I had this problem on an old Chevette. Whenever the temperature exceeded
about 80 Fahrenheit, the car would periodically die. Turned out that it
had a bad spot on the starter solenoid and if it "stopped there", then the
solenoid would not engage the starter motor at all.
A jump would push enough current across the solenoid to move it and
start
the car as would nightfall (but for different reasons). The most reasonable
interpretation was that the insulation in one spot of the solenoid was
failing.
Interestingly, after I changed the starter motor (and lost the problem
forever), I heard on the Click&Clack radio show (NPR), the exact same
problem and their solution was to change the starter motor!
Bill
At 08:41 PM 10/29/1998 -0600, you wrote:
>John,
>
>Several years back, I had a similar problem on my Aerostar. Every once in a
>while, the car would not start. Not only not start, but the radio would loose
>the settings and no electrical apparatus would work. Turn the ignition many
>times and then all of a sudden, the car would turn over strongly and start
as if
>nothing was wrong. Thought it was the ignition switch but that wouldn't
explain
>it all.
>
>After several months of this (only did it maybe 10 times) after checking the
>obvious connections and battery charge, I decided that I would change out the
>battery anyway. Even though it was only to years old. These intermittants are
>devils to troubleshoot. It was a very cheap experiment compared to electronic
>modules etc. Lo and behold, it never gave me a problem again. I concluded
that
>the battery had a major intermittant open. When it worked, it worked well.
When
>it didn't, well.....
>
>Never heard of this before or since. It was a Montgomery wards battery. Maybe
>this could be your problem.
>
>Chuck Schaefer
>
>John Steczkowski wrote:
>
>> Well, I sent email the other day about how my MGB had died. At that time I
>> speculated that a wire had broken or something because the car was
>> electrically dead. Well, I went to go look at fixing it and it ran fine.
So,
>> I drove it to work this morning, started fine, drove it to work with no
>> incident. I went out to go get lunch and it did the same thing, started to
>> crank, starter engaged, started to turn and then dead. As I was sitting
>> there, I thought that maybe the starter solenoid was causing the problem. I
>> got the lug wrench out of the trunk and wrapped the solenoid and it did the
>> same thing, but didn't start. I now think that it's the solenoid that's
bad,
>> unfortuneatley, that doesn't do me a bit of good as far as getting the car
>> started.
>>
>> Any other ideas. I guess I start with replacing the solenoid.
>>
>> The really unfortuneate part is that I'm in a down hill parking space, so I
>> can't even bump start the car....
>>
>> Hmm.... Hopefully it'll decide to start when I'm ready to go home and I can
>> get it home....
>>
>> -----
>> John Steczkowski
>> Director of Software Engineering
>> Crossroads Systems, Inc.
>> 512-794-2742
>> stecz@crossroads.com
>
>
>
>
**********************************************************************
Dr. Bill Saidel
Assoc. Prof. Vocal phone (609) 225-6336
Department of Biology FAX (609) 225-6312
Science Building email: saidel@crab.rutgers.edu
315 Penn St.
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
Camden, NJ 08102 -1411
http://crab.rutgers.edu/~saidel/saidel.html
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