hard starting 4agte question (progress)

[flygt4]

minor issue getting vehicle started after a long hibernation. a steer in the right direction would be helpful if anyone has seen this before, or even any steps to work through to eliminate some possibilities.

my cars been off the road for ages.I went to to start it again and its really having trouble cranking.
the engine turns over freely by hand . when i hook up a fresh battery with jumper leads , i get full dash lights up, and the fuel pump primes as normal . but when i go to start it , it turns over very very slowly, 1 crank every second or so. every now and then i get a cough and splutter from it.
the curious thing is i noticed the negative leads getting bloody hot on the jumper lead, and starting to melt the insulation

if anyone has any suggestions that may be helpful it would be much appreciated.
at this stage im going to start looking for a loose ground wire somewhere, maybe a poor connection on the starter motor, i may even pull it out to check it if i can be bothered.

also maybe relevant, the car used to grind the starter motor every now and then on starting too, i replaced the starter motor and solenoid and it was fine for a while before it started doing it on the odd occasion again. i had just figured it to a be a sticky relay or something up to this point but maybe it has something to do with it.

[flygt4]

edit , starter motor partially removed, give it some juice, it spins like it should

[method]

Use two jumper leads not one, or just use the battery terminals!

The leads getting hot means that its trying to draw more current than what the leads can handle.

[flygt4]

edit gepsk8 has helped

[gepsk8]

aye, starter is earthed through its body, if u remove from earth it will not go, heavy wire to starter is postive.

[flygt4]

cool thanks for that , wasnt aware of that.

so why can i get the starter to spin away happily off the gearbox but when i go to crank it it doesnt have enough grunt to keep turning it over?

[Grrrrrrr!]

1)Your battery or wiring is poked.
2) your starter could still be poked. Spinning up under no load doesn't mean its okay.

Remove your old dead battery from the circuit, and connect the jumper leads directly to your terminal clamps. Or crash start the car.

One of the reasons your leads where getting hot was that they were probably trying to charge your old battery and start the car at the same time. if your old battery was left connected in the car for more than a few months without being recharged it is very likely to be poked.

[flygt4]

im already using a spare fresh battery jumped directly onto the main cables lugs (ie dead battery out of circuit) as ive hit that issue before.

im trying to figure out whats changed since it last started fine. the only that has happened is it got backed onto a truck, moved to new house, and unloaded. it still started then but idled very unhappily. then that degraded to cranking happily but not firing. then that degraded not starting at all.

[thegreatestben]

Old gas?

[flygt4]

bad gas was one of my first ideas as to the cause of bad idling etc but it wouldnt explain the complete lack of cranking ability.

[l1ttle_d3vil]

will it push start? or is it still not firing?

[NZ_AE86]

Bring it to work and I'll make it go!

[flygt4]

Bring it to work and I'll make it go!

haha you have every other time ill give it my best shot first and see how it goes. its a bit of a pita as it is as it needs to be moved by truck or trailor.

i am tempted to try crash start it down my driveway but then i have no way of getting back up the slight slope into the garage

[flygt4]

i think ive found the ultimate answer, and also a few other contributing problems.

-had starter motor rebuilt as it was worn out - huge thanks to gepsk8 for his time in doing this. this improved the cranking a fair bit.

- traced out the main ground on boot mounted battery, was bolted to seatbelt mount, and rusted to hell, really heating up at join. took a wire wheel to the bolt,hole,and lug. this improved it more.

- gepsk8 noticed that both the factory grounds from engine and gearbox to chassis were absent. rigged up a couple of rough ones to trial out. this also improved the cranking a bit, and by now i could almost get a consistant turnover from it.

and as usual the answer was really stupid, up til now i had been only been jumping a spare battery onto the terminals with a jumper lead. it occurred to me today to actually connect it directly to the battery. and whallah, it started turning over heaps better, so jumper lead goes straight in the bin


now i have it cranking i just njeed to get it firing