Why My Car Won't Start - Parts I,II & III

[FI Spyder]

This might belong in Work Manual but I will post here and moderators can move if they like.

Part I: Symptom, turn key just clicks, some times lights on dash go blank and car is dead. Without reading up on it I assumed a bad solenoid in stater so replaced with gear reduction stater (new starter, clean starter connections), no change. I pulled the connector to the starting solenoid at fuse panel, flush with electrical cleaner and problem went away for a couple years, then came back every year then every couple months. The last year cleaning the connector wouldn't make the problem go away.

Part II: Spraying the ignition switch with electrical cleaner made the problem go away. Second last time it didn't, I opened the bonnet, wiggled the wiring in the wiring block by battery and it started right up and was fine. I wrongly assumed the electrical cleaner just needed some time to work on the ignition switch contacts. Last Monday it started fine, first fire up since fall. After going to store it wouldn't. Lots of spraying of the ignition switch and still nothing car dead. Wiggled wires at connection block, tried again and it was fine.

Part II: Took the connection block apart and realised how it all worked. The brown wire clamp was a little loose, you could slide it up and down on the red cable about an eighth to quarter inch. There was no corrosion (green) to speak of but a little black on the wires. I measured resistance of clamp to wire as I slid it up and down and the slow digital display would vary from .3 ohm to 147 ohm (actual reading could be higher). I crimped the clamp tighter with the biggest pliers I had and while better there was a little motion still. I soldered it to the cable after cleaning red cable wires with electrical cleaner and using electrical flux, solder and a propane torch as I had to room to use it with the battery out. Not prettiest job I've ever done but it seemed solid and the cover block hid it all. Works fine now.

You can see the red cable goes direct from battery to starter. The brown wires pick 12 V off it at the clamp and send it to various places. One of the brown wires comes from the alternator so if a loose clamp can't get 12 V from the battery cable it can get it from the alternator once (if) the car is running. That's why if the car won't start and everything seems dead you can push start it and everything is fine because the 12V is now coming from the alternator and not the battery cable.

I know I went at this back assward but that's how you often learn life's lessons although I think everything everything contributed. I think my starting problems are gone so long as the soldering job holds up. The only thing to double check is cleaning the wiring connector to the ignition switch although that would have been cleaned 8 years ago.







- - -TR7 Spider - - - 1978 Spitfire- - - - 1976 Spitfire - - 1988 Tercel 4X4 - Kali on Integra - 1991 Integra - Yellow TCT

[Hasbeen]

Hi Spyder, well done, if you have actually found it this time.

I had an ongoing problem in the ignition system of the 7, which would cause a slight hesitation. Each time I improved something I thought I had fixed it. After about 5 years the Lumenition finally failed completely, & a new system did fix the problem.

On starter problems I had an interesting one in New Guinea. The new chum, [recently arrived from the UK] service department foreman was in charge, while the service manager was away.

He sent a boy over to the spare parts department I was running for a while, for a battery for a Daihatsu diesel one ton truck. A little later he sent over again for a starter. A little later he rang & asked me to come over to service, & have a look at a problem..

He had a Daihatsu there, who's owner had walked in & said that the truck belong him, "he no git up", [wouldn't start[. The truck was parked immediately in front of the service department. Turning the key produced nothing, despite the new battery & starter.

The foreman had detailed one of the local sort of mechanics to sort what he thought was minor problem.

I turned the key, nothing. I reached under & felt the starter. Hot enough to burn your hand.

I asked the owner, "by you drive dis peller truck belong you along here"? "Yes I drive him" is the answer. Next question, "by him RRRRR, [engine sound]"? "Him no RRRRR".

"By you catch him tow by friend belong you"? "Me catch him".

The truck had been towed in from an outer village. The owner was not being difficult, he just did not understand what the poor foreman needed to know about the truck, so simply answered the questions put to him.

I opened the radiator drain, & got dust. The dip stick was dry, & of course, the engine seized solid. The truck was about a year old, & had about 14,000 miles on it. Pity it had never seen a service.

The new chum foreman had learned a lesson about dealing with the locals. You have to ask the right question to get the answer you need. They will not volunteer information, they don't know you need. He had assumed the truck was driven in, then refused to start, not been towed in after seizing.

Hasbeen

[Peter Nuss]

Ah, you do know you can buy a new reproduction correct positive battery cable from the Roadster Factory? The only reason I mention this, is your cable is toast. I'm sure it will leave you stranded at some point soon, as it looks like you have some internal corrosion going on. In the process of failing it will generate heat and resistance that will stress other components. In the famous words of NASA, might even get a "rapid oxidation". Good luck with your project.

TR8

[FI Spyder]

Good to know. There is the black on the strands which I assume is an oxide and not some anti corrosion covering with just a little green at insulation edge. I was able to clean off the copper in the clamp area with the electrical cleaner so the solder wicked up under the clamp. So long as the solder job doesn't crack there should be a good connection there. I haven't taken a resistance reading between clamp blade and cable yet but it should be near zero now keeping heat to nil. I know corrosion can creep up the cable under the installation but the only way to see is cut the insulation, kind of like killing the patient to see if it has cancer.

- - -TR7 Spider - - - 1978 Spitfire- - - - 1976 Spitfire - - 1988 Tercel 4X4 - Kali on Integra - 1991 Integra - Yellow TCT

[Sautie]

Hi Hasbeen,
I enjoyed your Pidgin, Working years ago on a Ashanti deep in the Ghanaian rain forest Pidgin was the order of the day. You had to understand that it was pure logic.
My best example was that of a Blastman who told me one morning
" Lef small yesterday I go die tomorrow and I won't be here today"
Assume yesterday was Monday the he had narrowly missed a blast that would have caused him to die today (Tuesday) and the he wouldn't have been at work today (Tuesday). Try using that on TR7 electrics.

[Hasbeen]

Hi Sautie, yes pidgin can be fun. I had a local stores manager. He was very good, except 3 or 4 times a year he would come in "sparked" rolling drunk. No real problem if you saw him & sent him home.

I didn't see him one day. He sent all the sea freight air freight, & the air freight sea freight.

I only found out when one of the boys at the airport freight office rang me. I used to look after a couple, & they looked after us. When he got me it was "Phil, me no savvy dis peller". "What you no savvy Moses"? "Me no savvy dis peller track belong Komatsu, [D8 equivalent bulldozer], him go long Aztec"? [Piper Aztec 6 passenger light aircraft].

They had the track, we'd strapped down to a pallet for transport, on a fork lift, trying to shove it into the poor Aztecs freight compartment. Fortunately it didn't fit. We never did find where half the stuff was shipped to. That Komatsu track was to go by barge to a logging camp 60 miles down the coast, with no airstrip, I didn't ask where they were trying to fly it to.

That storeman got me with one a bit like yours, while I was still new to pidgin. He came in one day asking for a day off. His grand father, "him die". I realised this was at least the third time he'd his grandfather had died, & queried the story.

The first few times his grandfather was very sick & dying. This time he die pinis, [finish] & they were burying him.

There used to be a beautiful 3 page story, a mission boy, describing in pidgin to another real bush tribesman, a piano, after seeing one for the first time. God I wish I'd written it down. It was hilarious.

It was a bocus, [box] with teeth belong him. When you hit them he cry.

Sorry about your thread Spyder.

Hasbeen

[FI Spyder]

Love hearing those stories. We don't get that stuff here.

- - -TR7 Spider - - - 1978 Spitfire- - - - 1976 Spitfire - - 1988 Tercel 4X4 - Kali on Integra - 1991 Integra - Yellow TCT

[Hasbeen]

OK, here's another.

The locals were the total yes men. Mostly they would never contradict the "master", tell him he was wrong, or had made a mistake.

I did a lot of repair work in the islands. Most plantations had a range of broken down machinery they could not fix themselves, & could not get anyone to come & fix. I would sometimes hang around, if I liked the place, while parts were ordered. I was always treated as an honoured guest.

One such was in the Trobriand Islands, [Google it, there some great pictures & the women are something else]. [Also Google Kapingamarangi another atoll I did some work on, & you'll see why I almost stayed]. A plantation there had a pre WW11 Southern Cross 3 cylinder Diesel generator I was repairing. The boss had let them run out of oil. The engine boy could never tell the boss he had stuffed up, so was adding water to keep the oil at the right level, with obvious results. Southern Cross were casting up the parts I needed, but it was taking a while.

This was no hardship. The owners wife was a local, & with out doubt the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. 2 of her sisters lived with them. The Trobriand people are a mixed race, from about 70% Melanesian 30% Polynesian, to about 30/70%. Quite a few have an infusion of Chinese from the traders, & many have European, Yank or Ozzie & some Japanese from wartime occupations. Some of these are incredibly attractive people.

This lady was well educated, & played a mixture of British Raj, & the lady of the manor to the hilt. I had to "dress" for dinner, but boy was it fun. It also felt strange, when there were no other Europeans with in 70 miles.

At the same time I was overhauling a tractor for a plantation on Fergusson Island, a high island about 70 miles away, near the eastern tip of the New Guinea mainland. Here the owners wife was an Ozzie, but the daughter a light hose keeper couple. Apart from 3 years schooling in Oz, she had spent here entire life living with villagers in fairly isolated places, & had gone completely native. As they were the only Europeans on the island, she continued that way.

For a few days when I first arrived, she had worn European dress, but soon got rid of the top, wearing only a short hipster sarong. The husband told me the sarong was only because I was there, she usually preferred a grass skirt.

I was a bit like top gear for the locals. I would sometimes have an audience of dozens watching me pull mysterious oily bits of white man magic out of an engine. Many had only seen a few machines in their lives, & it was the first time they had seen what was inside one. I was often surrounded by dozens of young brown bodies & lots of brown boobs, barely noticing their presence. I found it rather amusing that I became all fingers & thumbs at the arrival of a couple of white ones, with a cup of coffee, or a cool drink.

We are indeed strange beasts we humans.

Hasbeen

[FI Spyder]

My soldering the distribution clamp to the + battery cable didn't work (wire didn't get hot enough). I took the battery cable out so I could put the clamp in a vise to secure it to the cable better (couldn't get enough pressure with a large pliers). When it was out I noticed a second problem that I didn't notice when it was in. The battery post clamp was loose. It was one of those that is clamped to the wire b a clamp and two bolts. The grippy ridged surface was worn flatter and couldn't clamp the wire well. I stripped back the insulation and folded back about half the strands and cut off the balance so the cable would have a thicker profile and that allowed a firm clamping.

While I was at it I was going to get the proper connection to the Nippon Denso gear reduction starter as I was using an ordinary 1/4" spade connector and the starter has a typical sealed locked Japanese connector. I wandered through two auto wreckers and not finding any thing I emailed Gustafson Machine and they said the connectors aren't available and to use what I had so back it went on. So far works fine. Seems the problem was dual, loose distribution clamp and loose battery post clamp to cable.

- - -TR7 Spider - - - 1978 Spitfire- - - - 1976 Spitfire - - 1988 Tercel 4X4 - Kali on Integra - 1991 Integra - Yellow TCT

[Hasbeen]

That sounds like my experience Spyder.

It is so common to find not just one problem, but 2, with neither bad enough to stop the car, but combined, they do. You fix one & think you've got it, only to have to go in again later to fix the other.

Hasbeen