so when i turn the key every thing comes on but the starter dosent turn. it dosent click or anything. nothing. then i can come back an hour or two later and it works fine. any ideas?

 

Sounds like VATS...I have this problem alot. If it is VATS it sets to a 3min delay so you have to try again in 3 mins. And 3 min everytime it fails. There is some info on the net...even in this forum on how to bypass it.

 

its not vats. its an 84. i dont know what the problem is? the battery is charged and everything else works fine. except it wont crank? and it only dose it when i either need to go to work or school. could it be a problem in the starter selinoid? not sending the signal to crank? its really hard to firgure out because every time i want to work on the car it works fine. and when it dosent start i have to be somwhere...

 

get a buddy . When he is turning the key ahead to start it .... tap on the starter motor houseing with a hammer . There is a chance that the brushes are worn out and the starter is sticking . If the car starts ...you know what you need. Also another problem with these starters is .... After running the car a bit ...driveing around , etc ... the starters get heat soaked ....and don't work .Does it not start at the first start of the day ? Or does it not start after ripping around a bit and , you are trying to restart it then ?

 

well it dose it after sittink over night sometimes too so i dont think its heat soak.

and with a dead spot in the starter you can usualy hear it tun a little then stop right? thats how it was on my old truck.

i'll see if it dose it tommarrow morning and i'll try to wack the starter. to bad the starter is so tucked up against the motor ya cant realy get to it except from below. at least on my old lifter truck i could stick a 2x4 through the inner fender and smack the starter lol.

 

My starter failed me this way also and it didn't make any kind of noise what so ever...so yeah it would be best to give it a whack.

 

ok well right now the battery charger is on it. i dont know why the battery is low but hopefuly i can get it to start in the street, otherwise i have to push it into my driveway and try to get it up on my car ramps.

 

ok so i hooked it up to the battery charger and let it charge for a little can when i cam back out it started right up. so wtf? is it a low battery causeing it to not even turn over? and if it is then why does it sometimes not work and then sit for a few hours and work fine without doing anything to it? i'm really confused, all i can think of is to keep the jumper cables in my car

 

is it right to see a 2 amp draw on the battery with the key off? it seems like i mayy have a drain somwhere or a bad battery that is causein git to lose power. but i still dont know if that is the whole issue.

 

no you should have almost no draw on the battery with everything shut off

 

Even if there is almost no power in your battery, you should still get a click, or a very weak crank, or something. If your not getting anything at all, it is probably a problem somewhere in the circuit. If you have a remote starter switch, hook it up the the starter and see if that cranks it. If you dont have a remote starter switch, or dont want to buy one, a cheaper way of doing this is crossing the solenoid terminal and the starter motor terminal with a screwedriver or 2. There are a few things that could cause this. (Starter relay,ignition switch, neutral/safety switch) It could just be coincidence that charging the battery made it start. Try this, it shouldnt take long. Good luck

 

i'll see if it dose it tommarrow becuse today it was fine. if it does i'll try crossing the terminals. hopefuly i can narrow it down that way.

 

well last night at work my car wouldn't start again, no click or turn or nothing, so i hooked it up to the jumper cables and my friend gave it a jump and it started right up? so what the hell? is my battery just retarded? its only like 2 months old? you would think even a low battery would make some kind of noticable effort to turn the motor right?

even worse is now my cars sputtering like the timing is outa wack but i just replaced the distributer liek 2 weeks ago so what else would cause it to go outa wack? plugs, wires cap and rotor are all new. the only things left is the coil and the actual distributer shaft itself. this things gotta run right for it to get sold...

 

check your batter cables on the battery and at the starter and check to see it your solenoid has a crack in the cap...