Aaagggggghh!!!!!!

[Andy W]

Ok, so it was my own fault for saying that my Traveller is super reliable in another post......

I got in it today &.....no go......symptoms like a very flat battery only the battery isn't flat (tested with a meter).

Slight turn of crankshaft then nothing.

Pressing the button on the solenoid did not help either, nor did whacking the starter with a mallet, leads & wires look ok- there ends my knowledge of these things......HELP PLEASE!

Battery & starter motor are only a month or two old, new HT leads, etc. in the summer.
I did notice that the coil was warm after trying to start the car several times.

Do I need a new solenoid or coil, or both maybe?

Thanks in advance,
Andy.

[The vast minority]

Did it hand start ok?
Cables looking ok don't mean they are.
Is the earth strap in good order?

Coil should be warm, shows it energised.

My guess is corroded earth strap or dirty starter.

Hand start it, and report back.
Al

[Andy W]

Thanks Al,
I will check/renew the earth strap & check starter connections - fingers crossed because I don't own a crank handle!
Something else for my ESM shopping cart I guess!
Andy.

[The vast minority]

Hell yeah, gotta get one matey, they are crazy, I'm scared of mine

Just to be clear, I don't mean the battery to body earth, although check that of course. I mean the engine to body or "engine earth strap" as it's known.

On old cars, these crop up In places they were not originally placed, on the Minor, if no strap is present due to corrosion or otherwise, the gearbox check cable does double duty. However, in times of high current draw, this can melt like a fuse.

Such a case could be a cold morning with thick oil. It might be ok normally but come the time it needs to return huge amps to the battery it can and does melt. This won't happen if the engine earth is in place and doing its job.

All worth checking out.
Al

[Trickydicky]

To prove if the solenoid is not working you could carefully bridge the connections with a heavy INSULATED screwdriver to see if it fires and starts as normal.

[bmcecosse]

Sounds very much like flat battery to me. A volt meter will pretty much always show 12 volts or so...you would really need to test the SG of the battery acid - and not many of us have the means. How bright are the headlamps - and do they go out when you try the starter? Can you not push start it - or roll it down a hill? Or indeed - use jump leads from another vehicle.....

[Budgie]

This happened to me back in the summer last year . All was fine until one day and nothing! After checking the obvious and walking away a few times in a temper / frustration I decided to check the power cable to the starter motor and hey presto it had worked loose and was barely making contact so a quick tighten up with a spanner and away to go it was.

[biomed32uk]

A voltmeter as said is pretty useless for car testing in scenarios such as this.

It's an ohmmeter you need, to measure electrical resistance. Volts get dropped accross a resistance, and in simple terms get dissipated as heat, thats why a bad connection gets warm.

You should have zero ohms between the earthed terminal of the battery and the body of the starter, and the zero ohms from the other of the battery to the terminal on the starter relay, and then from the other relay terminal to the starter terminal.

If you can find where the resistance is then you can start narrowing it down, eg meausre from the earth of the battery to the body of the car, if thats zero but then to the engine/starter body it increases then the problem is most likely the earth strap underneath.

It won't take much resistance in the starter circuity to cause trouble so you want zero ohms or very close to.

A cheap multimeter from an electrical or electronic store is fine and a very useful addition to the toolbox.

[Andy W]

You guys are brilliant..!

I went right through every earth lead & solenoid connection, cleaned them all up thoroughly.
I found that there was no gearbox earth strap so I fitted one.....


The result.....

FIRST TIME START RIGHT ON THE TURN OF THE KEY...!

Thanks for all the tips folks,

Andy W.

[bmcecosse]

Well done ! But I doubt it was the missing earth strap - the starter can usually find earth through the gearbox restraining cable - and the accelerator and choke cables - sometimes 'melting' the cables of course. More likely your 'cleaning connections' has done the trick.

[aupickup]

yes well done

[The vast minority]

Spectacular,
Singing aloud now.
Oh happy days are here again, da da da da da da da da daaaa
Oh happy days are here agaaaaaiiiinnn.......happy days are here again !

Al

[Andy W]

Meanwhile, I have bought a s/h starting handle on your advice Al, it hasn't even arrived yet & I'm already terrified..

My right knee is hurting in advance, in sympathy with my hands already, from memories of kickstarting an old Yamaha 840cc twin with no decompression lever...the knee's never been quite right since!

Andy.

[The vast minority]

Extreme chuckling and such

Have a look on YouTube, plenty of examples of brave folk hand starting minors, some from freezing and in all cases they survived unharmed.

It's all,in the technique they say.

Al

[SteveClem]

Just rely upon the old self preservation instinct.

[bmcecosse]

Wear a fabric glove so the handle can slip round in your hand - since the cheapskate Minor handle doesn't have a rotating sleeve on the handle..... It's a 'right handed' job too - not sure if it could be done left-handed?