Starter Question

[1950 Special Deluxe]

Last night I was working on my car (1950 Special Deluxe) in the garage.

I was starting it and letting it run for a few minutes and then shutting it off.

I did this a couple of times with no incidents, the last time it would not start, the solenoid would only click.

I ruled out the solenoid, 1st I bypassed it with a piece of #1 cable and then swapped it out with a new spare.

I then ruled out the battery, 1st with my charger and then with another battery.

I unhooked the cables to the starter and tried to bump it over with booster cables, it only sparked at the battery when I touched the cable to the post.

I have a spare starter, I bumped it over with my battery and booster cables.

I researched on here and I hope the starter piled up and the motor is not locked up. The motor is original with 90,000 miles. It ran really good last summer.

I hope to remove the starter this weekend.

Sorry for the long ramble.

Is there anything I missed?

I hope it is only the starter.

Thanks for reading.

Neil

[suntennis]

Electrical sparks near a battery can cause a major accident from battery gases, You could have made the electrical contact at the starter or with another cable attached to the starter. Since there is a big current draw there will be some arching. Had you continued to make contact with the battery you should have had some response from the starter unless the ground contacts are poor. Clean all the ground contacts, charge the battery and see if that fixes the problem.

[1950 Special Deluxe]

I will leave the battery on the charger overnight.

Tomorrow, I will retry connecting the battery directly to the starter making sure to do the final connection to ground away from the battery.

Also I will go to work and get our battery load tester to confirm it is not the battery.

[soth122003]

Pull your spark plugs and try to turn the motor with a wrench on the crank pulley. It sounds to me like your starter might have taken a dump. Nice thing about these old girls is the components are easy to pull and check. Starter, maybe 10-15 minutes to pull and check.

 

Joe

[JerseyHarold]

Hit (but don't smash) the starter motor with a hammer a couple of times and then try to crank the engine.  Sometimes that frees them up.

[1950 Special Deluxe]

It was the starter.

I tried everything again to confirm my original diagnosis.

It was not easy to remove, but easier than I expected it to be.

Once it was out, the problem was apparent to me.

The drive would not disengage, so it could not get up to speed before engaging.

I installed my spare starter, it was of fan old combine.

Fit perfect, except the connection from the solenoid was turned about 90 degrees.

All back together and all is well.

Thanks for the help.