The Sprint's been starting hard for a while now...got in yesterday to go to work and it wouldn't start at all...tried it again this morning before work and it commenced making a grinding noise. Pulled the starter off this evening and the housing is cracked, so I assume that's the cause of the problem. However, what would cause it to crack like this (see pic below)? I took the inspection cover off and can't see any broken or missing teeth on the flywheel, so is this just metal fatigue, or what?
How long was the starter in there? I work at NAPA and have seen a few (fairly rare) that have small stress like cracks in the housing. How tight was it bolted up? Looks like it may just be defective...I would try another one from maybe the auto recyclers(cheap) and see if all the problems you were having..dissapear. I had one a few years ago that the starter drive would get stuck in the ring gear. Did it once in a drive-though...very bad. When it happened I would have to jack up the car and loosen the starter bolts...then when I would hear it snap back I would tighten it back up. Turned out to be a missing lock ring in the snout(to prevent the gear from going to far and jammin in the ring gear). Took one out of one of my old Pinto starters and has worked great for over 8 years now. Hope you get yours figured out...perhaps some other dude will have more ideas as to the cause...
When you say its been hard to start what do you mean? The starter wont turn over or it turns real slow? I agree that break is probably just a fluke. Get a new one and see if your problems go away.
Thanks Grabber71 for the info. Dennis, as far as it starting hard, in this case it would seem to crank the engine normally, but not catch right away. Most of the time it would only catch just when I finally gave up and let go of the key. How long had it been in there? All I can say is, obviously a lot longer than I've owned the vehicle, and it was apparently bought as a reman, still has the sticker on it. What I REALLY want to get is one of those fancy high torque mini starters ya'll have got in your cars :evilsmile
the starter has no effect on when the motor fires as long as it is spinning the motor correctly. almost sounds like no juice to the ignition in start mode. let go the key and it snaps to run position where there is power & the motor is still spinning enough to fire.
Now that you mention it Dave, that kinda makes sense. I put in a Duraspark last year but to be honest I don't recall if I checked the wire that I connected the Duraspark's red wire to, to see if it had power in the "start" position
Could very possibly be a timing problem. I've seen cars that were hard to start before because the timimg was so far off that it made the engine kick back while turning it over. That could very easily break the starter nose in that location. Then again, it may have had a stress crack due to that problem from being on another car in it's life and it was just time for it to go.
Don't think it's a timing issue Ray. I just double-checked the timing when I started driving it again after winter, so unless the timing chain jumped a tooth, there shouldn't be a problem there. And I don't think it could possibly have jumped since it always ran like a top when it finally did start. Think I'm going to have to chalk this one up to stress fractures.
I've made a couple of change overs to the Duraspark set up. I've always tied both the red and wire together. Sounds like Dave may have hit the nail on the head.
OK, where I'm at now is, I found a mini starter at salvage out of a '97 F-150. Wired it with a jumper according to the diagram Ray (courier11sec) posted in another thread here, and rewired my Duraspark so that the red wire is connected to a wire that's hot in both "start" and "run". Now the car starts way better, but the starter seems to continue to spin for a few seconds after I let go of the key. Any possible solutions?
Could the drive gear be too tight in the crank position causing a delay in releasing? Has someone done any trans repairs that required removal? Maybe the flywheel/flexplate is out of round and broke the starter? Just some wild thoughts.
I'd first check that the wiring is correct on the solenoid. If it's okay, then I'd purchase a new one. An inexpensive trouble-shoot. My starter did that once when the mechanic had a wire going to the wrong side of the solenoid. It took another mechanic about a minute to fix the problem. Food for thought, maybe?
Read about this on a Mustang forum. The mini starters are wired differently than we are used to. The hot lead to the starter goes on the same side of the solenoid as the battery cable , yes it is hot all the time. The small terminal on the starter goes to the big terminal on the solenoid that the original starter wire was connected to. The new cars are wired this way and i am sure if that little jumper trick worked correctly they would not waste all that extra wire. lastchance
lastchance - yeah I kind of suspected maybe that's what's up, but like a few of the other folks here I get kind of leery about having a big wire like that always connected to 12 volts and especially right next to the exhaust manifold etc. But it looks like that's probably what I'm going to be stuck with, I'll just have to make sure it's well protected. Thanks.
