Lazty Starter

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Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of pageLink to this message   By Chris Browne on Monday, September 17, 2001 - 05:00 am: Edit

Ok so this is on my Wifes Volvo, but Ford is our Land Rover connection
Starter sounds like it's weak barely appears to want to turn over-car 4 years old 40k miles. battery gives out 12.4 at rest 13.5 with engine running.
Terminals at battery are clean- only time I've seen this is a bad earth lead....
Ideas?

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of pageLink to this message   By Jon Williams (Jonw) on Monday, September 17, 2001 - 07:00 am: Edit

Interesting. What model Volvo is it? I've got a '97 850R wagon with about 70,000 miles and never had any starter problems. Probably wouldn't hurt to check the starter ground connection, but the brushes could be worn... To my knowledge it's a Bosch starter, so it isn't hard to get a set of brushes for it if they're the cause of the slow starting...

Seems like I remember hearing that the terminals on that starter were prone to corrode (causing a bad connection), so that could also be a cause...

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of pageLink to this message   By Chris Browne on Monday, September 17, 2001 - 07:07 am: Edit

V70 one of the first of these rebadged 850s they brought in..... After talking to my LR mechanic I'm actually leaning towards the battery- 13.4 is on the low side should be higher
I plan to jump it from the Disco to see if that helps. If so, its a mere juice problem curable with a new battery.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of pageLink to this message   By Robert Mann (Oldscout) on Monday, September 17, 2001 - 07:11 am: Edit

Pull it and have it load tested. It may be pulling too many amps. 13.4V should be just fine.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of pageLink to this message   By Shane C. (Qsiguy) on Monday, September 17, 2001 - 01:03 pm: Edit

Put your volt meter on the battery and watch it while someone is cranking it. That is really the voltage you want to know. It shouldn't go under 10-11 volts while cranking or your battery may be going. Even if the battery is going out it can read 12+ when sitting w/no load. This really about the same as a load test a mechanic will do.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of pageLink to this message   By Robert Mann (Oldscout) on Monday, September 17, 2001 - 01:22 pm: Edit

Shane with you method how does one tell if it's a bad battery or a starter pulling too many amps?

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of pageLink to this message   By jcw on Monday, September 17, 2001 - 02:30 pm: Edit

Another possibility is that oil has leaked into the starter and has caused poor contact between the carbon brushes and the armature. That was one of the problems with my Disco starter (see item further down the list). The main problem was worn down brushes after 140k miles. But that shouldn't be your problem with only 40k. But if you put an ohmmeter across the chassis and the positive terminal on the starter (not the terminal on the solenoid) you should get virtually zero ohms. If you get detectable resistance, your commutator is probably cruddy.

John

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of pageLink to this message   By Shane C. (Qsiguy) on Monday, September 17, 2001 - 04:29 pm: Edit

Robert, checking the voltage while cranking is just an easy way to see how the battery handles a load. Far from fool proof, but it has always been effective for me when checking for battery condition. As a mater of fact, my starter has sounded weak for the last month and I was wondering if it was going out, but just this afternoon the battery finally kicked the bucket. Now the starter spins like a top.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of pageLink to this message   By Chris Browne on Tuesday, September 18, 2001 - 04:07 am: Edit

Well it was as dead as a doornail last night when I got home, no juice jumped ok. Remove leads and not enough juice to start.

Replaced battery (Exide 60 month grp 47 $60 with $5 core) starts fine.

Hoping there isn't any short or something that stealing Messrs Watts, Amps and Volts away from their appointed tasks - Its been living next to Land Rover for 4 years so anything is possible....

Guess we'll see tomorrow when she runs it.....

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of pageLink to this message   By Jon Williams (Jonw) on Tuesday, September 18, 2001 - 04:24 am: Edit

Something to keep in mind... I did have an alternator go on my 850, but it didn't die like you'd expect. What happened was the battery would repeatedly die, even after being replaced twice. A draw test showed normal results, and the bench-tested alternator put-out fine (although I'm wondering about the thing they tested it with...) Either way, the alternator wasn't always charging. Same thing happened on my Disco. You'd think I would've been able to troubleshoot it a little better...

Ah, such is life :)


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