Starter Motor Failure?

[MorrisMinion]

Afternoon All,

Like a lot of things in life I thought this would be an easy one to fix. After 8 years of incredible reliability my 1965 Convertible started to turn over very very slowly for a few moments before firing into life. Prior to this it really was a case starting first time. I assumed that there was some problem with the starter motor which has an 'original' look about it so it may be 38 years old. Before I had a chance to investigate the next morning the car wouldn't start at all - nothing happened when the ignition key was turned. I checked the battery, which was new just 6 months ago, and that was fully charged. Then I had a look at the solenoid and the negative terminal seemed wobbly and had a rusty crunch to it so I thought I had found the suspect. I swapped out the solenoid for a new one from ESM - this resulted in a good loud click from the solenoid but nothing else on the engine front.

Prior to, and after the solenoid repair, I did try the old hand crank (and yes, with the ignition on because I forgot the first time I tried) and on both occasions the engine was silent and the only sound was the solenoid and the fuel pump - the engine did turn over freely though. I can't understand why the hand crank didn't work and I would love to hear from the experts on this forum why that might happen.

The original distributor (with a wobbly spindle) was replaced a year ago with a new electronic Accuspark distributor and coil - which made the engine run very smoothly. I mention this in case it's a factor.

I'm now on standby with a new starter motor and a desperate search for one of the three multimeters that I own, because I suspect that I'll need one for the next stage of this repair problem.

Thanks in advance for your help and suggestions.

Andy

[mogbob]

Andy I believe you have arrived at the right conclusion from all that you have replaced and checked so far.
With no signs life at all from the starter when trying the starter it points to issues. It could be that the brushes in the starter have come
to the end of their useful life or something a little more terminal/ serious within. Without removing and dismantling , for the moment the reason
is cause for speculation. A working Multimeter will assist you in your investigation.

Does " on standby with a new starter motor " in your post mean you have already bought one ? or you are contemplating the purchase.

Have a new one , simply pull the old and replace after cleaning up the main cable connections ( battery disconnected of course ).
Still deciding what to do , pull the old one out ( battery disconnected first ) and inspect the brushes and internals.If you're lucky you might
get away with a clean up of the commutator ( use only sandpaper NOT emery or wet and dry, which contain carborundum and can short out the segments ).Replace the springs. If there is signs of serious damage to the windings e.g. burnt out ( you'll probably smell that quite easily once out of the car ) then replacement is the easiest answer. The specialist refurbishment electrical contractors will sometimes" buy in " dead motors for a
nominal sum , if you have not had to handover your old motor for exchange..Most owners do not possess the specialist equipment to totally rebuild a starter motor.
Final warning starter motors are HEAVY. Undo the lower bolt first then the top bolt. Remove the nut washer and leave the motor " hanging" on the bolt
so that you can prepare /brace yourself to catch the lump of heavy metal.
Bob

[jagnut66]

And herein lies one of the advantages of choosing a Morris Minor, accessibility.
I once had a starter motor fail while I was parked in my (formerly) local Tesco's car park.
So no access to ramps or anything like that. But heh, no need, with a new spare to hand (after a 15 minute walk home, locate / collect and back), it took me about 20 - 30 minutes to have it swapped over and the new one installed, plenty of access under my car to get to and undo the bottom bolt, I fired her up and drove her home.
Best wishes,
Mike.

[MorrisMinion]

Bob,

Many thanks for the rapid reply and the very useful diagnosis. Yes I have already bought a new stater motor from ESM so I hope to get that fitted soon. I’m still not sure why the hand crank didn’t work, but maybe a dead starter motor with worn out bushes can cause the crank problem. Thanks also for the tip about the bolt removal order - I would have gone for the upper bolt first as I can get to it easily from the engine bay, but now I’ll go for the lower one first. I can’t complain about this starter failure after 58 years of use, and £70 for a new one seems like a bargain to me after the recent expenses on my Landrover.

All the best
Andy

[ManyMinors]

Your car should start perfectly well using the starting handle. The handle basically does the same job as the starter motor: Simply turns the engine over
Now that you have a new motor, just get it fitted as soon as possible and all should be well if the battery is fully charged and connected properly
Good luck. It is a nice easy job on a Minor.

[simmitc]

To hand start the car, it needs to be properly serviced so that it is ready to start - by the sound of things, yous is normally easy to start, so that should not be a problem; and then ignition on (I know you said you did that) and set choke to appropriate level. The fly in the ointment might be that lovely electronic distributor. In my experience, they make normal starting easy and yes, then engines run smoothly, BUT r=they often need to be spinning quite fast in order to generate the pulse to fire the coil. Not a problem when turning with the starter, but you might struggle with the handle. Different units might vary, whereas points will fire the coil if you just open them with a screwdriver.

Thinking about the main fault, you refer to the negative terminal on the solenoid - is your car the original positive earth or has it been converted to negative earth? The solenoid is earthed through its body, has a white/red activating lead and two heavy connectors, one supply from the battery and the other a feed to the starter motor.

It does sound like the starter motor at fault, but with a meter you could be more definite in the diagnosis.

Another area to check is the body - gearbox earth strap which is usually by the gearbox cross member under the car. If that has broken or the bolts come loose, then it would cause starting problems.

[MorrisMinion]

First of all, thanks to everyone that responded with some very useful advice and to simmitc for the comments about the problem using the starting handle with an electronic distributor. After replacing the starter motor simmitc's comment appears to be correct, and I bet that this particular 'feature' of an Accuspark distributor doesn't make it their next brochure, but I can live with this as a bump start still worked and the Accuspark has worked well for the past year and has made the car run smoothly.

I also thought that some tales of my rookie errors might amuse you all on a Friday evening and maybe prevent a few other rookies from making the same mistakes. I have to say that my kind neighbour who let me use the vehicle lift in his garage made the whole job a lot easier and its fair to say that I could not have done this sort of job in a Tesco carpark so hats off to jagnut66 for managing to do so.

Here's what happened.

1. Disconnect battery
2. Original starter removed (bottom bolt first - yes, I listened to MMOC advice) after removing the distributor cap for clearance and access.
3. Struggled to get the new starter in place which didn't make sense as it was a direct replacement for the old one. It turns out that the body of the new starter from ESM is 3 or 4mm longer than the original starter.
4. removed the spin-off oil filter for clearance and that worked and the new starter was bolted in.
5. tried to refit the distributor cap and discovered that the lower clip was now trapped behind the body of the new starter motor and I couldn't release it.
6. New starter motor back out again and refitted with the distributor clip on top of it.
7. Oil filter refitted and distributor cap on
8. Reconnect battery
9. Car started first time, and after an hour spent cursing it I'm now back in love with it.
10. When the days are a bit longer and warmer I'll have a look at the old starter motor and see if the problem was caused by worn out brushes. If so then I'll have a spare.

It's good to be mobile again. Have a good weekend all,

Andy

[mogbob]

Andy
Good to hear you're "mobile " once again.
Just remember , after your experience , none of us is born " an Expert " , we all start life as a "rookie".
Safe motoring Bob