Robyn
09-14-2006, 18:48
Recently I had an issue with the starter on my 94 Burb.
Now I have just rebuilt the 6.5 and its only been on the road with its fresh mill since early July.
I hopped in the seat the other morning and the thing would not spin very fast and also would not start at all.
Hmmmm bad battery??????
Jumped it off the big truck and it lit right up. The rest of the day it was slow in starting but would. Later that night even a jump would not get it going.
Bottom line the rebuilt starter had lost an armature and fried.
The local rebuilder made it good without so much as a whimper.
I took the time to run some line voltage tests to see what was happening and why the rig would not start even though it was turning. With the "brown out" that was happening because of the bad starter the harness voltage was way low.. (9V) and the Sol D would not lite the pump.
After replacing the starter I then rewired the rig with the starter relay as I did my other Burb. The rig starts better than it ever has and the harness voltage stays way up now. The factory is running all the current through the ign switch to run the solenoid. The voltage drop across that switch and though the line to the end where the Sol D lives is a butt load.
I do believe that I may have fixed the cold start in winter issue I had last winter. The voltage at the Sol D now stays about 12 when starting instead of 10.5 using the factory wiring to the Solenoid. (And this is summer weather)
I am reeeeeeeeely interested in seeing how this works for the winter.
It definately took a big load off the Ign switch.
Takes less than an hour to install the relay.
remove the right front tire and the inner fender rubber weather cover.
Remove the solenoid wire from the starter and extend it to the engine bay up by the right battery. Run a new wire back to the starter solenoid terminal.
I use Optima Batteries and hooked the new relay direct to the Bat + with a marine terminal and wired the other heavy terminal to the return wire to the solenoid.
The relays I used have 2 small terminal and two large ones. The large ones handel the heavy current and the small ones are, One to the battery ground (I used a marine terminal on the optima) and the other terminal hooks to the original solenoid wire that you extended to the engine bay.
Cost me all of $10 and less than an hour from getting the tools out to starting the thing up and that included replacing the starter too in my case.
Another case of poor engineering. All was good or at least workable while the rig was new and all the connections were fresh and new. At 265K miles the relay gives things a new lease on life and dramatically reduces the stress on the Ign switch.
Hope this helps someone.
Robyn
Now I have just rebuilt the 6.5 and its only been on the road with its fresh mill since early July.
I hopped in the seat the other morning and the thing would not spin very fast and also would not start at all.
Hmmmm bad battery??????
Jumped it off the big truck and it lit right up. The rest of the day it was slow in starting but would. Later that night even a jump would not get it going.
Bottom line the rebuilt starter had lost an armature and fried.
The local rebuilder made it good without so much as a whimper.
I took the time to run some line voltage tests to see what was happening and why the rig would not start even though it was turning. With the "brown out" that was happening because of the bad starter the harness voltage was way low.. (9V) and the Sol D would not lite the pump.
After replacing the starter I then rewired the rig with the starter relay as I did my other Burb. The rig starts better than it ever has and the harness voltage stays way up now. The factory is running all the current through the ign switch to run the solenoid. The voltage drop across that switch and though the line to the end where the Sol D lives is a butt load.
I do believe that I may have fixed the cold start in winter issue I had last winter. The voltage at the Sol D now stays about 12 when starting instead of 10.5 using the factory wiring to the Solenoid. (And this is summer weather)
I am reeeeeeeeely interested in seeing how this works for the winter.
It definately took a big load off the Ign switch.
Takes less than an hour to install the relay.
remove the right front tire and the inner fender rubber weather cover.
Remove the solenoid wire from the starter and extend it to the engine bay up by the right battery. Run a new wire back to the starter solenoid terminal.
I use Optima Batteries and hooked the new relay direct to the Bat + with a marine terminal and wired the other heavy terminal to the return wire to the solenoid.
The relays I used have 2 small terminal and two large ones. The large ones handel the heavy current and the small ones are, One to the battery ground (I used a marine terminal on the optima) and the other terminal hooks to the original solenoid wire that you extended to the engine bay.
Cost me all of $10 and less than an hour from getting the tools out to starting the thing up and that included replacing the starter too in my case.
Another case of poor engineering. All was good or at least workable while the rig was new and all the connections were fresh and new. At 265K miles the relay gives things a new lease on life and dramatically reduces the stress on the Ign switch.
Hope this helps someone.
Robyn