Sticking Series Starter

I'm having increasing troubles with the starter motor / circuit: the
solenoid gives a good loud click, there is bright battery light and oil
light, but silence from starter motor. Can happen when warm or cold.
I recently replaced solenoid, and doubled the earth braid from the
starter itself. Problem is intermittent - I sometimes rock in gear in
case the starter motor is locked, sometimes I just wait, and it runs
eventually. One of these days it is not going to!

If all electrics are OK (I will double-check there is current to
starter when I can find someone to turn the key for me), what is next
step? Presumably repair or replace starter motor? Is this
straightforward?

thanks!

John
London, UK
--
1980 Land Rover Series 111 109 Station Wagon + Dormobile mod cons
1964 Lambretta Li 150 scooter

Update: There's definitely 12V across the starter terminals when key is
turned.

"ChelseaTractor" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I'm having increasing troubles with the starter motor / circuit: the
> solenoid gives a good loud click, there is bright battery light and oil
> light, but silence from starter motor. Can happen when warm or cold.
> I recently replaced solenoid, and doubled the earth braid from the
> starter itself. Problem is intermittent - I sometimes rock in gear in
> case the starter motor is locked, sometimes I just wait, and it runs
> eventually. One of these days it is not going to!
>
> If all electrics are OK (I will double-check there is current to
> starter when I can find someone to turn the key for me), what is next
> step? Presumably repair or replace starter motor? Is this
> straightforward?

Don't trust the earth on an old SIII. The short earth braid from engine to
starter is probably the least likely to fail. Check the engine is not badly
earthed itself. The longer chassis to sump earth connection was where I
found the cause of my starter problems. I used a chunky jump lead to connect
directly from the battery -ve terminal to a good bit of metal on the engine.
The starter turned faster than ever before when I tried this. If everything
works like that, it indicates that your engine is badly earthed.

Also have a good sniff after cranking (or trying to), the bad earth sent
volts all over the place. On my SIII they returned via a clip on the air
filter to the bodywork, it glowed red hot while cranking.

I now have an extra earth. It connects from the battery to a handy plate
that supports the oil filler pipe to the side of the block. The electrics
can appear perfectly fine when you walk round with a voltmeter and check
your conenctions, all my problems occured under high current load.
Everything would die and there were no circuits to check.

David

Interesting, thanks David, and worth remembering. I recently overhauled
the earths when trying to solve similar troubles a couple of months ago
- which in the end I put down to the ignition solenoid, which I
replaced.

If and when the problem returns I'll try a jump cable direct from
starter earth terminal to battery neg, since I know there's good
positive connection.

On 1 Jul, in article
<[email protected]>
[email protected] "ChelseaTractor" wrote:

> I'm having increasing troubles with the starter motor / circuit: the
> solenoid gives a good loud click, there is bright battery light and oil
> light, but silence from starter motor. Can happen when warm or cold.
> I recently replaced solenoid, and doubled the earth braid from the
> starter itself. Problem is intermittent - I sometimes rock in gear in
> case the starter motor is locked, sometimes I just wait, and it runs
> eventually. One of these days it is not going to!
>
> If all electrics are OK (I will double-check there is current to
> starter when I can find someone to turn the key for me), what is next
> step? Presumably repair or replace starter motor? Is this
> straightforward?
>
> thanks!
>
> John
> London, UK
> --
> 1980 Land Rover Series 111 109 Station Wagon + Dormobile mod cons
> 1964 Lambretta Li 150 scooter

We can assume the petrol engine, the diesel starter is somewhat
different?

It's worth methodically working through all the cables and connections,
especially earth straps. People have had problems when the engine-to-
chassis connection is poor.

Starters of this age can be repaired fairly easily, but I don't know
details. It could be the brushes/commutator, I suppose.

--
David G. Bell -- SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.

"I am Number Two," said Penfold. "You are Number Six."

On Friday, in article <[email protected]>
djm81@(Ihatespam)cam.ac.uk "DavidM" wrote:

> I now have an extra earth. It connects from the battery to a handy plate
> that supports the oil filler pipe to the side of the block. The electrics
> can appear perfectly fine when you walk round with a voltmeter and check
> your conenctions, all my problems occured under high current load.
> Everything would die and there were no circuits to check.

With a good voltmeter you can detect the voltage drop across the ends of
a cable carrying high current. So a few millivolts across the battery-
chassis earth-strap tells you that there's a high-current circuit going
somewhere. Voltage between starter-body and battery-negative should be
similarly low. If it isn't, your bad contact is on earth-side.

Be careful if you want to check something you can only reach from under
the vehicle -- you are trying to start the engine to do the check.

--
David G. Bell -- SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.

"I am Number Two," said Penfold. "You are Number Six."

I can report it's 'cured' with a sharp hammer blow while turning key,
and there is a bit of a clatter when it turns again. I fear it's a
damaged ring gear...