The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Starter/Starter Relay Problem

Hey there folks, it's been at least four years since I've posted. Just got off active duty in the Navy where I was stationed in Hawaii and didn't have the '65 with me!

Now that I'm back in Georgia with the truck I've run into an issue and I don't know anything about electrical!

It began about 3 days ago when I went to start the truck in the morning. Turn the key one notch to the right (ACC or ON I don't know, the one that turns on electronics but not the motor) and the GEN light and OIL light came on as usual, along with radio and everything else, however when I turned the key to start I just heard one click and everything shut off. So the motor never turned and all electronics went out.

The only way I can get electric power back is when I wiggle the positive cable on the battery till I hear a static sound, then the lights and radio turn back on, horn works, etc. I kept trying to start the truck over and over but I kept getting the same click.

I called my dad, who is no mechanic, but he had an idea. So he dropped by and tapped on the starter with a hammer. It took 2 tries but it cranked. Then it started no problem for two days but yesterday same problem again. I intend to take the starter off tomorrow and have it rebuilt, as thats all I know to do. From the research I've done once you have to tap on the starter then it's on its way out.

But what I wanted to know is if the symptoms of power loss are typical of a bad starter, or might I just have a short in the starter relay or something else electrical? I just don't want to pay for a starter rebuild if the problem might lie in faulty wiring or something.

If it helps my truck has a '66 250 in it, and it has a regular AC Delco distributor, not the coil and points system (I don't know anything about it). Sorry for such a long post, but thanks for reading!

Hy 1965 Chevy C10, it sounds to me like you have dirty and loose battery cables, try cleaning them and then tightening them upon re-installation, hope that helps.

Tapping on the starter and making it work temporarily tells me you have bad starter brushes- - - -too short to make good contact with the armature consistently. Jiggling the battery cable and getting a circuit is another problem- - - -dirty connections. Remove both cables and give everything a thorough scrubbing with a wire brush both the battery posts and the inside of the cable clamps. Parts stores sell a special round brush that's made for cleaning battery connections, with male and female brushes built into the same tool.

Clean the cables and the battery posts, and rebuild the starter.
Jerry

Thanks for the feedback guys. I just took a break but am in the process of pulling the starter off. I'll clean the cables while I'm waiting to get the starter back. Also realized that it is the negative terminal that I have had to jiggle to get the electronics to come back on, not the positive. Not sure if that matters or not.

The mechanic that I took the starter to called and said when he took it apart it had a bunch of motor oil sitting in it and the brushes were gummed up and covered with it, so I hope this was the problem, but we shall see.

Bolted starter on, cleaned battery terminals and terminals on solenoid. Starts up great, have not seen the problem since and I have cranked it at sporadic intervals both hot and cold starts about 20 times or so.

After driving it a while my OIL light came on. So I let it set and checked the oil and it's almost full.

All of the wiring going into the firewall is old and brittle, I cracked the wire that runs to the oil sensor and there's about 1/16" of copper showing through. The oil light goes off when I unplug the wire from the sensor though, so I don't know if that means the wiring has current flow or not.

It just seems that it would be wiring rather than loss of oil pressure because of all the messing around with the wiring I did today, unless something coincidentally happened to the engine. Any thoughts?

The oil pressure sender is a ground. When there is no pressure there is a ground to the light. When it has pressure the ground is broken and the light goes out. If it is on with pressure either the sender is bad or the wire is grounding at one of the places you mention.

Connect a direct-reading pressure gauge to the port where the sending unit goes into the block. That's the only way to confirm you've got oil pressure. Any parts store should have one. A generic aftermarket gauge with all the plumbing necessary to connect it is a lot less costly than a trashed engine due to no oil pressure!
Jerry

Thank you Hotrod and cletis for your help with my oil pressure warning light. I started off with replacing the sender as it was cheap and it worked!

Back to square one I suppose however, as I went to crank the truck the other day and it killed power again. At least I know it's not the starter now (needed a rebuild anyway). I am starting to believe that it's a bad ground on my battery, so I unbolted the ground cable from the engine head and scraped some gummed up oil off the nut and head. Then I removed some sheathing, cut the old copper off and bolted it back on. Haven't had any problems yet but unfortunately the only way I can tell if thats the problem is trial and error. I've been told thats just how working on these old trucks goes sometimes, no computer to give you diagnostics!

You are doing fine with the help and on your own. The starter problem has a lot of places to inspect. The parts, the battery, the wiring, the switches and the grounds. You have a starter with a solenoid on top of it, excited by the Ignition switch. Many times these problem are a BAD BATTERY. You must start by taking it to a place that can load test it. That is your next step. Not a home test, a real battery load testing unit. Then dirty connections and clean grounds, and so on, will come next...Welcome home and thanks for your service. Banging on starters or many other components is probably not a good idea unless stranded in Zombiland.

Thank you bartamos, I appreciate that and I'm certainly glad to be home!

Thank you all for your help and it looks as if the repairs to the battery ground cable may have done it. It has been a week and no problems starting at all, even in this cold weather! Cold for South Georgia that is!