- This topic has 9 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 9 years ago by
.
-
Topic
-
Hello fellow ETCGers. I’m the proud owner of a 1963 Ford Fairlane with a 289 and C4 transmission. It has Hooker Supercomp longtube headers on it with no heat shield or anything to protect the starter. This cooked my starter last summer. While changing the starter, I decided to change all the battery cables and solenoid because they looked like they’d seen better days, and I’m a firm believer in preventative maintenance. Well about a month after that I went out to my car to drive home from work, started it up and let the key go to run position and the starter kept turning. Then I turned the key off and the engine shut off, but the starter continued to spin. So I hopped out, popped the hood, and yanked the battery cable off. Luckily I work at an auto parts store, so I went inside, exchanged the solenoid and had it replaced in a matter of minutes. All was well until a couple months after that. Same situation again. So I replaced it again and all was well until this May. Once again, bad solenoid. Then again this week it happened. Its a 50+ year old carbureted engine, so it takes longer than a newer fuel injected car to start while cranking, but it still shouldn’t be killing solenoids this quickly. So my question to the brilliant minds on this forum is do you know why I keep going through solenoids like this? Or is there any way to bypass the solenoid altogether with a push button starter switch or something similar? Thanks in advance for the help.
-
Replies
-
I think you answered your own question when you said your exhaust is responsible for already frying one starter.
You can experiment with heat sheilds, you can use insulating wrap on the exhaust and/or the starter and solenoid assembly, you can alter your exhaust routing, or you can look into high performance starters that are meant to operate in hotter engine compartments.
I think you answered your own question when you said your exhaust is responsible for already frying one starter.
You can experiment with heat sheilds, you can use insulating wrap on the exhaust and/or the starter and solenoid assembly, you can alter your exhaust routing, or you can look into high performance starters that are meant to operate in hotter engine compartments.
However, the incident where the starter continued to operate with the key in the OFF position makes me think you have an intermittent issue with the ignition switch, or maybe the starter relay.
The solenoid isn’t on the starter though. Its a fender mounted solenoid. And I’d be surprised if its an ignition switch issue, because I can have the battery unhooked for a week at a time with the bad solenoid in it, hook the cables back up and the starter starts spinning again without the key even in the car. Replace the solenoid and it’s good again until the new solenoid dies.
The fender-mounted item is probably the starter relay.
I wouldn’t discount under-hood heat being the cause of repeated relay failure. Either that, or the relays you’re using are crap. Are you using relays that are specified for your car? Maybe what you’re using are 6 volt relays meant for even older cars, and they’re welding themselves internally under the 12 volt load.
Easy enough to track down the problem, next time simply disconnect the wire at the starter relay that comes from the ignition switch and see if the starter stops cranking. If it does then the problem is with the ignition switch or wiring from it. If it doesn’t stop then the problem is with the relay or wiring from the relay to the starter.
Agree with Camd64. You can test the relay by removing it and applying 12V to the relay coil while checking for continuity between the larger battery cable terminals with an ohmmeter. I strongly suspect you have a washed out ignition switch, especially if it’s 51 years old.
Well I went out and pulled both small wires off of the solenoid and hooked the battery cable back up and it started spinning again. The only 2 cables that were hooked up to the solenoid were the battery in and starter out and it still spun the starter. So I have confirmed that the issue is the solenoid. And it is the correct 12v solenoid for my vehicle.
The most likely causes would be heat, vibration, or really poor quality relays. This sort of thing wasn’t much of an issue “back in the day”, so, whatever has changed between ’63 and now would be something to look at.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.