Petemcc wrote:Well I'm glad it's not just mine that's a prick. However mine works a treat with jumper leads... well it does start. If somebody sorts this out then be sure to let us know! Maybe it's just a lack of compression thing?
if jumper leads fixes it then its a battery problem or a battery terminal problem.
won't lack of compression. that would mean it would turn over easy but not fire.
the common problem with those starters is the solenoid contacts and sometimes the ignition switch or start relay.
I have replaced both battery terminals with new ones and they are on there nice and tight when i jump i clamp onto both terminals and since truck is in garage(driven in) i just use a spare battery i have laying around and jump it of that. To check that it wasn't starter relay or ignition i bridged the two main wires in the starter relay. I agree with you tweake I'm convinced its got to be something with the battery or connections maybe I'm missing something I'm going to bring it to a sparky next week if its still playing up and ill let you no what they find. cheers troy
Next thing to check is to check what the voltage drops to at the battery when cranking (who knows what an acceptable drop is?)
Then do the same check at the starter motor terminals (both sides of the solenoid)
could also measure voltage drop across each part of the circuit when cranking
batt terminal to clamp, clamp to cable, cable at battery end to cable at solenoid, across solenoid terminals
This will show where the biggest voltage drop is. If there is no one part of the circuit that stands out then it might be from the starter lead to the brushes (hard to check when cranking!)
I remembered (it was a couple of years ago and then i took it off the road for 2 years) that I actually changed the starter on my truck with some success. I had had mine rebuilt with new contacts and bearings etc and it was still crap. I then borrowed a spare off a mate and it was a bit better. The ones of an auto ln130 are physically bigger. All auto sparkys that I have spoken to have said they are the same power but my mates one was the bigger one so I got one of those and it helped a bit.
terminals are on tight but not contacting properly. check volt drop on startup. see if different volt drop on battery than at the terminals. otherwise i can only think of battery.
the ln130 starters (eg 2lte) are a lot bigger but some doubts to them being better. a lot of surf guys swap them out for the smaller 2.8 ones as they start better. i think they are lower geared and rev a lot more.
the other thought maybe grease or bearings in the starter getting sticky when cold. drag on the starter motor side would have more effect then on the engine side.
road runner in Tauranga build gear reduction starters for most things, although small I've run them on a rover v8 and commodore v6. they spin up a fair bit better
problems are only a problem if you not willing to learn how to find solutions
dont these trucks come out with twin batteries from the factory as an option? think it was part of a winter pack in japan for the cold conditions. maybe its just a case of having two batteries to give it the extra grunt it needs over the cooler months
Had the starter out of mine on the weekend as had the gbox out and when i was putting it back in the main lead felt a bit weak under the rubber so I pulled it back and half the strands had broken off. Will try to fix it this week and update
sparky suspects faulty armature or field coils,when he took it apart and was unable to find a fault visually. I've had it taken apart by 3 different electricians and they all told me starter was fine and it bench tested good as gold. glad to finally have it sorted i no longer have to fear frosts
I replaced the cable to the starter and also the alternator (finally stopped charging as voltage regulator was stuffed) Starts good now! Would have been a combination of both but the alternator hadn't been stuffed that long. It might have slowly been dropping charge over a while? So suspect cable was the main cause. When I pulled the boot off half of the strands where broken so replaced the whole cable.
I have done two things. Firstly I put in a much bigger battery (1100CCA rather than the 600CCA that was in there) which made a BIG difference. The old battery was ok but had been flattened a few times and struggled with the diesel.
When I rebuilt my starter the first time I did the bearings on the end of the motors rotor. An auto sparky that I got the bits off said that the clutch mechanism is a throw away item and to leave it if it was going ok. Turns out there are two bearings on the ends of it that are replaceable if you pull it apart. Over the next year and a bit these seized and replacing them gave the starter motor much more power. Starts on first crank now.
