Silvia Club of NSW

Hey, Luke (cypher1024) came home from work on a break and when he went to go back to work his car wouldnt start. Auto ca18t... He had to go back to work and took a different car, so Im posting to see if anyone has any ideas what it could be? Theres a loud rapid clicking in the engine bay that only happens when key is turned to start (down near the starter motor or something), the fan turns about half an inch sometimes, and the belts and stuff at the front of the engine (to starter motor etc.) look like theyre vibrating. Engine wont turn over. Any ideas? Car was working fine an hour earlier.... WHAT IS IT????!

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
-Mitch

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That's what she said

I dont know if the start motor works the same, but on my old old car, prelude, my starter motor was on its way out and hitting it with a club lock or baseball bat used to get it going, I had to replace it after a while as it stopped alltogether.

LOL, I was going to suggest the hitting the starter motor too ! It worked for me in the past with a Camry. I also think it's your starter that's dead/dying.

try checking any leaks or intercooler hose ?
also cehck the water pump.

After trying a few more times, I dont think the noise is coming from the starter. Sounds further back.

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That's what she said

this usually happens when either the starter motor is on the way out or the battery doesnt have enuff charge to turn the car over! This happened to both VN commodore and 626 Mazda. See if the battery is low and if it is it also may be the alternator.

Also the reason it sound further back is cause its comming from or near the flywheel!


Hope it helps

ya check the voltage on the battery
try push starting the car
if that works then its most likely either ur starter or something with ignition.

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i like rice ...... with a side dish of noodles!

BAtta boom! As soon as I got home I tried jumpstarting and it worked.

What confuses me is how it was fine for 5 hours this moning and then died after an hour break :S

The only thing I can think is that I managed to short it somehow? Ioow. The point is it's working now. I'll leave it for a while and see what happens. Thanks for your help guys!

that what use to happen to me with my old batt ...even if i leave the cabin lite on for 10 mins......since then invested in a good battery

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got 15?

Same here, i thought it was the alt but just needed a nice new b8trez

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This hansn't happened before though... And i've had it on for a few hours with the whole stereo on including the 1000w amp

battery might have just given up (they do that sometimes), or it could just be one of the battery terminals going dodgy.

If you pull the terminals off and check that everything's clean (you can get terminal cleaning wire brushes from K-Mart and auto shops) then make sure the terminals are back on tight it might just fix it

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The Engine Whisperer - fixer of things

When it happend to our VN V8, it was the starter motor solenoid.

How old is the battery Cyper, some of them give up after not that long, maybe under 2 years even.

What happened with the VN was the alternator wasnt charging the battery, so the all of a sudden the battery didnt have enuff charge to kick the car over and then the solenoid made the click click sounds. It was only chargin the battery at somethin like 8-11v.
So hopefully its only the battery.
To be sure Id check the amount of charge the battery is getting.

With the V6 626 the battery just died and even when we recharged the battery several times it just wouldnt last longer than a few days!

I see.

Actually thinking about it more, and it was ages ago, the starter wouldn't even go click click. I would turn the ignition key and nothing. Tapping the starter with a club lock would somehow get the soleniod to work again for one engine start.