Odd Starter Issues on my 68 850 Spider

Daniel Gibson said:
FWIW, I had a similar issue. Everything looked fine, had 12 volts everywhere, but it would not crank. Turns out there was corrosion on the battery terminal wire clamp. It would let through enough to trick the voltmeter, but not enough to spin. Cut off the old clamp and installed a new one. Problem resolved. I doubt this info is useful, but you never know.
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Sometimes you think its useless, but someone in the future may need this thread, and it resolves their problem. Thanks for the input!
 
I seem to still be having a grounding issue. I have installed the new gear reduction starter which is awesome by the way!

I have two ground cables going from the trans to the chassis and one from the block to the body, all thick 4 gauge. All I’m getting is clicking like it’s trying to go but just won’t. On the bench it’s perfect. I even went as far as grounding the block directly to the battery with the same result. Is there something I’m missing?
 
850EV said:
I seem to still be having a grounding issue. I have installed the new gear reduction starter which is awesome by the way!

I have two ground cables going from the trans to the chassis and one from the block to the body, all thick 4 gauge. All I’m getting is clicking like it’s trying to go but just won’t. On the bench it’s perfect. I even went as far as grounding the block directly to the battery with the same result. Is there something I’m missing?
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Have you used a voltmeter at the starter terminals to see what happens when you try and start it? If voltage drops way down, you have a connection issue. I would also bypass anything to with the 850 and use jumper cables off another car (that has a good battery) directly to the starter. If it works okay, then you def. have a connection problem somewhere. Another thing to maybe try is connecting a voltmeter lead to the pos. terminal at the battery and other lead to the terminal at the starter. There should be very little voltage drop across the pos. cable when cranking. You could also do the same with the neg. connections. Sounds like a bad connection somewhere. If the solenoid is clicking and the starter won't turn over, that is usually a sign of a bad connection somewhere and since you have a new starter, it won't be that.

A gear reduction starter should light up the engine no problem. I have one in my 600 Abarth replica that starts a 903-based high compression engine easily.
 
850EV said:
I seem to still be having a grounding issue. I have installed the new gear reduction starter which is awesome by the way!

I have two ground cables going from the trans to the chassis and one from the block to the body, all thick 4 gauge. All I’m getting is clicking like it’s trying to go but just won’t. On the bench it’s perfect. I even went as far as grounding the block directly to the battery with the same result. Is there something I’m missing?
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My guess is your grounding issues are solved and its a supply issue now. As stated above run a jumper cable direct to the hot on the starter then run a small jumper from that to the solenoid. I have a remote starter switch for this, a great tool to have when working on rear engined car. Just yesterday my sons old 4Runner only got a click. We confirmed the starter was good by bench testing it. We replace the positive from the battery to the starter with a new cable and it started right up.
 
NM850 said:
My guess is your grounding issues are solved and its a supply issue now. As stated above run a jumper cable direct to the hot on the starter then run a small jumper from that to the solenoid. I have a remote starter switch for this, a great tool to have when working on rear engined car. Just yesterday my sons old 4Runner only got a click. We confirmed the starter was good by bench testing it. We replace the positive from the battery to the starter with a new cable and it started right up.
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I have replaced both terminals. So the connection is solid. Rapid click. I will test with the multimeter this afternoon and report back
 
850EV said:
I have replaced both terminals. So the connection is solid. Rapid click. I will test with the multimeter this afternoon and report back
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I could be that 50 year old wire is internally corroded not just at the terminal.
 
Update:

I used the multimeter on the negative and positive from a completely external battery. The only things in the circuit are the starter and a battery. Everything is off.
I tested positive side first. When jumping to the solenoid I got 4.5v with clicking. I switch to the negatives and got the same thing. 4.5v on the negative side. When I do the same thing outside of the car it operates normally. The engine is free and isn’t locked up.
 
Also, I get continuity from the starter body to the negative battery terminal as well as a resistance of 0.2. My positive battery cable also has continuity and a resistance of 0.2 from the terminal to the end that attaches to the starter itself. From the starter hot lead (where the battery connects) to the starter body is open. Or “I” on the multimeter.

With the multimeter on the starter body, I engage the starter it clicks, while getting a reading of 1.25v on the negative terminal and 4.5v on the positive. The positive wire lead got hot with only 3 seconds of attempted engagement.
 
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NM850 said:
I could be that 50 year old wire is internally corroded not just at the terminal.
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850EV said:
Also, I get continuity from the starter body to the negative battery terminal as well as a resistance of 0.2. My positive battery cable also has continuity and a resistance of 0.2 from the terminal to the end that attaches to the starter itself. From the starter hot lead (where the battery connects) to the starter body is open. Or “I” on the multimeter.

With the multimeter on the starter body, I engage the starter it clicks, while getting a reading of 1.25v on the negative terminal and 4.5v on the positive. The positive wire lead got hot with only 3 seconds of attempted engagement.
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4.5 volts = bad connection. Resistance in a bad connection will cause heat. A motor will draw a lot more current if it can't turn. Resistance of 0.2 ohms would be way too high and 1.2 volts across the the starter body to neg. terminal should be zero. Motor output (power) varies as the square of the voltage so at 4.5 volts is only generating about 15% of it's normal output, which is why it won't turn over.

I can't this being anything other than a connection problem, either the wire/cable itself or at a terminal. Best way to know for sure is use another set of jumper cables that are known to be good and a battery in another vehicle, connected directly to the starter terminals. Big box store jumper cables can be useless and have small gauge wire and bad connections. My wife bought an emergency kit for her car that included jumper cables. Wouldn't even start our lawn tractor.

FWIW, electrical problems can be one of the hardest things to troubleshoot.
 
Thank you so much for your input. I will definitely be going to get stronger cables too. My current jumpers are 10 gauge. Not thick at all. The battery cave in the car is a 4 gauge.
The frustrating part is this is stopping me from my first test run of the engine after the fresh rebuild. Always so close yet so far!
 
Do you have 2 ring terminals/2 wires going to the hot post on the solenoid? There should be one FROM the battery and one going TO the generator. I seem to remember that they would separate inside a sheath and both of them wouldn't be hooked to the solenoid.
 
gene cooley said:
Do you have 2 ring terminals/2 wires going to the hot post on the solenoid? There should be one FROM the battery and one going TO the generator. I seem to remember that they would separate inside a sheath and both of them wouldn't be hooked to the solenoid.
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I have two that are suppose to attach. One is the thick black wire from the battery. The other is like a 10 gauge pink cable with a ring terminal. They both attach to the starter hot post, but for this test purpose I only have the battery cable attached.
 
If you take the "start" solenoid wire loose and then use a small insulated handle screwdriver to jump between the hot lead on the solenoid to the solenoid "start" connection what happens?
 
gene cooley said:
If you take the "start" solenoid wire loose and then use a small insulated handle screwdriver to jump between the hot lead on the solenoid to the solenoid "start" connection what happens?
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It just clicks. That’s what I have been doing to try and turn it from the rear of the car.
 
850EV said:
It just clicks. That’s what I have been doing to try and turn it from the rear of the car.
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Loosen the starter bolts just slightly and see if anything frees up.
Is the flywheel clean, no rust on the teeth?
Is something jamming the flywheel inside the bellhousing?
 
I read somewhere that to avoid ground problems, one should run a #4 or #6ga cable from the battery negative terminal to the engine block. Maybe you can test if this helps by getting a battery and connecting + to the starter big terminals and negative to the engine block. Then, go and try to start it using the ign switch and the stock battery as stock hookup.
 
Update:

I went under the engine and watched where the starter was engaged to the flywheel. It was stuck on the teeth. I loosened the bolts and was able to wiggle the starter to get the gear to retract. I jumped the solenoid and the starter engaged the engine, spinning it over. No hot grounds or hot live wires. No drag or fighting compression. Nice fast spinning, but after taking off the jump, the gear would get stuck again. So, I am going to check the alignment to get the best fit. I will also clean the teeth. They need to see a dentist ;)

Thank you to all who contributed to helping me solve this issue. I was just fighting the starter and drawing way too much current forcing it to try and work.
 
myredracer said:
Did you run jumper cables from another car and did you try to turn the starter motor by connecting neg. clamp to the engine and touch the pos. on the starter stud (not the solenoid stud)? That will eliminate anything to do with the 850 battery, cables & connections and solenoid. Watch what the voltmeter shows at the starter terminal and also solenoid terminal and see what it reads and if there's a difference in the readings as you try and turn the engine over. I assume the body of the starter is bolted on tightly and is making a clean/solid connection to the bellhousing. You could try connecting the neg. jumper cable to the engine and to the transaxle and see if there's a difference. Jumper strap terminals need to be sanded clean and bolt/engine/bellhousing contact surfaces should be clean.

Does the solenoid try and engage with a clunk or does it barely move? Does the starter turn much or not at all. Did you clean the brushes? They can sometime be dirty and glazed over. Are the springs holding the brushes snugly against the armature? You could bench test it by clamping the starter in a vice and then use vice grips on the pinion gear teeth and give the starter a quick zap to see if it wants to turn hard under load. A motor can spin nicely under no-load but bog down under load if armature and/or brushes aren't clean and making proper contact or if all windings aren't connecting to the armature. With the motor apart, you could measure continuity of the windings by touching an ohm meter across the armature segments (at 180 degrees) to see if a winding has failed. Sometimes the braided wire to a brush or the connections at each end of it can be damaged .

Sometimes the contacts inside a solenoid can be dirty and/or pitted and not make a proper connection. If you've isolated it to a solenoid problem, they can be taken apart to clean the contacts.

Note that using a lead with alligator clamps and small gauge wire has too much resistance and can even burn out the wire at one of the clamps. Automotive jumper cables can also be defective due to a poorly manufactured connection at a clamp (under the plastic cover). Not long ago I tried to use a brand new cheapo jumper cable on our lawn tractor and it wouldn't turn the starter. Turned out there was only a few wire strands connected at one clamp causing too much resistance. I have heavy duty jumper cables that I normally use and then I got the lawn tractor starting fine.

Last thing you want is to buy an expensive new starter and find you overlooked something. I also have several 850 starters available. All have been bench tested and run properly. That shop doesn't sound that great to me.
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Agree. Find the root cause.
 
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