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97 Explorer V8 starting hesitation and strange stuff

I have a 97 V8 AWD with about 100k miles on it. The truck runs fine, but recently I started noticing a lot of hesitation when starting. It will turn over once or twice real slow, then sometimes pause, and finally start. I assumed at first the battery (since my radio got reset) or alternator. I charged the battery back up, and it still did it. OK alternator then. I took it by the auto parts store to have the battery and alternator checked and they said it was fine. I have not killed the battery again yet, leading me to believe that it actually is not the alternator. So, I figure it has to be the starter, but reading up on it in my repair manual I find that there are a lot of electronics in there that I have no way of testing.

Here is the strange part. I appears to have more trouble starting when it is warm, and gets worse the more times I start it. Sometimes, when it hesitates a little longer than usual, the radio resets. Today when I started it warm the radio reset, the radio display stopped working, half the buttons stopped working, and the ones that did did strange things. Next time I started it radio came back fine, and it even still had the statio I was able to program while the display was dead.

I'm kinda stumped, thinking it's gotta be some computer thing, unless starting it is causing some kind of weird surge that wreaks havoc on the system. I am looking for any ideas before I have to break down and take it to the dealer.

Thanks in advance for any clues.

-Joe

Reply to
Joe Rizza
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Could be a bad ground connection to the block or to the chassis from the negative terminal on the battery . Check the connections from the negative battery terminal with an ohm meter, if possible. Or, you have a starter that's drawing too much current intermittently. A good shop should be able to check the current draw during the start cycle.

Also, measure the voltage on the body electrics during a start attempt.

Reply to
rakster

Thanks for the ideas. I'll take a look at your suggestions.

-Joe

Reply to
Joe Rizza

If the battery is more than 2 years old, then you should replace with these problems........ But before you do......clean the terminals, add distilled water to the cells if needed then do an overnight trickle charge...... if you still have the problem in a few days, it's most likely the battery.

Batteries that last more than 2-3 years are rare in my opinion and experience.

Reply to
Jeffrey Scholen

Good idea on the jumper cables. I think I'll try that. Except if the battery were that bad I would think that it would have died by now, but it is still kicking, and still starting the car with the same hesitation as always.

Reply to
Joe Rizza

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