SHELL929

Howdy .
This is my third starter on my car in three years. For my daily driver I drive a 1989 Camaro 5.7 TPI with 90K .
This is the problem that I am having I m hoping someone else had the same problem and where able to fix it . pretty much I will replace the starter and after a while the pinion will not fully engage to make contact with the fly wheel. It will make the click sound and maybe move a little bit but not fully to make contact with the flywheel to start the car. Don't matter what starter I used it will happen again. I have a heat wrap on the starter seem not to work . Any suggestion ?

zed-028

replace the wiring and connectors at a bare minimum and throw on a ford solenoid.

The reason i say wiring and connectors is that if youve really gone through 3 starter motors then the one constant is what the starters are being connected to. If your wiring is aged (its near on 30 years old) then voltage drops especially when exposed to heat and headers is going to be a strong possibility.

I battled this one last year and found numerous wiring issues from pure old age. replaced them all with proper gauge wiring and threw on a ford solenoid. Im sure theres a bunch of threads or just google it.

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

How old is the battery? Load test ok?
Starter shimmed correctly?
Or use a LT1 starter (93-97 5.7 f-car) I use 96ish corvette mini starters.

SHELL929

Thank you for the quick reply . When it first happen I taught it was the battery and I replace both the battery and alterntor. I guess I will change the cables .

SHELL929

Good Day.
I have one more question . I was able to start it by jacking it up and placing a screw driver to jump the starter. when I used the screw driver the starter engaged like normal and start the car . but when i try to start the car using the ignition the starter pinion will not fully engaged. My question is if the wiring to the starter is bad using the screw driver should not work because its not getting the right voltage to begin with or it doesn't matter? or is it something else. Only thing else I had done to the car was an after market alarm install with a remote start
thank you

zed-028

The starter starting via the screwdriver is a good indication that the power feed to the fat post on the starter is probably in ok condition currently. Its now the smaller wires that you need to be worried about.

Theres 2 sides to the starter.

The big fat post (from memory the primary side) gets the power from the battery, still a good idea to replace this with some heavy new wiring just to make sure it isnt suffering from heat soak.

The smaller gauge side (secondary) is made up of small wires that trigger the starter solenoid to move over and make contact with the primary side - you basically did this with your screwdriver by touching the fat post to the skinny post.

A few things make this situation occur

- Bad connections, not enough voltage on the secondary post to tick that little solenoid over, therefore the 2 posts never engage.

- Heat Soaked wiring - heat affected wiring can have voltage drops and cause the same issue.

- Broken connection - somewhere between the key and that starter post might have an intermittent break or burnout causing it to be intermittent.

Start with the wiring on the secondary side, this is where your issue more than likely lies.

SHELL929

Great news guys . You all was right there was a broken connection between the key to the starter . Apparently the previous owner replace a part of the ignition wire with a lighter guage wire and I guess after awhile the wire was not conducting the right amount of volt need to turn the starter . After I replaced that section of the wire the car started at the turn of the key.
Thank you so much