Bad starter?

BigClay

BigClay

Knower of useless ZJ things
Joined
Sep 24, 2008
Location
Winston-Salem
Ok, driving the jeep (manual AX-15 trans), and it died while driving straight down the road. Tried to restart and nothing. Battery seemed still strong, had a jump box, tried that and still would not start. Te starter would not even begin to engage. Finally towed it to a hill, let it roll down the hill and popped the clutch, and she fired up and drove it home. Got it parker, turned it off, and tried to re-start, and nothing.

I just replaced the starter 6 months ago, but admittedly it was an O'reilly one. Sound like this new starter just gave up the ghost?
 
2 wires on starter. Big one will have 12 volts at all times. Little one will have 12 volts when cranking. Have someone crank it over and then measure for battery voltage on little wire.

Like @CasterTroy said, something sounds weird. Why did it die? Is it corelated?
 
Clay please tell me you fixed your janky battery cables/terminals that were giving us issues at AOP. Sounds like a continuity issue.

Now seems like a good time to address that and overhaul the main electrical cables. If I still lived in the area we could knock it out in an afternoon with some cold ones.


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Yeah, never had one die while driving...
 
NickMaul said:
Clay please tell me you fixed your janky battery cables/terminals that were giving us issues at AOP. Sounds like a continuity issue.

Now seems like a good time to address that and overhaul the main electrical cables. If I still lived in the area we could knock it out in an afternoon with some cold ones.


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Click to expand...

To be honest, no I haven't messed with the cables, I need to rewire it with military terminals. At first I thought it was the cables, but when I put the jump box on it, it didn't help
 
BigClay said:
To be honest, no I haven't messed with the cables, I need to rewire it with military terminals. At first I thought it was the cables, but when I put the jump box on it, it didn't help
Click to expand...

Could be a bad connection away from the battery. I’d check alternator and starter connections plus the main ground connection(s).


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BigClay said:
To be honest, no I haven't messed with the cables, I need to rewire it with military terminals. At first I thought it was the cables, but when I put the jump box on it, it didn't help
Click to expand...

If the cables are shit, the jump box won't matter.

Janky cables will cause it to shut off driving down the road.
 
I too think cables, wiring, with all that you have said. Esp the part about already knowing you have had issues with them. Clean all the terminals, put some no-Ox on them, replace the cables and be trouble free for a long time.
 
Went out to the jeep a while ago (haven't touched it since I parked it last night) and just for giggles I tried to crank it. All it did was "click" and done. Like I could hear it try to fire the starter but that was it.
 
BigClay said:
Went out to the jeep a while ago (haven't touched it since I parked it last night) and just for giggles I tried to crank it. All it did was "click" and done. Like I could hear it try to fire the starter but that was it.
Click to expand...

Get a voltmeter and go to work.
 
All fixed! Starter was shot and got a free replacement, also the battery cables came loose again. I think the cables were loose, that caused the Jeep to die and then the intermittent low voltage when I tried to start the Jeep maybe gave up the ghost on the starter. Who knows. It is fine now and starts faster than it did before
 
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