restart woes

[powerlord]

so.. following folks advice, I got a new battery.

Fitted it week before last.

Sod to fit by the way.. especially as the battery they gave me had a different height lip on it from the old one so had to modify the retaining clips to fit it in....

Still, the old one was gubbed as the pool of acid and leaking/bubbling noises demonstrated.

However, still the same :-(

After an hour, I stopped, and on restart it struggled again.. then for the next 5 mins wouldn't tick over properly.

Now it couldn't have been the battery as it was fully charged before the drive. After the restart I only drove for 5 mins, then put it in the garage and 30 mins on the accumate and it was fully charged again...

I'm flumaxed.

stu

[Turbo100]

Just fit an earth strap and all will be well. A simple fix to a very annoying problem. I suffered too, but since the addition not a single problem.

[TUS 373]

Yep, sounds like could be a faulty earth.

It runs between the chassis and block on drivers side, back side of wheel arch but centre of car IYKWIM. Jack up car, take front wheel off. Remove strap, clean all contacts (and powder coat/corrosion on chassis), refit and copper grease over. Hopefully that will sort it. I had a problem with this that sounds similar, and I changed the battery etc first too.

[whitey]

It probably is the earth strap as the other guys have said.

The only other thing it might be(IMHO) is vapour lock if the engine bay is very hot. But that should not last for 5 minutes.

Cheers
Whitey

[powerlord]

TUS 373 said:

Yep, sounds like could be a faulty earth. It runs between the chassis and block on drivers side, back side of wheel arch but centre of car IYKWIM. Jack up car, take front wheel off. Remove strap, clean all contacts (and powder coat/corrosion on chassis), refit and copper grease over. Hopefully that will sort it. I had a problem with this that sounds similar, and I changed the battery etc first too.

cool. so.. is this a big thing ? like a direct think earth to battery ? can you give me a bit more details where to find it... I take drivers side wheel off, so will be able to see a bit of chassis behind the suspension... but the strap is in centre of car ? but accessable from underneath ?

stu

[TUS 373]

OK, it works like this. The battery is connected to the chassis on LHS of car. But then the chassis is joined to the block on the RHS of the car. If you take the front (driver's) wheel off and crawl under the car, you can see the earth lead bolted between the chassis and the block. Its a bit of a stretch to reach, but not impossible. Then get a socket wrench (sorry can't remember what size socket), but you should be able to undo the bolts that attach it. The problem with mine was the contact patch under the bolt holding the lead to the chassis. Not enough powder coating had been removed to make a good electrical contact, and adding in a bit of oxidation, really reduced the amount of current that could get through for cranking.

In my case, the car was recovered as it just would not start even though it had a new and fully charged battery. The garage just whipped the strap off, cleaned it up, put it back on and its been fine ever since! It is one of the known foilbles, and I even recall one member on here having his car recovered all the way from France to discover this was the problem. I'd therefore check this out for yourself first before progressing onto the other 'could be's...'

If have any specific q's, just fire away. It's a simple DIY job if you have a jack, some good supports, a socket set, some emery paper, and copper grease to protect it all from moisture afterwards.

[powerlord]

will do it at weekend.

still.. as it starts find from garage cold, nice and strongly... still doesn't really explain it :-/

[TUS 373]

Hmmm. You have a point there. If it was definitely the earth, then you would probably have big bother in getting it to start in the first place because of the current required by the starter motor. Still, checking over the earth won't do the car harm and may prevent bother in the future after you have "serviced" it.