Starter Motor just clicks

[PeteE30Tourer]

I'm not a happy man! After my battery dying on me the other day, then my idle problems, i get in the car this morning and it's totally dead. For some reason, the second-hand battery i put in there has drained overnight. Anyway - that's another issue i have to sort, but my question here relates to the fact when i replaced the battery with my original one, which was fully charged up over a weekend, the starter motor just makes a loud click, but doesn't turn over the engine. I even tried jumping it from my wife's car, but that made no difference - just a loud click.

Now i've had this once before and i bought a second-hand starter motor, fitted it, didn't work, put the original one on and it worked again. So i never really found out what the problem was. It's been working without fail for a good 6 months since, until this morning.

Any ideas?

[stappin]

I'm not a happy man! After my battery dying on me the other day, then my idle problems, i get in the car this morning and it's totally dead. For some reason, the second-hand battery i put in there has drained overnight. Anyway - that's another issue i have to sort, but my question here relates to the fact when i replaced the battery with my original one, which was fully charged up over a weekend, the starter motor just makes a loud click, but doesn't turn over the engine. I even tried jumping it from my wife's car, but that made no difference - just a loud click.

Now i've had this once before and i bought a second-hand starter motor, fitted it, didn't work, put the original one on and it worked again. So i never really found out what the problem was. It's been working without fail for a good 6 months since, until this morning.

Any ideas?

May sound stupid but hit the casing with a hammer that used to work on my old fords and then crank it over.

[kam-325i]

May sound stupid but hit the casing(of the starter) with a hammer that used to work on my old fords and then crank it over.

Mmmmmmmm....Sticky Solenoid.....

[kidsinister]

Check the earth connections on the engine - if these are not sound, the starter motor won't work. Check all connections, in fact; sounds like the culprit to me.

[Toby_Unna]

dead batteries?

freezing weather kills discharged batteries stone dead, to the point where charging them does nothing.

if the car's discharging them for some reason and then they're getting too cold, are you sure they're not both just dead (as in broken rather than run flat!)?

too little voltage can make cars make all sort of odd noises!

or as Alex says connections. the alternator charges the battery via the big nut on the starter motor so if there's a bad connection there you'll have odd things happen...

[crazynor]

i have had the same problem,and in my car it was the ground wiring from chassi to engine and battery to chassi who was too bad!
to thin from factory,it helped me with a thicker ground wire...never had problems after i did that...

the problems i had before i changed the ground wiring:

lumpy idle
starter wouldnt kick in
the car was running lean
fault's on check panel

[Gwynleym10]

I assume the starter motor isn't just spinning, because if it is it could be teath or a tooth missing from the flywheel.

[PeteE30Tourer]

Thanks for the quick responses here guys!

Toby - i had tried jumping it off my wife's car with her engine running, but that didn't work either, so i dont think the starter motor issue is down to the battery.

Crazynor - interesting point there - i've also have a lumpy idle and the car was running lean. I got the garage to tune up the CO from 0.1 to 0.8, which was as high as they could get it, but then i cleaned up the AFM/ICV/all air seals and now it seems to be running very rich instead - stinks of petrol instead of exhaust fumes. It's going back in tomorrow to get the CO checked again after the work i did, so i'll also get them to check out the earth wiring.

Gwynleym10 - no, the motor isn't running at all, though someone once suggested that if the cog on the starter motor doesn't quite line up with the teeth on the flywheel, it can cause the problem i've now got. I tried rocking the car a bit in gear to move the flywheel a bit, but that didn't make any difference.

[PeteE30Tourer]

A further thought/question:

Where are the main engine to earth connections? Isn't there an earth strap somewhere from the block to the chassis?

[kam-325i]

On mine, its from the bottom of the block area, intake side, to chassis rail.

Its a big thick brown wire (or caked in oil/crud)