Help! '86 not starting!

zuckus01

zuckus01

Daily Driver
The car has been running perfectly for months and then this morning it won't start. The battery is kicking in and you can hear the fuel pump start. Several parts have already been replaced - alternator (rebuilt), master cylinder, slave cylinder, fuel pump....The only thing that I've done lately is add antifreeze to keep if from overheating in traffic.
 
!

You'll have to check for spark now. This is best done with a timing lite. But if you don't have one, disconnect a sparkplug wire from the plug. Pull the insulator boot back and away exposing the metal connector. Have somone crank the engine and hold the connector about 1/4 inch away from a metal part of the engine. You should see a big fat blue spark.

If not, or if the spark is weak and yellow, we can go to the next step.
 
Its not even trying to crank. The starter is not engaging. Sorry forgot to tell you guys that at the start.
 
Battery?

Check for voltage.

Less than 12.5v and it's considered discharged. Many accessories will work with less than 12v, but the starter is often not one of them. :sad:
 
Put the car in 3rd gear and push it

My car has a bad spot on the starter and by rocking the car in gear I move off the bad spot.

Have you tried roll starting the car? This does require a good bad battery, but no starter.
 
Does the starter solenoid click at all?

If so, check grounds, check battery strength, check grounds, try Todd's suggestion about pushing the car in gear, check grounds.

If not, look for an electrical connection problem: red spade connected wire at the starter falling off is common; seat belt interlock if your car has one.
 
Ok problem solved. It took a bit to find but a wire had come off the starter. Found, reconnected, starts. Thanks for all your suggestions.
 
That would be the press on spade connector to the starter solenoid. What usually happens, heat and vibration causes the terminal to expand and loosen. Take a pair of pliers and pinch down on the spade terminal to make this connection firm again or it will fall off again.

The other way to fix this is to clip off the old spade terminal and crimp on a new one.

Bernice

zuckus01 said:
Ok problem solved. It took a bit to find but a wire had come off the starter. Found, reconnected, starts. Thanks for all your suggestions.
Click to expand...
 
Wouldn't be a bad idea to check the rest of the spade terminals when you have a chance. When one of them starts to lose its grip, it's pretty sure that others are soon to follow. On my '87, it started with one of the coil connections (killed the engine on a spirited drive one afternoon) and shortly after I got that one stabilized, the starter connector came off. That's when I found that almost every spade connection on the car was working its way loose. Only took a few hours to hunt them all down and snug them up, though.
 
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