04-18-2009, 08:59 PM
Alright, so turn the clock back a few weeks...
Tuesday, March 31st - we finally get a decent day here in Northern VA. I decide to take the 968 home (it's stored at my office). Check fluids, tire pressure, regular stuff since hibernation, and Hershey is right around the corner, so out she comes! Runs great, no issues. Come out next morning, start it up and off to work I go. Pull in the garage for an hour or so as I have massive state inspections planned. I begin my day with a couple of my work trucks and then need to back the 968 out of the garage since I parked the 911 in and it needs inspection too. WTF! The 968 won't start. Plenty of lights, battery is fully charged, thanks to the trickle charger, but no start. No click, no nothing. It won't even crank. As soon as I'd turn the key, it acted like it wanted to start, but the starter didn't have enough going for it to turn the flywheel.
The first thing that comes to mind is the 'ol gummy starter syndrome. I'm lucky to have a race shop in my complex, so I get the car over there to get it in the air and with the help of one of their gurus, proceed to clean out the starter, lube it all up real good, test it on the bench and put it back in the car. Feeling real good, I turn the key.............SAME RESULT! No crank.
Order a new starter from Sunset, wait for it's arrival, and install it. Again, same result. Now we begin troubleshooting. We bypass the wiring in the car and connect the starter directly to the battery. Both starters would start the car but turn VERY slowly. Fast enough to start it, but just barely. Figure voltage not making it somewhere critical, but where?
Test ignition switch...everything OK there. Only thing left is wiring. Cleaned a bunch of grounding points, checked all spade lug connections, etc. When replacing the starter, we found very brittle connections and some missing insulation on the + wire coming from the alternator...replaced those connectors and trimmed the brittle parts back and re-shrink tubed everything. This however, does make us start thinking bad wires.
Fast forward to yesterday, Friday, April 17th. Built new #2 AWG main wires, replaced all spade lugs, new battery terminals, etc. I decided to leave the newly acquired starter on the car and keep the one we cleaned up for a spare. HOLY COW! What a difference. First off, the cranking speed at startup is super fast. Second, alternator guage reads a tad bit higher, and third, I'm going to leave the trickle charger off and see if my battery drain problem is fixed as a result. Wouldn't surprise me and I know there've been a couple of other threads recently about battery drain. I plan to post some pictures of both the gummy starter and the old cables. We found one of the main cables has some serious degradation and obviously wasn't robust enough to carry the necessary current to start the car!
Bottom line, this is a great thing to have done...get the Ice Shark cables, the Higher Connection cables, or build some of your own. At 17 years, these cables are very stiff, very brittle, and the heat in the engine bay isn't doing them any favors. I never would've suspected cables of this thickness would deteriorate so badly. We all are aware that bad grounds cause a lot of intermittent issues with these cars, but the positive cables can prove faulty as well. It takes a positive AND a negative to make a complete circuit. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif[/img]
Car is back up and running, better than usual...I'll see everyone in Hershey! [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif[/img] I took advantage of the downtime to pull the valve cover, check my timing chain and upper pads, replace the spark plug seals, valve cover gasket and install new NGK Iridium plugs.
I was really thinking for a while there that we'd have one less 968 in attendance.
- Darryl
Tuesday, March 31st - we finally get a decent day here in Northern VA. I decide to take the 968 home (it's stored at my office). Check fluids, tire pressure, regular stuff since hibernation, and Hershey is right around the corner, so out she comes! Runs great, no issues. Come out next morning, start it up and off to work I go. Pull in the garage for an hour or so as I have massive state inspections planned. I begin my day with a couple of my work trucks and then need to back the 968 out of the garage since I parked the 911 in and it needs inspection too. WTF! The 968 won't start. Plenty of lights, battery is fully charged, thanks to the trickle charger, but no start. No click, no nothing. It won't even crank. As soon as I'd turn the key, it acted like it wanted to start, but the starter didn't have enough going for it to turn the flywheel.
The first thing that comes to mind is the 'ol gummy starter syndrome. I'm lucky to have a race shop in my complex, so I get the car over there to get it in the air and with the help of one of their gurus, proceed to clean out the starter, lube it all up real good, test it on the bench and put it back in the car. Feeling real good, I turn the key.............SAME RESULT! No crank.
Order a new starter from Sunset, wait for it's arrival, and install it. Again, same result. Now we begin troubleshooting. We bypass the wiring in the car and connect the starter directly to the battery. Both starters would start the car but turn VERY slowly. Fast enough to start it, but just barely. Figure voltage not making it somewhere critical, but where?
Test ignition switch...everything OK there. Only thing left is wiring. Cleaned a bunch of grounding points, checked all spade lug connections, etc. When replacing the starter, we found very brittle connections and some missing insulation on the + wire coming from the alternator...replaced those connectors and trimmed the brittle parts back and re-shrink tubed everything. This however, does make us start thinking bad wires.
Fast forward to yesterday, Friday, April 17th. Built new #2 AWG main wires, replaced all spade lugs, new battery terminals, etc. I decided to leave the newly acquired starter on the car and keep the one we cleaned up for a spare. HOLY COW! What a difference. First off, the cranking speed at startup is super fast. Second, alternator guage reads a tad bit higher, and third, I'm going to leave the trickle charger off and see if my battery drain problem is fixed as a result. Wouldn't surprise me and I know there've been a couple of other threads recently about battery drain. I plan to post some pictures of both the gummy starter and the old cables. We found one of the main cables has some serious degradation and obviously wasn't robust enough to carry the necessary current to start the car!
Bottom line, this is a great thing to have done...get the Ice Shark cables, the Higher Connection cables, or build some of your own. At 17 years, these cables are very stiff, very brittle, and the heat in the engine bay isn't doing them any favors. I never would've suspected cables of this thickness would deteriorate so badly. We all are aware that bad grounds cause a lot of intermittent issues with these cars, but the positive cables can prove faulty as well. It takes a positive AND a negative to make a complete circuit. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif[/img]
Car is back up and running, better than usual...I'll see everyone in Hershey! [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif[/img] I took advantage of the downtime to pull the valve cover, check my timing chain and upper pads, replace the spark plug seals, valve cover gasket and install new NGK Iridium plugs.
I was really thinking for a while there that we'd have one less 968 in attendance.
- Darryl
