Drove the LeMans hard for about an hour on the highway, pulled into a gas station near home went to leave and nothing.
Towed car home, Battery shows 12.8 volts sitting in car, when key is turned all gauges move, all lights work, radio etc.. works, starter will turn over with a jumper wire on solenoid but nothing when key is turned, door buzzer works with key left in ignition. Fusable link maybe? Any other ideas?
Thanks, did the shifter wiggle, put brand new battery and connectors on to start the season, Cleaned up all terminals at starter and all connectors with dremel wire wheel, put all back and same, nothing.
I had that once and it was the wiring harness plug in the firewall, I jiggled it and it started again
agreed, this is a common spot for corrision and/or poor connections - I experience this with my Dad's truck in the past (67 chev)
my deepwater blue beaumont would do this randomly also and there were jumper wires under the dash from a previous owner - turned out to be a 'green' fusible link toward the starter
faultly neutral starting switch could be looked at
Corvettes of the early 1970's vintage had a metal shield around the solinod area of the starter - some race car guys wrap them in asbestos
If so, solenoid could easily be the issue. Headers are hard on solenoids.
Put a volt meter on the inside terminal (likely a purple wire) on the solenoid and have someone try cranking. See if you are getting full voltage to the solenoid.
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1966 Strato Chief 2 door, 427 4 speed, 45,000 original miles
1966 Grande Parisienne, 396 1 of 23 factory air cars
Carl beat me to it! I had a sbc act almost the same way, only when mine was hot I had more problems. Kept a screwdriver handy just in case :) solenoid was my issue.....changed it and was off and running.
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John
1972 Pontiac Lemans (daughter's car) 2005 Pontiac Grand Am 2004 Ford Explorer Sport Trac
I figured it was heat related and there was an electrical snapping sound when I tried to start from that side of engine where starter is so solenoid is making sense. Yes I do have headers Carl, big ones.
-- Edited by 73SC on Wednesday 16th of July 2014 12:13:00 AM
While Rat Boy was cranking it over I was underneath with a multimeter. With one end on a good ground I checked both the r and the s sides of the solenoid. Nothing higher then 3 volts. In fact while cranking the voltage never changed.
Jumped the S terminal with the middle terminal that had 12V from the battery and the starter turns over. At one point the starter was dangling from the car just by the wires but nothing fell out.
If the fusible link is burnt will there still be power going to the fuse box? I remember with my El Camino one of the wires feeding into it from the engine compartment side coming loose and the whole car died. Pushing it back into the fusebox awoke it.
While Rat Boy was cranking it over I was underneath with a multimeter. With one end on a good ground I checked both the r and the s sides of the solenoid. Nothing higher then 3 volts. In fact while cranking the voltage never changed.
Jumped the S terminal with the middle terminal that had 12V from the battery and the starter turns over. At one point the starter was dangling from the car just by the wires but nothing fell out.
If the fusible link is burnt will there still be power going to the fuse box? I remember with my El Camino one of the wires feeding into it from the engine compartment side coming loose and the whole car died. Pushing it back into the fusebox awoke it.
.d
Then my solenoid theory is certainly out the window because 3 volts sure won't make it crank.
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1966 Strato Chief 2 door, 427 4 speed, 45,000 original miles
1966 Grande Parisienne, 396 1 of 23 factory air cars
Based on these leads and thoughts I will do as 2drpost suggests. There seems to be a lot of opinions that neutral safety switch could be culprit now that solenoid is eliminated.
Just unplug the wires going to the neutral safety switch and run a jumper between the two wires and see if it makes a difference when you turn the key. If not, that will eliminate that as the culprit.
Just unplug the wires going to the neutral safety switch and run a jumper between the two wires and see if it makes a difference when you turn the key. If not, that will eliminate that as the culprit.
Ian
Makes sense. I'll see if i can get to this before the weekend and report back.
My car used to do the exact same thing occasionally, usually when hot. Put a heat shield on the starter and it still did it. Finally someone told me to put a relay switch on that sends the full 12v to the starter. I had this done and it seems to have fixed the problem.
All good sugestions, if n/s switch is not the prob I would check wiring from Ignition switch to starter. Voltage drop is resistance. Any warm wires after trying to crank? Check to see if you have 12v at switch on supply side while cranking. If problem persists after checking N/S switch, try getting someone to hold on start poss and look for warm/hot wires ( pretend it's your first date, grab and feel everything ) Ohm meter will not tell you anything (#16or2/0 will get same reading ) Try to find where voltage drop is occurring, think thats where you problem is.
-- Edited by hawkeye5766 on Wednesday 16th of July 2014 02:10:14 AM
One more suggestion. If the car has a tilt column, tilt the column so that it is straight. Sometimes the linkage just gets out of adjustment and the switch on the bottom of the column doesn't make proper contact.
65Camino and I spent two hours on the car today Sunday July 20th. Its running.
Here is what we did. I have the 1973 FSM and the wiring diagram shows purple wire throughout to solenoid so we checked continuity of this wire all the way back to the ignition switch. The neutral safety switch has continuity in park but none in neutral so the switch is bad. Nonetheless the continuity in park would enable car to start.
Next we checked the starter to make sure it was in good working order and it was, also checked two more I have and all were fine. We decided to bolt the starter back in. First we used a dremel and wire wheel and cleaned up all the terminals on the starter and solenoid and all wire connectors, shinny clean.
Battery was still showing 12.65 volts so it was charged fine. We bolted everything up and turned the key and the big block sprung to life. While running the battery was showing 14.68 volts so the Alternator was working fine.
So what was wrong? Well the neutral safety is bad but it does have continuity in Park. I think that the no start condition was a result of loose and corroded connections at solenoid which got looser on the trip, combined with the heat. This was the first time out for the car this year and I had to get a new battery and main connectors so I had a heck of a time getting it going this year. The new battery helped it start but likely the bad connections contributed to the cranking and cranking and running the old battery dead. At least I got $25 on the prorated warranty from 2007 towards the new battery. For now she starts and goes.
Thanks for all the advice and tips it really helped fellas.
-- Edited by 73SC on Sunday 20th of July 2014 09:34:14 PM
Glad to here . Sure is a good feeling when you go threw all the checks and figure it out , turn that key and it starts. You must have had a smile from ear to ear when that happened.
