What I thought was a starter problem turns out to be more.

Recap:

Swapped out my starter this past sat. . . no prob. Cranked that night, fired up, odd vibration when revving but went away over a little time, probably the TB cleanner.

Today, 8:20am, went to crank wouldnt, keep turning over as if the starter is dry. Never fired, taped the starter no fire, cant push start,as I cant get the car out of the driveway. After cranking once I saw smoke comming from the starter area.

Took out the starter out it back in but bolted down the connector on the wrong side, got a spark, and attempted crank and lung forward from the car, got the batt terminal off.

Now since then when I crank, its missing a tone like the pistons arent trying to move or something that the best way I could describe it.

-Got another starter from advanced, put it in and still nothing.
-Checked all fuses under the dash and their fine.
-Thought maybe my alty finally went on me ( full power, bose plays fine, no loss in power.

INTERESTING PART:

When trying to find out I pulled the fuel pump fuse, and tried to crank, hoping I'd head a different tone in cranking. . . nothing same tone! Could this be the source?

Pulled off the back seats, unplugged the 2 connectors on top where the fuel pump would be and then tried cranking to see if I'd hear a different tone when cranking. . . still the same tone!

Could I have blown my fuel pump? Any ideas what could be wrong? Going to search the FSM for voltage numbers for the fuel pump to see if this is the culprit.

I never thougth I would make a "car wont start thread"

 

Ok now cranking is slower and slower. It slowed down to nothing and then started clicking.

Going to test my bat, but odd thing is I still have full power in cabin all light on dash light up, Bose still plays and thumps nicely. . . I think it maybe the alty going to test that also.

 

ok Battery at 12.37 volts exactly 3 times checked.

Testing the alty but the plug is a son of a monkey B**ch to get off, I got it poped but there is something purposly from the engine in the way. How the hell did they expect us to take off the alty with easy with that nub like protrution in the way??

If the Alty was Bad the battery shouldnt have sufficient power to start the car right? If thats true, with a Batter at 12.37 volts should be able to start up the car right? or does it still need the support of the alty to fire?

 

Ok I'm confused..

Is the car cranking right now? If it was and has just gotten slower and slower to the point of just clicking, you might have just drained the battery.

 

kind of sounds like your alternator is fried

because i think you can still have radio and all that since your battery is enough to power those accessories

 

They car will crank but wont fire. It now gets slower and slower to the point of clicking. I volt test the battery and its 12.37 . . . but the last couple of times I testes its dropped a little each time.

I think it maybe the alternator, I pulled the plug off the volt test it. Either I'm not volt testing it right or I'm crazy. First off its hard enough to try and wedge my hand/fingers down in the cramped space.To test for voltage, I was tryin to put the postive of the volt meter on one of the prongs, and the negative on the battery ground. Is this correct?

Haynes mentions "backprobing" which I honnestly dont know what that means.

 

the car would start if the alternator was bad.. it would start, and then run off the juice from the battery, and then stall once the battery was drained.

 

the basics are fuel, air , and spark.. if one of those 3 are missing, the car wont start. mabye try the fuel filter first.

 

Use a metal object as a ground and put the positive side on the positive terminal on the battery. If you're alternator is fine, it should read 14.1-14.7volts. If its below, you're battery is clearly fine since you can restart it and it reads above 12volts, take out the alternator and take it down to an autostore that does free bench testing.

 

Voltage State of Charge
12.6+ 100%
12.5 90%
12.42 80%
12.32 70%
12.20 60%
12.06 50%
11.9 40%
11.75 30%
11.58 20%
11.31 10%
10.5 0%

Here is the chart from my DC/AC textbook for 12 volt battery charging. Your battery is somewhat low....... Charge it and retest....I think it should start the car though.....

 

Based on your chart my battery was at 70% but later tested at about 50% and who knows how low it is now. I'm going to Pull the alty tommorow and take it to be tested. Hopefully that will be the culprit and my baby will fire up.

I still dont understand the smoke I saw comming off the starter earlier today, but I've swapped that one out so I guess it doenst matter now. Thanks for the help guys, driving my moms Pathfinder tommorow, will post back in the evening how it goes.

 

your gonna waste your time if you pull the altenator off

 

why dont you do something simple. Try to start the car with someone giving you a jump.

Wait a few minutes (as much as 15-20) with the batteries connected before you try to start so the drained battery has enough current. Let us know what happens.

 

I will try that, my brother has jumper cables and he is downtown somewhere, but just made it in, I try to jump tommorow as I have to sleep to wake up in time to take my mom to work.

Why do you say that? I thought even with a dead alty but a fully charged batt the car should crank, the batt is now losing power.

The only other thing I notice, was I tried cranking and the tone was one way, pulled the fuel pump fues and tried, the tone was still the same. Tried to hear the whine from the fuel pump when you put the key to on, but didnt hear it.

 

your altenator has absolutely NOTHING to do with the car actually starting. the power used to start the car comes from the battery.. if your battery is cranking the motor over, your battery is fine. the reason the battery is loosing power is becuase your continuely trying to start your car and the car is not starting. this is draining the battery.
the altenator is used to re-charge the battery once the car has started, and to power any electrical equipment.
IF THE ALTENATOR WAS BAD... your car would still start, and would run for a little while.. the engine and all the accessories would be drawing surrent from the battery, which will slowly drain, and then the car would stall. with a properly working altenator, once the car is started, you would be able to totally disconnect the battery, and the car would run fine.
bottom line. the altenator has NOTHING to do with the car starting. it only does something once the car is already running. so if your car is cranking, but not starting, is because of another reason. fuel, air, and spark.. what have you recently done to the car?

 

you wont hear the fuel pump whine if the pressure is already there. This doesnt mean you dont have a bad fuel pump. Might be true.

 

your car could not be starting for 100 different reasons. but whatever the reason is, is realted to one of those 3 things. lets assume you have air, cause thats the least likely to go wrong.. your down to fuel and spark.. are you getting gas? are you sure your fuses are ok?

take your air cleaner off, open the throttle body butterly valve, and spray a light shot of starting fluid in it.. try to start the car. if it starts, then you know you have a fuel flow problem.. check the fuel filter, can you blow air through it? if not, its clogged.. if you can , its probably the pump, something that controls the pump. if it doesnt start with the starting fluid,, its probably a spark problem.. improtant.. if the starting fluid starts your car, do run keep spraying alot in there to keep the car running.. it is not good to keep running the car just off of that.

 

Camshaft sensor....I had the same exact problem...popped it in and car fired up...

 

I wish I had a sound clip to play of the engine cranking but its missing a tone to it, like just the starter is turning and thats it.

-First I'm going to try and get jump off of my brother see if that help.
- My fuel filter was changed less than 5K ago.
-Sparks are about 10k old

I'm going to check the camshaft sensor I feel that maybe the cause of it.

Is there such thing as a seized flywheel? maybe the starter is making noise and trying to turn a stubborn flywheel

At some point tommorow night I will try to push start the car and see what happens. . . if its starts then it deffinately isnt the alternator.

 

Maybe when you hooked up the starter connections the wrong way you blew a fuse in the engine bay? If you saw smoke coming from the starter I would check any fuses in line with that.

 

I saw the smoke comming before I hooked up the starter wrong, but I also checked the fuses under the hood, they looked good but I'll double check I didnt check all of them. I'm not sure how to check those big ones with no visibility in.

 

Your battery could be shorted or not providing enough amps, get a jumpstart, when you say it gets slower and slower and clicks, thats ur battery running out of juice... Jump it.

 

Jumping it will be the first thing I do when I get home. I dont want to try and take out the fuel pump again . . . cut my hands up too much

 

forget the alt. or the volts. amps are what your batt needs to start the car. charge the batt or jump it, or YOU PROB. FRIED A RELAY OR SOME SENSOR WHEN YOU "SPIKED" IT. id check for fuel and spark first. put a timing light on it and see if u have spark, if yes. pull a plug and see if it's wet. so at least you know where to start.

the "lack of tone" is typical when your missing fuel or spark....

 

do you mean that the starter is spinning, but not physically turing the engine?

 

I've been there. No code. No nothing. Well, there was a code. The ecu was acting up... I had to probe for a code while starting. It was weird and unexplained. Anyways, hoping the best for MDeezy.

Jae

 

kinda unclear on that too...???

 

first thing when you get home, crank it over while somebody watches to see if the belts are turning, if no.... you fried the starter. if yes....check fuel and spark

 

when you turn your key, the gear in the starter "jumps out" to make contact with your flywheel, which turns your engine. like jeff said.. watch the belts. if there turning, the starter is engaging the flywheel. if they dont, either the gear from the starter is not being thrown out, or there are teeth missing from the flywheel.

 

Update:

-Got home and tried cranking still sounded Weak.
-Tried to Jump, more power and the clicks were faster but still no fire
-Check a few coil packs, there getting spark
- Pulled off top of fuel filter to make sure fuel is comming thru. Tried cranking and fuel was definately comming out. I had a helper and he said he saw rusty fuel comming out and thought maybe that is clogging an or my injectors, but I kind doubt it, I know the tone and feeling of no fuel when trying to spakr and I dont think this is it.

- Checked Crank shaft (on side of the timing chain cover) read at 590ohms.
- check cam sensor by the pulleys, read at 550 ohms
- tried to find the 2nd cam sensor but wasnt able to find it, I saw the sensor on the bell house but it has 3 prongs and its the one I need to find as it could be the culprit.


Interesting note:

We put a tube on the top of the fuel filter and was going to spray the gas inside the TB to try see if it will crank. When trying this the TB was pushing out air! He was unable to aim and spray the fuel into the TB because air was comming out ward!
This would happen as a result of the cyclinders not firing at the same time correct? If the intake valve is open when it should be closed it would push outward air right? In which case the othere sensor that I couldnt find could be fault and causing the cylinders to fire at the wrong time. . . ?

So I'm getting fuel, spark, battery has power, still same crank. Ignition switch hasnt been checked but if that was faulty the coil packs wouldnt get a spark.

Damn . . .

 

I will run out and check that now. . .

 

sorry the sensor on the timing chain cover read at 1.67 on the 20K ohm setting. Its withing spec.

Belts are turning.

I refuse to go to a shop with all this knowlege. . .

 

Going to pull the car on the street and try to push start it. . . sigh. . .

 

A faulty crankshaft position sensor will affect the spark order/timing (IIRC).

 

Im having problems starting my max also i sit there and crank it about 3 to up to 15 times before it turns over and i have no cels...

 

Yea I had no codes either, 0505. Read back thru this thread and see if some useful information or tests you didnt try on your car that may work.

there is one more I havent checked that I was having a hard time finding. Going to try checking that when I get home from work. If that is fine also then I'm stumped. . . and will attempt a push start.

 

I was just thinking a little bit. When you crank the car your ignition switch is live on two switches. The starter switch and the "start signal" switch.

Look under your dash. Top right fuse should be start signal. When you put the ignition switch on "crank" it should show 12 volts. Only when you crank. No other time.

If the fuse is blown replace it. If the fuse is good and you dont get 12 volts, you might want to change the switch. or test it. Unhook the battery and check for continuity between the center pole and the start signal pole on the switch with the key in the "crank" position.

I hope its not the case but the problem may be a bad computer. Another thing you want to do if you have time is check compression.

 

check that start signal switch.... and any other start/ fuel fuses and relays. also check the wiring and grounds, if you saw smoke and had the wiring backwards, something fried...

just cause there's fuel coming through the filter does'nt mean it's getting to the cylinders, thats all controlled by the ecm, relays, and sensors, they tell the injectors when and how much fuel to spray.

 

if it's blowing air back through the tb, you could have a timing sensor problem, and bro, please dont try that fuel spraying trick again !!!!!!!

 

Nah I'm not trying that again, it was my friend test idea, and I was at point of frustration but after a test try thought this isnt good and we stopped.

But atleast from that it lead me to belive that on of the sensors (hopefully) are faulty.

I checked the Cam senor, and Crank(Ref) and they read fine, I cant find the Crank (Pos) for the life in me but I'm going out now to try and find it, and test the other 2 again, and the MAF, and start signal.

pray for me.