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Won't start...but turns

My kid's '79 gave us a new problem yesterday. It wouldn't start in the morning, classic slow-turnover-looks-like-the-battery-is-dead symptoms. We charged it all day, and even jumped it from my car, and no go. I wasn't able to measure the battery voltage during crank...I'll get that tonight.

I was talking about batteries at dinner, and my wife went out and bought a new one. Bless herr for trying, but it won't start the car either, same slow turn symptom. (I charged it for 30 minutes, then jumped from my car.)

It's been a while since I did this, but I'm looking for a bad ground connection from the battery, a bad connection at the starter, and if I recall from many years ago, the solenoid can go bad too, and that's easy to test. Am I missing anything?

-John O

Reply to
JohnO
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Everything else ruled out, slow crank is either bad cable (relative high resistance) or dragging starter... most likely the latter.

Bad Connections usually manifest with the 'clack, clack, click..' syndrome

Reply to
Backyard Mechanic

"JohnO" wrote in news:1147449855.988407.185800 @g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

More likely a bad starter.

Reply to
elaich

I'm an experienced electronics guy, so we can measure and test to eliminate the electrical stuff easily enough.

Starters...I see Autozone has repair kits and such. I'm looking at rain for the next several days here in SW Michigan, so maybe a home-rebuild is a good rainy-day project? I mean, there's nothing complicated inside a starter, right? Or should I just spring the $40 for the whole thing?

Reply to
JohnO

Well... rebuilding a starter is one of the nastier jobs you can take on.... but it cant hurt, esp if it's a teaching tool.

But if yours is dragging, it MIGHT have gotten to the point that the shaft surface is worn enough that it wont last long.

Refurbing your alternator is a good idea.. ie replace brushes, lube rear bearing

Reply to
Backyard Mechanic

I'm not looking for punishment, so if you say it's nasty then I'm not into that just for fun. :-)

I hear ya.

That part is definitely not original, someone put a big old honking alternator in there. No telling its age.

Thanks as usual.

-John O

Reply to
JohnO

"JohnO" wrote in news:1147479770.167206.243520 @i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

No, it probably is. My '75 Bobcat with the 2.8 also has a "big honking alternator." I found out that Ford outsourced a lot of parts during that era because of their financial woes. A Mopar guy was looking under my hood and remarked that it's a Mopar alternator, which I already suspected. I checked, and it's stock for that year and engine. Ford was looking for cheap parts, and Mopar was quite willing to sell them.

Reply to
elaich

Or, the supplier that made the alternators for mopar also sold them to Ford.

In products there are off the shelf parts, somewhat custom parts, and fully custom parts.

The off the shelf parts are parts the supplier has designed and then tries to sell to companies that make products they could be used in. For instance, at my previous employer, I had a need for electrical connectors that were fluid resistant and could take quite a bit of heat. A connector company had a line of automotive connectors off the shelf that they sold to the auto manufacturers that exceeded my requirements but would be better than designing our own because they were done and automotive volumes made the price more attractive.

The somewhat custom parts are sometimes unique to a particular manufacturer, sometimes they become off the shelf parts. I've had suppliers alter parts slightly to significantly for the needs of the product I was developing. I believe one such part actually became an off the shelf part for the supplier.

Custom parts are designed by the buying company's engineers for the most part and the supplier creates the tooling and produces the part. All of this is charged to the supplying company. Hence the first two are much more attractive options when possible because there is no tooling cost for the first, the second there might be, but often there isn't because the supplier sees it as something they can add to their catalog.

So, I would bet this giant alternator is something that was just sold to both ford and mopar by the same company.

Another funny story... My grandmother's tempo needed a new idle air control valve. I don't feel like trying to get to the dealer's parts counter when open so I pick one up at NAPA. I go to swap it out and find that the replacement NAPA brand part is the real ford part with the ford oval and part number stamps machined off.

Now obviously, ford isn't selling them to NAPA, NAPA is getting them the same place Ford gets them.

Reply to
Brent P

Finally got the kid motivated to start the job. Starter came out as easily as I recall from my teen gear-head years.

I tested it by jumping 12 V from an old battery to the housing and the supply lug, and it sparked nicely but didn't turn. That tells me the coil (stator? rotor?) is intact but the bearings may be wasted, right?

We had to order one from Autozone, seems there's a run on starters this week.

-John O

Reply to
JohnO

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