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When it gets below zero (F) my '92 245 won't start. The solenoid clicks but the starter motor does not turn. The battery is less than a year old, voltage is good when it won't start, cables are tight and clean. Starts fine when it warms up a little.
Could it be that the brushes are just about worn out and when it gets cold enough they don't make enough contact to pass enough current to spin the starter ? Other ideas ?
Thanks
Greg
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I have a new starter i never installed,,$60 plus shipping,,908-343-1939
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yea give it a wack w a hammer,,,& if it starts I bet its on the way out..
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Hi,
If this a Bosch Starter the problem is inside the solenoid.
The coil plunger that get pulled back and is short stroking internally.
It is a manufacturing assembly tolerance problem as in that it's just a "hares breath" away from not having more than enough movement to fully push the contacts further together inside when made.
You can test the solenoid with an ohmmeter attached across the contact studs.
Put the solenoid in a vise and then assemble the plunger into the coil body.
Push the plunger back against a spring until you hear or see a continuity signal.
You want to be able to continue to push the plunger deeper after hearing or seeing that continuity signal for another 1/16" or up too about .100 of an inch. 2 to 3 mm for metric folks!
There is a spring that loads the contact bar against the terminal studs the wires fit on.
It goes like this,
After a long time of use, the contacts plates, down within the closed up body, dig a burn pit hole into either the bar or off the faces of the studs. A little of each adds up.
Eventually, there is enough space created between them, that the application of an internal spring cannot get them together tight enough or solid enough, to make a good circuit.
I know this from actually destroying a coil body as they are crimped sealed.
The contact bars are not that hurt at all but just can't get themselves together.
The whole thing goes back again to lack of pushing on a rod under the plungers core.
That rod is hit by the same rod you see sticking out with the slot in it but mounted in that solid chunk of steel! The rod I'm talking about has a slot that fits over a lever that pulls the bendix gear drive into the flywheel.
The rod with the slot needs to be pushed farther down into the steel body about 1/16 of an inch.
The rod has a slight press fit but can be push with your vise jaws.
Only trouble is, it's held onto the plunger body by a tiny tack weld.
Grind away the tack weld just enough to push the rod in farther and tack in back together and you are done.
Basically there is just enough length left on the slotted rod to get it there, they just didn't use it.
Call it an oversight, undersight or plain short sighted, might work as well! (:)
In my case, to learn about the issue, it was far cheaper to get a whole stater from the wrecking yard for $35 and remove the solenoid.
I made my modification and put that solenoid back on same starter that the old solenoid came from. This proves that the rest of the starter was working, even though, I clean some brush dust out and checked the brush length. Over 250k, same starter at the time, plus 15K more now!
These starters will last a very long long time if the engine was kept in good tune during its life!
I did mine over two years ago and the car was a used 1992 and it was unmolested!
I know this because that big armed Swede, everyone complains about, put in in there from the factory! (:)
If you have other starters laying around or just the solenoids, in a wait mode, I suggest you test them in a vise with a meter.
Make sure you have extra stroke after the contacts make up to each other!
Hope that sheds some light for someone in the future.
Maybe I need to make this post a thread of its own!
You tell me?
Phil
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Hi Phil,
I haven't been ignoring you, I've been doing some testing. And it was really cold here (it almost made -35F one morning), and I think the motor blew up on my Subaru (miserable thing. It was free and worth every dime).
The battery is fine. It will crank the engine at -20F or so.
It has warmed up now and the car started just fine. Took the starter out and inspected the solenoid. Pressing the core into the solenoid body closes the battery contacts. The resistance is a small fraction of an ohm (my DVM does not have a zero adjust). There is no movement once the battery contacts close. The body of this starter is smaller in diameter than the one on my '87 and the solenoid is squatter looking. Anyway, once the contacts close, that's it for movement either by pushing the core in or pushing the little plunger in the solenoid body with a screwdriver.
I measured the length of the core, depth of the bore, height of the brass button at the bottom of the solenoid bore, etc,etc. and it appears there is about 0.015" between the end of the core and the bottom of the bore when the contacts are closed.
I lapped a few thousands off the end of the core ( I'm better at grinding than welding...) just in case and polished the scuffing off the sides of the core. I used metal polish to clean up the sides of the solenoid bore. The core will settle into the bottom of the solenoid bore but it is not so loose that it will cause a problem.
Reassembled it all and NOTHING. Disappointing. Resorted to brute force and shorted the battery terminal to the starter terminal and still nothing. Well, excrement. It appears (DVM) that I don't have power at the starter end battery cable. I have done dumb things in the past so I'll double check everything in the morning, but still.
My wiring diagram shows a fat red wire that goes from the battery to the starter with no stops in between. Ugh.
Greg
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Hi,
Man oh man that is so cold, if I were a car I wouldn’t want to be anything, But cranky!
The point I’m trying to get across is the lack of movement of the plunger body after the contacts close. You should be able to push it in farther after getting a reading that they closed.
You see there are two rods.
One is in the heavy metal core we are calling the plunger that pulls the Bendix Drive clutch to engaged the flywheel.
Rod number two is the one sticking up from the insides of the solenoid. It has the internal spring and the contact bar semi attached to it. The bar gets pushed but floats on the rod to get flat to the stud terminals.
The two rods get smacked together!
The bottom rod can move quite a bit farther after the contacts close but the core cannot push it far enough. Just enough nothing much extra from the factory.
If you noticed down in the casting there is an angled hump coming upwards around that inner rod.
The core that you can take out, has an angled recess up inside the bottom end.
Just because you shorten the end of the cores body, the core will still stop against the bottom angles. The inner angle in the core needs to be deepened.
I imagine that the angles are there to align things, in a very solid way, to center the core in the bore.
Not that it can move that much, but it helps to keep the core in the center of the magnetic field.
It also creates a larger landing pad than just the narrow circumference of the core.
I had one of these all apart and destroyed it because I was going to get a new one!
Unfortunately a rebuilder was without them and if he had them it was $60+!
He showed me the problems and how to proof for a good one and toss the others!
That is what he does!
Is he a good rebuilder, who knows?
He helped me a lot because he saw that I was that kind of guy!
I went a got another starter from a dismantling yard. The whole thing pulled by them was $35!
I got extra parts!
The easiest fix is to take all the length of the cores rod and move it downwards towards the inner rod.
As I remember, If you wanted to machine the cores angle, you still pull the cores rod out to use a 60 degree countersink tool. The same used for lathe centers.
Like I said, you can get about 2-3 mm from breaking the tack welds and squeezing the rod setup.
It’s almost unlimited doing both of the modifications but one has to remember the stroke of the Bendix has its own limit.
It still hits the end of the starter motor shaft and that bushing in the housing.
Probably the reason for the slot in the rod to give it some slop!
I remember having concerns with collapsing the slotted end under the unknown pressures of the vise to get the rod to move.
So, I reinforced the sides with two tiny plates of metal held tightly by a pair of vise grips. The whole setup fits between almost any vise opening.
You said you had “maybe” .015 extra movement. I would have liked to hear you had twice that as a minimum. The more the better, for contact make up pressure.
The extra allowance can compensate for wear like it should have been made.
If the solenoids were setup correctly the brushes and Bendix might all wear out more evenly.
The darn things last for years and years now!
Nothing on modern cars can claim that!
Scott Kilmer showed one engine design, on a V8, that the starter was under the intake manifold.
I bet that electric motor gets cooked easily!
A big $1000 + plus parts job!
The term “money pit” gets used very often on his videos.
The guy is a little goofy but it’s his good nature that keeps him going!
He make very valid points, to make sense, of the nonsense!
Phil
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Hi Phil,
With all due respect, it's clear to me and others of our age what you mean by 'Bendix Drive', but it might be confusing for others who may be working on their first starter.
The solenoid activated drive that is used on our Volvos is quite different from the drive invented by Vincent Bendix in 1915. Having replaced many broken springs and pinion gears over the years, as well as welding teeth back on flywheels, I can say I'm not sad to see the Bendix go the way of the Dodo. The solenoid drive is much longer lasting. I don't know who invented it, but I wish it was me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bendix_drive
regards,
Peter
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Thank you for that post, Peter. Perhaps I'm a youngster, relatively, but I've never seen a car engine starter using the rotation of the starter itself to engage the gears, so I've assumed the overrunning clutch and solenoid was how Bendix did it, and referred to the clutch and return spring as "the Bendix."
Now that I've just said that, I realize that very method was used on a lawn mower I worked on a few years back. It chewed the teeth.
Up until now I've held my tongue on this starter thread, thinking about the old saw that says acquiring a hammer makes everything look like a nail. My go-to hammer is not a dial caliper, but a multimeter.
Whenever I've encountered the click-but-no-crank symptom, I've wanted to know, in reference to the battery negative post itself, what voltage is seen on the #30 stud on the solenoid, then the braided wire going into the motor, and subsequently, the rivet on the #50 tab on the solenoid, and finally, on the steel housing of the starter itself while cranking is attempted.
Fully aware what it is like to snake a sharp probe to these points for voltage drop measurements, arm extended past AMM hose, in sub-zero weather, I figured I'd keep my mouth shut for a change, since I have no you-tube to demonstrate it.
At seven-below (much less -35) I'd just try the broom handle approach, which reminds me, don't hit the permanent magnet starter (skinny one) with a hammer.
The distance the core of the solenoid traverses against its spring is dependent on the voltage applied to its two windings, and the wear on the main motor brush switch contacts (affecting the pressure of closure) will be greater when the actuating voltage is poor. We, who grab a wrench first, tend to overlook the wear of simple electrical wiring over 30 years of exposure to the elements, mostly in corrosion at connections, but also broken strands inside insulation which has petrified over time.
--
Art Benstein near Baltimore
Theories need to be built on a foundation made of Observations, Hypotheses, Predictions, and Tested Hypotheses.
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Hi Art.
I found that a long (16" ?) 3/8" socket extension made a great probe extension for reaching the terminals on the starter with minimal voltage drop or frostbite.
My theory is that the scuffing on the body of the core was dragging on the inner bore of the solenoid when the temperature started to drop. The core was a stiff push into the solenoid at 50°F. Cleaning up the scuffing with 400 grit wet or dry and polishing the inside of the solenoid produced a smooth sliding fit. So far so good.
It might be that the drop in temperature that tightened up the bore just enough to seize the core. Once the core was as cold as everything else the grip was released. Testing is the hard part. It is going to dip into the mid minus teens later this week, but if the car starts (which is my hope), it does not prove anything.
Greg
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Phil,
I appreciate very much this repair you are describing here.
I was having same problem last jan. 4 and car was parked with nose down about 30°.
Had to use a long screw driver to make contact between the two bolts at the solonoid while someone else will turn the contact key inside the car.
Before I take the solonoid apart I will try to reproduce the problem by putting the starter in the freezer, hold it in a vice at 30° with solonoid down, and connect 12v on it, just like when it failed.
Thank you for this repair description.
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In my previous answer I wrote :
"Had to use a long screw driver to make contact between the two bolts at the solonoid while someone else will turn the contact key inside the car"
I should have described better how I did jump 12v between the two large nuts at the solonoid.
A better way is:
- A good screwdriver will be damaged by the sparks, it is almost electric welding down there. Use a metal tool or rod that has no value.
- MOST IMPORTANT, do not touch the threads of the two bolts at the solonoid, only the nuts. Sparks will damage the threads and cause big trouble when replacing starter or solonoid
- Somebody inside the car has to turn the contact key to engage the starting mode BEFORE jumping 12v between the two large nuts at the solonoid. This makes sure the bendix gear is pushed in the flywheel before the starter rotor starts turning.
Hope that helps.
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Thanks Roland,
I get it. I suppose I could do it myself with the key on run if I ran a small jumper from the spade connection on the solenoid to the + battery , although I'd have to keep one hand on that jumper and the other on the rod. It might be tricky.
regards, Peter
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Hi,
I don’t know about Canadian cars if you have one or not but there is a wire underneath the hood that will pull in the starters solenoid and engage the bending to the flywheel.
You just need the switch in position two for it to run.
Once the ECU sees a signal that the engine is turning all the other stuff turns on!
The short wire is located near the oil dipper stick. It has a female spade end on it.
You jumper a wire from the positive side of the battery and it energizes the solenoid coil.
Under normal circumstances it would roll the engine.
The problem is inside the solenoid with the plunger bottoming out when retracted.
The contacts do not make up due to lack of stroke.
The rods inside the plunger are not pushing the spring far enough to put pressure on the contact bar that lays across the terminal studs.
The plunger needs close the contacts and push on past a little farther for the spring to apply that pressure.
That is why I say, check for that extra distance of plunger movement past the sound or reading on your ohmmeter.
I notice your calculations for the .003 shrinkage but that is not the issue. I used the term “Hare breath” in relation to a rabbit’s breath.. It’s something never seen or felt of because their short in length. A rabbit does everything thing fast, pretty much! (:)
In the cold, it’s more about the lack of cold cranking amperage! When there is higher amperage available and applied the current can jump a slight gap. The gap occurs when the previous burning and pitting of contacts surfaces increase throughout the earlier years of use.
Just guessing but I would say .015 per side or maybe all together could occur before it runs out of factory adjustment.
The modification restores that movement, lost, to make the contacts work properly again.
You can shorten the plungers body by .050 and deepen the 60 degree angle that much but requires a lathe to make it easy. Otherwise you are looking at a drill press for using a countersink and a hand held Angle grinder.
Moving the rod in the body is far easier as long as you lock that rod by a tack weld as the factory does or at least center punch it around the slotted rod to “Stake it” tighter.
I don’t think there is a way to lengthen the rod in the solenoids core.
Interesting that you brought up railroad rails!
The calculations that you use are correct for expansion and shrinking of steel lengths.
We used a similar equation (.0000065) for forged steel cylinders up to 40” in diameter by 8’ in length with two inch walls. We shrunk them onto solid steel cores as a water jacket in the Aluminum Continous Roll Casting business.
In my way younger days of the 70’s, I worked in making big machinery for ten years! It was a domestic business that exported world wide but by 1999, it was chopped up and it was exported!
The Assembly department heat soaked them for hours to like 1200 to 1500 F. A overhead crane dropped them over the cores that were standing up. You aligned it and lowered as fast as you could! That cold core sure could suck the heat right out!
You needed hot because you didn’t want it cooling in transport or have it get stuck, almost on all the way down!
On railroad rails they ever so often put in slip joints or side plates with a small gap allowed.
Today the rails are made even longer due to better equipment to move them and the steel is stronger.
Today many are thermite welded together on the site.
Thermite was used in WWll, as I was told by my Stepdad, that was a Ranger at Normandy’s Point Du Hocke and that they carried the chemicals on them!
They put it into the breaches of German artillery guns to disable them. It melted them shut!
Look up “thermite welding” it’s interesting stuff!
The technology of laying rails has removed lots of the clacking between them. The rail cars themselves are even made quieter.
The ties and spiking have all changed somewhat!
The physics remain the same! Railroads have always “demanded” pathways to be surveyed to use straight rail wherever possible due to that change in lengths.
Phil
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Today I tried to reproduce the event ( solonoid would engage but not turning rotor ).
May be it was not cold enough ( 0°f ) or the rotor fudged condition was gone for now.
Anyhow I did the modification Phil suggested above.
I took the dremmel with cutting disk and cut the two welding tacks on the plunger, tried to push the rod with a vise but it would not move.
I then used a hammer and got it moving to almost close the dremmel cutting disk groove. After I re-welded the two tacks on the plunger.
Tested OK and put aside as a spare.
Many thanks Phil
And I hope you have a good stove these days (if you live in the mid-west right now).
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Hi,
You are probably good with what you have done.
As long as the the core body can move farther back into the solenoid, after the contacts close, the solenoid will roll the electric motor.
I don’t think you can or should get more than .100 or 3mm total movement past contact make up. There should be a limit caused how much the travel distance that’s allowed on the Bendix Drive stroke.
Like I say, the assembly is a closely matched setup. A little German or Bosch, too close!
Your concern about intermittent non-starts will go away “better” because of the extra pressure to push them closed, that is really done by the internal spring loading.
This modification improves reliability but at cold temperatures, you still need a real good battery as the cranking amperage does drop.
When that happens, it exacerbates the whole lack of having a good set of contacts working everywhere in the car.
When the starter motor kicks in it’s like a “black hole in outer space” as it wants all it can get from the source.
The whole idea of contracting the length of the body .003 of an inch is nonsense but adding 0.030 for the width of the Dremel cutting wheel groove will help a whole more!
You should be good to go with the spare, but a modification of the one on the car, might prove to be time well spent to change it around.
Mine has worked for almost two years without a glitch on the same starter that came with the car when I got it.
It’s the same starter that started the car when AAA added on their battery, (parallel) to my good battery and it started.
The extra amperage it got made up for the incomplete make up of those solenoid contacts way down there!
Probably sizzled into a better arc and burn inside!
A half-***ed “make up” just hurts in the long run. Just like in marriage!
Over time, the solenoid that has been working for twenty years, is going to end, sooner or later!
I made mine go again or at least it’s more reliable in the meantime.
Just thought I would share the love of these reliable cars, that can be fixed reliably.
If you ever watched Scott Kilmer on YouTube Channel or his .com, you will dread the modern cars ever getting to be half the age of these!
The 240’s were the last of the Farmers cars, to be fixed with the Baling Wire like a wheat combine!
I don’t live in the mid west but on the west coast in California. I’m was not a beach going sand man or even a Sandal shuffler! I’m getting older for sure to some day be shuffling!
That cold and snow stuff that’s plain olé shoveling!
Ugh! (:)
Phil
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Hi,
I came back to proof read my post some but the edit portion timed out. I got busy doing other stuff.
I saw the word bending and said, “too late, the computer got a “free shot” at changing my intent!”
It was supposed to be Bendix for the company brand name who probably invented it, as with many things they never go to market with or sell off!
Bosch injection started with them and anti-lock brakes.
Both requiring a back seat of computer to handle the ideas.
I’m hoping it’s understood that there needs to be more free movement of the plunger body to move past the point that you see the contacts hit with your meter. This adds additional pressure upon the contacts and makes up for wear.
Sorry I missed the edit!
Phil
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Salut Roland,
If your profile is correct, I don't live far from you. I'm down near Jay Peak in Vermont. If I remember right, Jan. 4 of last year was in the middle of a spell where it was south of -30 F for a few days. Half the cars in the county wouldn't start and I bent down and kissed the feet of my block heater. It was brutal.
Good on you for figuring out how to jump it. At the time I was having trouble, I was driving my daughters out to the school bus on really cold days because we're about a 1/4 mile from the town road. I could have had one of them turn the key if I'd thought of it.
I don't think you need to factor in the angle of the car. The solenoid is very strong and the gravitational effects should be negligible. It may be hard to replicate the temperature though. I think most freezers operate at about 0F.
I calculated the change in length of the plunger using a 5 inch length and temp change of from 70F to-30F, and it comes out to .0036 inches. That's more than the hair's breadth (.003 average) quoted by Phil, so I guess that would do it. Under the same conditions, a mile of railroad track would shrink 45 inches, in case you were wondering.
Let us know what you find if you get into that solenoid.
Peter
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You wrote:
"I could have had one of them turn the key if I'd thought of it."
Please read a precision I added after my previous post. This is important to prevent any damage to starter, solonoid or ring gear.
Yes, it was darn cold. We were in Baie St-Paul, 60 miles north-east of Quebec city.
My 2 cars have block heaters. There was no outside 115v outlet where we were. The 1982 b21a (carb.) which is my daily car is always attached during the night, timer goes on at 4am. It is so much comfort and pleasure to start a warm emgine when it is so cold outside.
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Hi Greg,
I've had a similar condition on two of my 240's.
First was on a well worn 87 that would consistently click but fail to turn the starter motor at temps below -20 F. I found that putting a hair dryer on it for a couple of minutes would make it work every time. Despite complaints from the owner of the dryer, I got by with it like that for a couple of years until I scrapped the car.
I pulled the starter and disassembled it. I don't think it was original to the car because it had wound field coils, but it was in very good condition with very little wear on the brushes. 240 starters don't do a lot of cranking and the brushes are large so I don't think it's a likely problem on yours. I did find that the large copper wire that connects the solenoid to the motor was almost completely severed except for a couple of strands. The two ends of the break were touching each other so it may be that the cold was pulling them away. It's hard to say. This wire is welded to a metal tab with a stop on it where it connects to the solenoid, and the stop was broken off. My guess is that a PO broke it when tightening the nut on the solenoid. I replaced that wire which required soldering inside the motor.
I disassembled the solenoid which required an impact screw driver and some de-soldering. It was clean and free, but showed some wear and oxidation on the large motor contacts. Others have speculated here that this wear may be enough to prevent full contact when other parts of the solenoid contract with cold. I can't say. I could have replaced the solenoid for about $20 but I opted to clean and lube it. It operates fine on the bench although I've never tested it in the cold.
My current winter car is a 91 245 with 235k. I've had it 12 years and put 125k on it so it probably has it's original starter. It pulled the same trick a couple of times last winter, but the car would start with repeated tries.It hasn't repeated that this winter so that's not much help to you either.
Have you tried jumping the motor as Dave suggested ? If it spins it would indicate a problem with the solenoid. No spin would suggest the motor or it's connection to the solenoid. Clicking of the solenoid indicates power to it, but doesn't guarantee it's making the motor connection.
Any testing is easier on the bench, but maybe the hair dryer trick will work until you can get to it.
Good luck,
Peter
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I am no expert. But I sure would suspect the battery, no matter how new. Voltage from the battery is not really meaningful when you need current flow at starting time. Can you jump start the car when the battery alone will not start? I recently suspected a bad starter on my generator only to find out later it was the damn battery.
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You could do a couple of things as a test. You could use an old fashioned current draw tester on the + wire to the starter to see what kind of amperage is being drawn under less severe temperature -- been a long time since using one but I think a reading like 2-300 would be normal -- 5 or 600 definitely bad.
You could also - under the temperature condition you've experienced problems - put 12v directly to the lower connection at the solenoid (going directly into the motor) using a jumper cable size wire. Energizing that post should spin the motor (no solenoid operation). If the motor spins nicely the problem may be wear/corrosion in the internal solenoid connection. -- Dave
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