trouble starting a uhh.. Verada :/

[ari666]

220cca cranks over a toyota camry. unless your verada is 12:1 compression i would say 400 would handle it easy. sorry mate but im gonna say youve done something wrong on the install. from your description it sounds like the old starter did a better job than the new one, so youre gonna have to look back on whats happened.

now first off, did you bench-test the new starter. if not, take it off. stick the jump leads on your battery, clamp earth to the body of the starter and touch + to the terminal the start wire goes to. this will engage the solenoid. ie itll push the gear down the shaft. try that a couple of times and watch that its rapid, smooth ie. doesnt bind and travels all the way to the end of the shaft.

ok now we stick the + jumper onto the large bolt, then bridge the start wire to the + lead. this will activated the whole starter. the gear will spin and the solenoid will engage.

this should all happen really fast. the starter will jump and skip all over the place. if it doesnt then take it back.

so once youve bench tested it you can rule that out.

 

[ari666]

also, just to rule out the "dumbshit" option...

the gear selector is in N or P and the neutral switch is functioning correctly... right?

 

[ari666]

also if youre worried about the jumper shorting, just put an insulator between it, like a newspaper, block of wood or sheet of thick plastic.

 

[Tree cutter]

Another thing you could try is, unplugging the small wire from the starter solenoid and making up another wire to plug onto the solenoid that is long enough to reach the positive battery terminal. Do not bolt it up to the positive battery terminal. Just touch the other end to the positive battery terminal and see if the starter works properly. If it does you will need to wire a relay between the original starter wire and the starter solenoid. Quite a few cars have a problem where the wire to the starter solenoid doesnt get enough voltage to activate the solenoid on the starter because the wire corrodes internally. The easy fix is to wire in a relay.

 

[Cheap6]

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

Jaycar is selling a DMM for $5. Basically throw it away when the battery dies but perfectly suitable for what you need it for.

 

[PUSHIN]

hmm i was looking for an insulator of sorts to put between it but couldn't see anything of use lol, i'll find something and try that out.

To rule out the dumb **** option, yes it's in Park, and i was going to check the neutral switch today but didn't get to have a look at anything at all, so tomorrow..

i was thinking about running a wire as previously stated last night too, One i know is good that i can bolt to the starter to temporarily replace the one that's there, but i'm yet to find a sufficient cable that i haven't hacked up :/

Upon installation of the new starter, i made sure i did everything correctly and everything was connected properly, tight etc. I did not bench test it (i should have, but was in a hurry, if i could have started it, i wouldn't have had to take my brother to work and pick him up at 2am >.<) but the old starter DID do a better job, WITH the old battery, but it started to do the exact same thing not long after we installed the new battery, with the old battery the old starter was a little weak, but would jump start every time, but once we put the new battery in the old starter started to click (the same as the new one) I'll bench test the old one before I take the new one out and crap to see how it goes too.. and yeah i'm thinking if all else fails i'll just have to acquire a tester and test everything properly, should point me to where the problem is with any luck.

Cheers again for all the inputs guys should have some time on my hands tomorrow, so i'll see what i can do and post results Thanks again!

 

[PUSHIN]

i attempted bench testing the old one, it jumped once (just) then nothing so i'm going to assume its fried. i'm yet to get the new one out and test it due to a lack of time >.<

Also i tried removing the 'small wire' from the starter, and replacing it with another section of wire and touching it to the terminal, the starter motor didn't fire and the wire sparked. a small thought came to mind, the connection for the larger + cable to the starter, is slightly different on the new one to the old one, i'm yet to check this but i'm wondering if maybe it doesnt have a cover going back around the side or something, and the lug on the cable is an L shape, thus bolting up, and coming back along the side of the starter, i started wondering if maybe its making a slightly connection on the body of the starter and shorting out :/ the old starter had a locator on said bolt so the lug couldn't move around too far when doing it up, the new one didnt have one so that made doing the cable up a little harder, i thought i managed okay but this may be a part of the problem..

my mates out of hospital now so i'm keen to go get his tester and test to see if current is actually getting to the starter or not, and test the rest of the cables, but that will take a few days as he doesnt live in my town, in the meantime i'm considering running my own earth cable from the - on the battery to the earth location on the engine, not sure if the original earth has anything spliced into it or not, so i was thinking of leaving it there and just chucking an extra cable in, but was a little unsure if adding the extra cable would be bad at all, i couldn't see why, but the fact i questioned it was enough for me to leave it until further research was done. i just thought creating a circuit or something may be bad, i didn't know so i didnt want to test to find out kinda thing, probably a stupid thought though..

when the key is turned to Acc it starts making some kinda funny noises, theres a light click thats i THINK comes from the relay box under the bonnet (upon actually turning to acc and back, once your on Acc and its clicked it doesn't click again.) and it also makes a funny little noise.. its like a creaking sort of noise.. sort of like if you pressed hard and ran your fingers down a wet window or something like that, like a low pitch rubbing/VERY light grinding noise, it doesnt sound like a grind of gears meshing badly or something, nor even gears moving for that matter, more of a rubbing/creaking noise.. i cannot for the life of me find a good way to explain it. :/ but i *THINK that comes from a small box in behind the engine, this small box has a few wires and such coming out of it (an earth to the body, as well as a plug with many wires) one of which is a lead that runs to the distributor (big lead, like spark plug leads, runs to the centre of the distributor i'm pretty sure)

Also, one last odd thing, only over the last couple of days (pushed the car forward ~10 feet and first noticed it) the car has had a slight smell of burning wires or something of the sort upon opening the drivers door, can't smell it on the passenger side, in the engine bay, anywhere, just when you first open the drivers door and drop your head down into the car.. I'm almost thinking i'm just crazy, as every time it's occurred the battery was disconnected...?

 

[ari666]

ok so this:

will look similar to yours.

there is 1 big bolt connected to nothing, then another big bolt connected to a wire or strip of steel that goes inside the body of the starter. the bolt on the wire/steel needs to be tight as fk. you are connecting + to the other bolt, i.e. the one not conected to anything. connecting + wont do anything at all. you need to run + to the little plug thing that the start wire goes to. soon as you do that itll jump anround and spin.

connecting just + to the bolt wont do anything
connecting just + to the small plug will only engage the solenoid i.e. it wont spin

 

[PUSHIN]

you're spot on with your description on the starter; i connected + to the small plug on the old starter, and it did move once, but nothing after that. Still yet to test the new one, spent half of today and yesterday changing a LIM gasket on a vt -.-' all i've been able to do so far (recently) is run a jumper from - to the engine to ensure a good earth (no good) and use another wire as a substitute for the start wire (also no good, seemed as though it shorted..) i've got some time on my hands and i'm pretty sure my brothers got some time off work, so i'll go up tomorrow or something and ensure the + from the battery isn't at all shorting against the body of the starter or anything, if not i'll remove the starter and test it properly, and also check the neutral switch.

I've been having one problem since word go (was one of the first things i *tried to check, but couldn't..) i cannot for the life of me find starter or ecu relays/fuses, i checked in the relay/fuse box in the engine bay and also (near) the drivers footwell, neither mentioned anything about any ecu/starter relays/fuses, i've had a bit of a look around but had no luck in finding anything bit hard without seeing it, but would anyone have any suggestions on where i could try looking? or is there a good possibility this car just doesn't have them? I started thinking they just went without, but I'd hate if i was wrong.. for the record, i did go through every fuse and looked to see that they weren't noticeably damaged, I only checked that all of the connections for the relays were tidy and they were in properly, I didn't properly test them at all, as A. no tester as of yet. and B. As stated there were no starter relays or any that seemed to be related, so i didn't particularly feel the need to be too worried about the rest. Also, probably nothing but just thought i'd add, all of the fuses seem fine in the box under the bonnet, just a lot of the relays were a little odd, like the missing horn relay, amongst 3 or maybe more others (I think it was something like CM-hi OR low and something simliar high AND low, didn't seem like a logical thing to put for headlights, so i was a bit stumped on what they even were) fuse box lid may be off a different model or something, but it all seems standard.. :/ hrrmmmm.

Keeps playing on my mind that this exact same thing happened for 20 minutes odd around a month ago when my old man got another battery, cleaned terminals up and its been sweet since, though I've already cleaned the verada terminal clamps they're those tacky looking ones that work, but look pathetic, i'm thinking about putting some good ones on, just to be sure we get a good connection, plus the ones that are there are a sh** to undo -.-'

Thanks heaps for the help too guys, very much appreciated!

 

[ari666]

i have to admit that ive lost interest in this thread.

you write these long essays that basically say "i havnt done what you said to, but ive done all these other things"... ill just wait till youve done what ive suggested so far.