trouble starting a uhh.. Verada :/

[PUSHIN]

alrighty so my brother has a 93 verada.. a week and a half ago, I had to go jump start his car.. two or three times, no biggie, buy a new battery, sweet. NO. got another battery yesterday, put it in, went to turn over the car and it sounded as bad as the original battery did when trying to start, then barely started the car, ran it for a bit, killed it, tried to start it again and still barely kicked over, he went down the street, again, barely started, went to work again, barely started..

So today i went up, cleaned all the crap off the terminals and such, did what i could to make sure it all looked alright, still barely started. so I got the idea to hook it up to some jumper leads from my car (wondering about the starter mainly.. and i know my whole charging system is A1, plus the Optima yellowtop, i KNEW there couldn't be a lack in charge.) So anyway, jumper leads are on, my vns running, go to start it, hardly starts. killed it, waited a few minutes, revved my car a bit to make sure we could get some good current going, tried again and barely started, turned it off again after a minute or two, waited and tried again and it didn't start at all, after a few more tries it eventually started (just), which was when we moved it back into the driveway, and left it.

any time it tries to start, it sounds like the battery is on its last legs, and has just barely enough current to turn the starter, but due to the fact this still happened with the jumper leads from my car, and i KNOW my charging system is more then sufficient to start the verada, i'm now under the assumption that the starter is stuffed, the plan is to yank it out and replace it, however i just thought i'd post my progress and see if anyone else could confirm my suspicions at all? Just money doesn't particularly grow on tree's, things have been tight to say the least, and being that the car has to go in for a roady at some point (and most likely getting sold) we dont have all the money in the world to be throwing at the damn thing, so i figure i should be sure (or atleast get a second opinion) before i go telling him to buy a new starter..

another plan was to use a tester, just I don't own one personally, and my trusty electrician mate with the hella expensive tester is unfortunately in hospital at this current time so that stuffed that one, unless i can borrow one elsewhere. (if i can, i plan to test the power cable for the starter, which if the cable is fine i figure will confirm my suspicion, if there's definitely enough charge, and a good cable to the starter, yet still weak starting, i dont see many other options..)

Any suggestions or anything would be much appreciated! even if anyone has ideas of anything else to test so i can rule other items out would be great! Thanks heaps either way everybody!

 

[Straya!]

My guess would be the starter as you've already said, cars get old....usually problems like this occur when they get to this age.

 

[ari666]

you use good quality jump leads? i.e ones that are worth more than 100 bucks.

crawl under the car and check the + bolt on the starter is done up tight and its clean. (dont forget to disconnect negative)

run your + jump lead direct to the starter rather than the battery and see if it makes a difference.

check all vehicle earths.

check that the starter is securely mounted.

if you can get it running, check the running voltage of the car. if under 13V check all the same things on the alternatir (bolts, mounts, wires)

after exhausting those options then drop the starter.

 

[delcowizzid]

im with ari connect jumper leads direct to starter and earth onto engine least it will rule out the cables from batt to starter

 

[PUSHIN]

hmm i'll definitely try connecting the leads directly to the started thats a good idea! cheers as for the quality of the leads, i'm always worried about them (as they're literally from the 80's..) however they've started many many cars, jump started my vn's from my old mans car atleast 30 times with them, and many other cars from mine, they seem to be okay, just old as sh*t lol.

Also i'm fairly certain the alternator is sweet, as there doesn't seem to be a lack in current or anything, the car has no issues at all as soon as its started, its just getting it to start, and i figured jumping from my car would kinda rule out the alternator as it was still very weak trying to start with my car running? (and i know my alternator is fine) i've been having a bad week though, so that could be stupid, tell me if it is lol.

I did not climb under the car at all though (if i did, by the time i got anywhere it would have been dark) but i'll check all the other earths, and probably just remove the cable to the starter and clean it to be sure (even if it looks okay) then put it back on, at which point i'll check its properly mounted too (lol, i think i'd get a laugh if it wasn't)

As Straya! said, it is an old car (20 years now >.<) and well.. its not so great in some ways, so I wouldn't be surprised at all if the starter was gone, amongst other things

Thanks heaps guys i greatly appreciate the inputs!, when I get some time I'll head up and check it all out. Thanks again!

edit: also ari, i saw a post of yours somewhere yesterday and had a little chuckle to myself about your 'avatar' good stuff!

 

[Tree cutter]

If you have a multimeter you can check the voltage at the battery when trying to start it and then check the voltage at the terminal on the starter motor while trying to start it. If the voltage at the starter motor terminal is lower than at the battery then your lead to the starter is not connecting properly. you can get corrosion between the lead and the terminal which will cause a lot of resistance so the power doesnt get to the starter motor.

 

[PUSHIN]

Cheers mate! I'll check that out if i can get my hands on a tester! just don't have the cash to buy one, and i know i can get a several hundred dollar tester when my mate gets out of hospital, however its looking like that might be a while :/ and i'm not really sure of anywhere else i could locate one to borrow, but i was thinking of more or less the same thing myself (after changing all the earths, alternator cable and starter cable on my vn a few years back, I figured it was well worth checking, no corrosion on mine, but crappy connections -.-) so one way or another i'll do my best to suss this out, even if the starter is gone, i still want to see lol. Thanks heaps mate much appreciated!

Edit: so upon a bit of an inspection (i was in a rush as i had too much crap to do today, so i didnt check the earths..) where the + connected to the starter was absolutely spotless, looked as though it was brand new (most likely not the case though). it's also securely mounted. however upon looking at the starter for the first time today, i realised connecting jumpers straight to it may be a problem, the + connection is within 1" of the exhaust, as the exhaust drops down past the starter and rarara, so i'm a bit sceptical of attaching a jumper lead to it as by the time i do, its very close to the exhaust, and i'm worried about maybe having it move and short on the exhaust upon starting the engine or something, i'm yet to actually see if i can get a secure jumping location or even just one away from the exhaust. but i'll check all the earths tomorrow, do what i can to hook a jumper up to the starter, and most likely go get a starter, $132 second hand :/ ouch lol

 

[PUSHIN]

aaarrhhhh, what a pain lol. so i went up this morning, checked the earth and had a gooood look over everything, checked relays (couldn't find one for the starter? ) checked fuses, everything looked fine, so we had to go see my mate in hospitol, which was in the same town as the wreckers with the starter, which turns out has apparently been reco'd, so needless to say we picked that up, get back, put it in, go to turn the car over and nothing but a click, check over everything, fiddle with a few things, try agian, click. roll it back, hook jumpers up to my car, again just a click. So i had a good look over everything, gave the earth cable's lug a bit of a rub back to clean it up as well as where it bolts to the block, put it back on with no change. (old mans vz did something very very similiar 2 weeks ago when getting a brand new battery, turned out to be the filthy terminals lol), so i cleaned the terminals for a second time, made sure it was going to make a solid connection, checked the cables where they go into the lugs for corrosion, the ones for the starter&alternator seemed to have a very small amount of corrosion for the first 2mm, then it ends where its better sealed by rubber casings and the insulation of the wire itself. aaaaanyway, more or less, i'm pretty confident its NOT the starter, the cables APPEAR to be fine (however i can't hook jumpers directly to the starter as there seems to be no room to do it without shorting on something, and i can't seem to acquire a tester to test the cable at the moment.) Everything seems fine...

UNIMPORTANT ^^^^

Exceeeept.. I stopped and had a think today, I mentioned in the first post, We got a new battery for it... so uhh, I failed to mention that when we purchased it (the bloke didn't seem to know all of what was going on, maybe he was having one of those days...) we ended up getting given a battery with 20 - 50 (more likely on the 50 side) less CCA then the original battery had, i noticed this pretty much instantly, but stopped and thought about it.. 'nah, we dont wanna go spending heaps, its a decent price, should be sweet, my second vns battery is even smaller then that again, with a bigger engine, should be able to do the job..'

uuh, started thinking that may have been stupid, and the reasoning as to why the bloody thing won't crank.

just the old battery was having problems, but it'd always jump straight away, put the new one in, 4 starts later (last 3 on the leads) and it wouldn't even try to turn over. so I'm thinking the starter may have been on its way out, thus why it was so weak trying to start, and maybe now the new battery doesn't have the cojones to crank the starter.. is this a possibility? More or less, Can having a battery with too little CCA prevent you starting the car, even while trying to jump start it? (if anyone needs to know, the original battery was ~500cca i believe, the current is 450, mines one of the optima yellow tops, i can't recall exactly how much cca it has, but i know its a bit more then standard vn, closer to the 600 mark.. and thats the one i was trying to jump off, with the car running, and all my accessories off, and i know the leads are okay as i jumped started my other vn from my daily vn with them yesterday however, maybe they aren't strong enough to transfer ALL the current needed given the smaller battery in the verada?? )

>.< paaaain in the rear. I'm leaning towards chucking the optima in tomorrow, see if it'll turn over with that in there, figure its a sure way to answer my question about the low CCA, as mines more then enough, don't think it can hurt anything either, can it?

 

[ben315vz]

Just Veradadores....

But seriously, in my opinion, it will need a new starter motor, or just get the one in it reconditioned or fixed, but find out how much it would cost first because you would be better off getting a new one if there isn't much difference in price. You can try all the batteries you want and it will still do the same thing.

 

[PUSHIN]

we already got another starter from the wreckers today which had been reco'd, looked brand new and had been tested :/ that's why after that and everything else I'm left thinking its the lesser size battery, someone who owns a magna said a similar thing once happened to them and it turned out to be the ecu, but I'm unsure of how reliable their information is. :/ i might try source another starter though if I can't suss it out tomorrow though, bloody verada lol