my old starter started to just click when i tried to start the car. eventully it would fire up but only after 15 or more tries. occasionally. so i thought a new starter was in order. after it was installed it worked beautifully, ive never seen any car fire up faster/better but now the thing is back to clicking. not nearly as bad but its starting just to click every once in a while and i know it will get worse. i have headers and think heat is the culprit. is this more than likely the problem? and would one of those starter heat shields fix this? if not what would some other problems possibly be?

 

Check your wiring and your battery.

 

battery is great. optima red top fairly new. whta wires would cause this problem? all seemed fine but should i look for any specifics?

 

Check the condition of the wires as well. Check the ground at the block (good connection=tight and clean... no Vader, not that), and then check the connections on the starter itself. Make sure those nuts are tight, they've been known to come loose now and again.



BTW, for V...

Antiseize !!

Gezuntight. Would you like some more pancakes?

 

Check the voltage on the purple trigger wire. When it triggers, it should be battery voltage. The starter will still engage up to somewhere between 9-10V. However, if it's down around 9V, or below, it'll "click" but not engage.

If that's OK, then it's likely the starter solenoid. Check the voltage first, then take off the starter and go to a parts store for a starter test. They'll run 12V and a good amount of current through it several times, and if it engages every time, then it's more than likely the wiring.

Are you using a mini-starter or a stock sized one?

 

its a stock size starter. what gets me and leads me to believe its not wiring is the fact it worked excellent for a good couple weeks then started to get worse. even today after work it clicked 3 times before it fired up. but it was about 90 degrees out.

 

False assumption. It can be entirely wiring. When I initially did my T-56 swap, I hacked up the neutral safety switch wiring. It wasn't delivering full battery voltage to the starter solenoid because I ran extra wiring and lazy splices. It worked fine for a while and got progressively worse till I got sick of it and rewired it. Before I did, I measured the voltage at the starter. 9V. You may have a bad switch, bad splice, burnt up wires, etc. You just never know. It's very easy to measure the voltage. I just don't know why people are so resistant to it.

Leave no stone unturned until you can factually rule it out. ASSumptions are just that.

 

ahh i see. well when i finally get my new motor in im planning on getting new battery and ground cables anyway but i cant keep burning up soleniods until then. where can i find new wiring. ive searched around some places like The Paddock etc but havnt found anything definite yet and everything at the boneyard is toast.

im not resistant to checking it, thats will defenitly happen but just from my thinking i didnt see how bad wiring would cause the soleniod to progressivly go out.

 

I'm just saying measure the voltage. I'm not saying it is your wiring. You can buy 10ga wire pretty much anywhere. I'm partial to finer thread wiring that you can get at electronics stores. I don't have access to your car so I can't measure it for you. It could be a bad solenoid, it could be the wiring, but you've got to step through it methodically or it's just pissing in the wind.

The standard size starters have the reputation of not lasting very long, I know mine died 2x before I went to a mini starter and that was before headers.

When wires get hot the resistance rises, and you get lower voltage. So if your voltage is borderline, you'll have trouble starting the car when it's hot. The best thing to do, measure the voltage, and take the starter out for testing.

 

I had the same problem but found out I had the stater wires hooked up to the wrong spots

 

as in the starter would click and eventully start or all the starter did was click and did not start at all?

 

starter would just click and not start

 

oh ok. well mine will eventully start but thanks for the suggestion.

so first off, does it make a difference if i crank at the ignition to test it or can i just use a start button that connects to the starter and crank the starter that way??

when i tested the starter it tested at 12.43 volts BUT when i cranked it (with the coil wire off and using the start button and not the ignition switch) it dropped to .7 volts but it was cranking!!! then when i went to confirm that and have a friend turn it over using the ignition it just started clicking again but the volts stayed steady

 

Steady at 12V when it clicked? If so, then it may be the solenoid. I've never seen voltage drop during the cranking (the purple wire only goes high during a crank). Mine is steady as a rock.

I think it's best to crank at the ignition, you want everything to go through the path a normal user would take. If you bump it with a starter button, does it always start or does it click too?

 

well every time i tried to crank it with the starter button it worked but that was only a few times. we finally got it to crank via the ignition, just took a couple fast turns of the key after one another.

when it just clicked and he held the key this time it was at 5 volts and when he finally got it to turn over at the ignition the volts went to about 1.3. now it doesnt seem to be heat related but im getting more and more confused

 

You may have to hold the key in for a little while for the DVM to catch up.

 

we did, and when i hooked the coil wire back up the car fired like new again. damn cars

 

Im assuming you have LT's.....The LT's on my old 82 kept overheating my starter until I got a heat shield for it and then I only had a very occasional problem. Even shorty headers like to overheat a starter/solenoid occasionally but usually LT's do it alot because of their proximity to the starter......Does it do it when its cold, like first in the morning? if so, you may have already begun frying the solenoid but doubtful......either way good luck man!

 

well i at first thought it was only hot but now it seems to do it randomly. i hope it hasnt hurt anything yet but i do have a "starter guy"

 

My camaro done the same thing i had to change the starter like four times. I checked all of my wires and they were all fine. If i were to guess it is probably the solenoid going out at least that is what kept happening to me.

 

man that would suck of my soleniod kept going bad after a month or so. if thats the case id have to say the heat of headers might but the problem....either way im ordering a heat shield for it

 

Actually, just get a mini-starter if you do. The standard size ones haven't exactly impressed me and they turn over really slow. I've never bought into the heat soak argument for starter solenoids. Solenoids are just coil windings to create a magnetic field to "suck" the connector over and make the connection, so I'm not sure how heat can adversely affect that unless solder is melted.

 

yeah i only had the car for two years and half of that was in the military, so i went through four starters in basically a years time. But my car caught fire and burned to the ground, so i dont have to mess with any more starters .