No turning, no starting

[AWD_Guy]

I dont know if some of you remember but I posted about my car having a hard time starting.

The other night I went to the store to pick up some smokes and when I got back to the car to go back home she wouldnt start. The engine doesnt turn, lights turn on, radio works, dash lights work, just when you turn the ket, nothing. At all.

So I called my father who was only 2 minutes away, we took a look and couldnt see anything disconnected...we push started the car, so at least the car starts with a push. Got her home and put her away in the garage. My father is coming over tonight to help find the problem.

Because it starts with a push, and how hard of a time it had to start before this happened, I was thinking it could be; a) electrical or b) the starter with 210 000Km on it finally took a dump. I took a look at the contacts around the starter, and everything seems fine. Actually the wires look really good. No corosion, no splitting or anything...they look really good. The starter is the orginal fer sure, I can tell because it took me 2 hours to get the power wire off of it. Really 2 hours. So now I have the brackets bolts to take off but the one is right where the tranny is. To remove the starter, do you guys have to drop the tranny??? I freakin hope not!

 

[Z4madehere]

First thing, check the starter solenoid. Put power to the solenoid on the starter to see if it engages the starter.

Be sure to disconnect the starting circuit from the starter solenoid to the steering column before conducting this test, else you might short circuit something.

If the solenoid checks out ok, then the problem is between the solenoid and the key & ignition switch.

 

[Doughnut]

That sounds like something i'd do first, before taking everything off make sure its not the switch, not sure if you have to take the trany off, but try to give your self lots of room (moving other parts, (even if you have to take the fuse box out) do it.

good luck let us know what you do

 

[AWD_Guy]

Well I tried again last night..

Got the one bolt off, but the other ontop is a major pita. My father and I tried checking for power from the solenoid but when I was under there watching while my dad was trying to turn the key, I could see smoke coming from the solenoid unit itself. Pretty sure its toast. lol. Wouldnt there be noise coming from the starter when trying to turn itself? There is no noise at all coming from the starter.

So Im giving up, I think this is one for my mechanic freind. So frustrating...I've designed and installed my own turbo kit, blew an engine and replaced that...and I can't replace a freakin starter on this car for the life of me. Frig I was mad last light. At least my new control arm bushing are on. lol.

 

[Doughnut]

That does sound frustrating...
When your mechanic friend repairs the problem, tell us what he did to get the starter off, and what troubles he ran into, i'd be interested, and im sure others would be too.

thanks

 

[AWD_Guy]

That does sound frustrating...
When your mechanic friend repairs the problem, tell us what he did to get the starter off, and what troubles he ran into, i'd be interested, and im sure others would be too.

thanks

I havent had the chance to get it over to him as my control arm were not back on yet. With them out of the way I do have more room to move so I will try one last time tonight....I'll see if my digi cam is charged or not.

 

[AWD_Guy]

Got it!!!!!!!!!!!

I went and bought one of the ratchets that you can turn the handle on it...

To reach the top bolt I used a 4" extension on my ratchet, got my dad to let me know when I was securely on the nut from the top and started turning the handle of the ratchet. Took about 15 minutes with 1/4 turns, but we got the damn thing off. With the left control arm out of the way it really helped.

Anyways, got tired tonight and only put on the right control arm. Will finish the left one tomorrow night.

And she starts , but Im pretty sure it was just the solenoid as the starter looked ok, but replaced both anyways as the new starter came with the solenoid.

So how I did it..

Tools that saved me: Stubby wrenches, keys, deep sockets, that wrench from mastercraft that turns with the handle, and some sort of lube/oil killah, haha. My air tools came handy to.

Not a tool, but something your gonna need. Patience. I'm glad my dad convinced me to take a rest and try it again later.


-1st thing is disconnect the ground from your battery
-Jack the car up from the front, and put some blocks behind the back wheels
-Put your safety stands in place, try to get your car as high as possible. My safety stands were on the 5 or 6th 'tooth', so pretty high.
-Take off your drivers side wheel for more room
-Disconnect the grounds to the starter, there is two on each side of the solenoid (I used a lot of rust penetrating oil here) 8mm, and 10mm I think
-Disconnect the Power, 13mm
-Keep track of which wires go where (maybe that should be before the disconnect step, bahaha)

Now you'll need to take off the control arm. I had more room to manouever tools when I did this. (plus the control arm is sitting on your chest when your sliding back and forth, what an awful feeling)

-remove the bolt to your balljoint,think it was a 22mm. We used a normal key wrench. ours didnt fully come off, we had to seperate it a little for it to go down a little to take the rest off.
-Hammer the ball joint until it gets lose. Dont be shy with the hammer.
-Undo the rest of the bolt
-There is a another bolt that goes into the subframe (??), you'll need to slap some vice grips on the top peice to prevent this from turning. That thing called patience will apply here. Then use the same wrench you used for the balljoint to undo the bolt. It will be tuff, if you can fit some sort of breaker bar there, it will be easier. Once you get it going though, do your 1/4 turn until it comes off. I 'broke' the nut with a big wrech and continued with a stubby, went much faster.
-Then I took my Impact wrench and undid the two bolts that hold the rear control arm casing to the cars body. The control arm should come out fairly easy now.

Now onto the starter bolts. There is two of em.

-The bottom one, the one you can see from the view you have on your back will be relatively easy. You'll need a 17mm stubby key and a ratchet, I used my air ratchet here, worked well. trickey part was getting the other side not to spin with the key.

We tried a lot of things for the top bolt, but I'll tell what worked for us.

-We used the special ratchet. you turn the handle and it will move the socket. No long swinging motions. We had a 4" adapter on it to get behing the starter. My father was looking from ontop standing on a stool with flashlight guiding me onto the nut of the top starter bolt. Once it was secure, I tried turning it but just couldnt get any torque, I dont know if this is because my hands were oily, tired or Im just a wimp but my father tried and got it to move.
-Dont take out your wrench yet, you need to find a way to stop the bolt.
-We used a key, it was a major pita, kept falling out, and its tight. I dont know if its eaiser with rwd, but that bolt was right between the tranny casing and car body. At the end when it was easy to turn the handle on the wrench, we just ended up jamming a stubby screw driver in there to stop it from turning on the other side.
-Take it out, use a new gasket on install on new one.

Install is the reverse of the above, using the same method.

Have fun.