Honda Car Forum

Battery appears good, posts are clean and tight..IDEAS ?

Hi Phil

Does it continuously click or just click once when you turn the key?

Make sure you have a solid battery voltage on the fat wired terminal to
the starter: It could be that it is starving because of having a bad
contact on either side - perhaps take the wire out of the scrimps on
both sides and clean them before recrimping. Measure voltage directly
on the starter and starter body - it should be 10V or more.
My very old Dodge Scamp I had years ago had the same intermittent
problem and ended up replacing this fat wire - the problem promptly
went away.

Are you sure that the starter you replaced it with was indeed ok? Next
time it happens, whack the starter by means of putting a block of wood
on it and whack the block of wood with a mallet. If is starts, my money
is on the starter still having problems..

Hope this is useful.
Remco

"phil" <ndccpf1@bellatlantic.net> wrote in message
news:_WLyd.10592$152.6018@trndny01...
> Battery appears good, posts are clean and tight..IDEAS ?

Remco has good ideas, and if that doesn't get it...

The battery could still be defective in a couple ways. Besides the old
fashioned way of just getting weak, batteries since the late 70s have
increasingly shown a failure mode that I assume is broken internal
connections. It shows up as an apparently dead or very weak battery that
miraculously recovers. Whacking the battery posts with a hammer usually
makes it work again, but the battery is still defective and needs to be
replaced.

The alternator might be bad. The only way to check this (without special
equipment) is to measure the charging voltage - the voltage across the
battery when the engine is running. It should be somewhere between about 13
and 15 volts DC, toward the low end of the range in hot weather and toward
the high end in cold weather. Also, with a digital voltmeter, the AC voltage
across the battery should be under 0.1 VAC (a tenth of a volt.) If the AC
voltage is above 0.5 VAC (1/2 volt) the diodes in the alternator are bad.

Rarely, the ground connection to the block may be bad. Usually that
condition shows up as a bunch of weird electrical problems, but in a few
cars the battery ground is to the chassis instead of the block. A separate
wire then grounds the block to the chassis.

Anyway, if you don't have a digital voltmeter, this is a good time to buy
one or find a friend who will loan you one. Analog voltmeters will get you
as far as checking the voltages Remco describes, but verifying the
alternator really takes a digital voltmeter. Most inexpensive analog meters
will not let you measure AC when DC is present. (The ones that do have a
separate jack usually labeled "output" for that purpose.)

Mike

phil wrote:
>
> Battery appears good, posts are clean and tight..IDEAS ?

Do you have the Denso starter or the Mitsuba starter? If you have the Denso
starter then there may be an easy fix. Clicking on a Honda starter is
usually caused by a bad starter contact. However, since you've replaced the
starter with a rebuilt unit, then I would hope that this isn't the case.
Anyways, it wouldn't hurt to check the contact just to be sure. You don't
need to remove the starter. If your starter has brass colored D shaped cap
on the end, the Denso design, then you can check the contact. Disconnect
the battery, remove the three short screws that hold the D shaped end cap
on, remove the plunger being careful not to lose the spring on the end,
disconnect the (+) battery cable from the starter terminal and remove the
14mm nuts and plastic bushing that hold the contact into the starter. The
starter contact should now come out. If it shows any signs of wear, such as
having a semicircular groove in it (which can sometimes get particularly
deep), then it needs to be replaced. Honda sells a kit with a new contact,
plastic bushing, and everything else, or you could get one from an electric
motor rebuilder, or you can get a refund and put a new contact in your old
starter since that's their usual mode of failure (though you should check it
first).

Eric

"Eric" <say.no@spam.now> wrote in message news:41CBD364.B4ACADBF@spam.now...
> phil wrote:
>>
>> Battery appears good, posts are clean and tight..IDEAS ?
>
> Do you have the Denso starter or the Mitsuba starter? If you have the
> Denso
> starter then there may be an easy fix. Clicking on a Honda starter is
> usually caused by a bad starter contact. However, since you've replaced
> the
> starter with a rebuilt unit, then I would hope that this isn't the case.
<snip>

It's worth mentioning that rebuilt starters and alternators are pretty
notorious for poor quality, at least in Hondas.

> Eric

Remco wrote:
> Hi Phil
>
> Does it continuously click or just click once when you turn the key?
When turning the ignition key..it appears the starter solenoid (?) will
click only once.



>
> Make sure you have a solid battery voltage on the fat wired terminal to
> the starter: It could be that it is starving because of having a bad
> contact on either side - perhaps take the wire out of the scrimps on
> both sides and clean them before recrimping. Measure voltage directly
> on the starter and starter body - it should be 10V or more.
> My very old Dodge Scamp I had years ago had the same intermittent
> problem and ended up replacing this fat wire - the problem promptly
> went away.
>
> Are you sure that the starter you replaced it with was indeed ok? Next
> time it happens, whack the starter by means of putting a block of wood
> on it and whack the block of wood with a mallet. If is starts, my money
> is on the starter still having problems..
>
> Hope this is useful.
> Remco
>