new alternator on ( because it takes 10 minutes and Advance replaces them for free anyway ) and still same problem. I've got a powermaster starter and as soon as I get it rebuilt I'm going to try it out.

 

 

Another lesson learned I took your advice and tinkered with the car some more since my last post and I think I got this thing licked. I hooked the jumpers up to my Toyota to use it's charging system for the 'bird. I let it warm up and kept shutting the car off and restarting it to eliminate heat soak as the problem. Then I used the cables to ground the battery right to the motor and did the same thing. The car started up every time......until I took the ground off. So I ran a ground cable from the body to the motor and I think I'm good to go. Thanks. :hail:

 

Thats a very common prolem with almost all cars. You might also keep an eye on the alternator now. Poor ground and or power connections even for short periods of time can spike an alternators regulator resulting in premature component failure.

 

I had a similar problem with the ground a while back. From my battery terminal there was a short ground going to the fender and another one going to the block, actually on one of the exhaust manifold studs on the passenger side. I started just wiggling the wire around if it wouldn't start and she would fire right up. Then I got stuck at Arby's one day, wouldn't start no matter how much I messed with it. Got a ride, went to work, had my dad look at it, and here he came driving it. I also had problems with the alternator not charging very good when it warmed up. I put a new ring termnial on it and it's worked fine since. Just wondered if there is a better place to ground to the engine block because I'm afraid the ground might not last too long with all that heat. BTW I have a Yellow top Optima battery and 180 amp alternator both fairly new.

 

Don't waste your time. Those things are garbage. I had 2 go out in as many weeks. The first one, shorted out inside and grounded the entire electrical system. Smoke, crackle, flame. Lucky for me I pulled in the driveway just as the fire started and was able to get it out. The second one, the motor inside burned up in 3 days (yes it was properly shimmed and adjusted for clearance) because the bendix would stay engauged on the flywheel sometimes. I sent that one back, bought a Summit one, and yahtzee, not problem one since. I don't even have the heat shield on the Summit one and still no problems.

 

Alternator is brand new, so it will be OK since it didn't experience any of the voltage spikes associated with the bad ground.

I have the powermaster b/c it was free. It needs a new armature and brushes. I've never had a problem with them.

 

Actually that would be shimmed a tad low if it did that.

 

You'd think that wouldn't you? It was absolutely shimmed right. I measured it three times (on three seperate occasions), both for tooth mesh tolerance, and for clearance between the flywheel and the endo of the drive with it fully extended. It was right, not just right but dead on perfect. As a matter of fact, it was shimmed to the same tolerances as my Summit one is, and I've never had the Summit one stick. I will stand by my claimm that Powermaster starters are garbage. I have been working on cars for over 10 years (7 of those were as a professional mechanic) and owned countless GM cars & trucks. The only starters I ever had a problem with (after replacing them) were the two Powermaster's in my GTA. That's it, not one other one ever acted up like that.