I'm hoping someone here can help me out with a starter problem
I have on my MGA 1600:
I rebuilt my starter back a few months ago and it bench tested fine.
I put the starter back on the car and tried it out by using jumper
cables from my other vehicle (has a new battery) to both the ground
strap (+ve) and to the starter solenoid switch (-ve). When I pulled
the solenoid, the starter had a real hard time turning over the engine
and eventually wouldn't turn it over at all. I then noticed a small
puff of smoke coming from the back of the starter (Yikes) and it
stopped working completely.
I pulled the starter off again and had a look. Everything looked fine.
I cleaned the brushes and put it back together and it worked again.
(on the bench - Hmmm) Now I figure maybe the winding in the armature
is bad so I switch the whole armature for one from my parts car that
looked OK. The starter worked real well on the bench (again).
I then thought it might be a grounding problem so I cleaned up the
strap and the point where the starter connects to the tranny so it had
a good mating surface. I then put the starter back, hooked up the
jumper cables again but this time the ground (+ve) was connected to
one of the starter bolts (to rule out a bad ground wire). Essentially,
the same thing happened. I stopped trying it so that I didn't
completely kill the starter - but I did see the small puff of smoke
again (sigh).
Anyone have any ideas? Maybe I should take the plugs out and see if
the starter still has as hard a time turning the engine.
A friend suggested that the jumper cables have a great loss of
amperage due to the connectors on them. Would this account for the
small puff of smoke because there aren't enough amps to turn the
motor so the brushes get burned?
Thanks for any help,
Paul
|