68 Camaro starting problem

[pete_c]

this car is restored and all of the connections in the solenoid/starter circuit at this point are like new. I've replaced any questionable wire ends and the battery and starter connections are very clean.

 
So you are saying that you are still having the issue previously mentioned and you are not thinking that it is a heat soak problem anymore?
 
Yup the Triumph is just sitting and hasn't been started now in 5 years.  You have motivated me to get it running.
 
The close up pictures were of the BMW E46 (old now but never really driven much - mostly played with and done some car club stuff with it.)

 

[mikefamig]

I've owned boats for years and starting gremlins are the bane of most owners experiences.  Quite often it's due to failure within the heavy gauge wires connecting everything.  Right, not just at the connectors, but inside the insulation.  The symptom is you can usually start the engines just fine if there's more than 10 minutes between attempts.  Otherwise, the drain of current pulling through the corroded section causes it to heat up and that causes voltage drop (leading to it heating up more, repeat...).

 
After getting the car to start consistently and thinking about it all I don't think that my problem is with the wires themselves and believe me I've given it serious consideration.  I'm pretty sure that that's a bigger problem with boats and especially salt water boats due to exposure.
 

Heat ends up being a factor as the engine compartment tends to get pretty warm.  Vapor lock is also a hassle, but that's another troubleshooting adventure.  Where you can crank forever without getting it to catch.

I AM convinced that heat is a fact though. I believe that in my case the heat is affecting the coil of wire in the solenoid and maybe even affecting the mechanical movement of the solenoid making it bind but the increased resistance in the wires/conductors is probably not significant. This car has been garaged and pampered, not left floating in the water for months like a boat has to endure.

I find it's sometimes simplest/fastest/cheapest to take the wiring question out of the equation, if you haven't already.  Along the process of replacing that wire you typically also find and have a chance to correct, a bunch of other things.  Like the wire harness being poorly anchored, or too close to heat sources (manifolds, etc).  At the same time you're getting clean connectors and likely cleaning their posts better.
 
Same thing goes for solenoids, sometimes it's more effective to rip-and-replace vs repeatedly getting stranded.

 
I agree....new starter, solenoid, ignition switch, neutral safety switch, horn relay and console wiring harness. The car was apart and the parts cost about a hundred bucks so it was time to do it.
 
The car is starting like it's 1968 so I'm good at this point and I'm looking at cleaning up the harness connections a little better with some conductive grease that has a high silver content and fills gaps in male/female connectors
 
In my reading and learning in the past month I learned that motor homes commonly suffer this problem too due to exposure and heat. My old car is suffering it due to the fact that it's 48 years old.
 
Mike.
 
Mike.

 

[mikefamig]

So you are saying that you are still having the issue previously mentioned and you are not thinking that it is a heat soak problem anymore?

 
The problem or at least it's symptoms have been cured. I discovered that by putting a shorter weaker return spring in the solenoid that it takes less power to depress it an activate the starter motor. I still have a pretty large voltage drop across the connector in the car's firewall (about 2 volts) but the car is starting consistently.
 
Now I'm at the point that I can drive the car and I'm learning to trust it again but I plan to either improve the problem that I have with the connector or do the rewire with the relay switch. If you catch up on the thread you'll see that I'm on to an electrical conductive grease that has a high silver content that improves a poor physical connection by filling gaps with silver and by repelling moisture. 
 
Right now it is convertible season and it's good to have the car back on the road.
 

Yup the Triumph is just sitting and hasn't been started now in 5 years.  You have motivated me to get it running.
 
The close up pictures were of the BMW E46 (old now but never really driven much - mostly played with and done some car club stuff with it.)

 
I worked at a local MG Triumph dealership in the 1970's as a British Leyland mechanic and have fond memories of the old Brits. I got the job because I had learned to tune multiple carbs on my motorcycles and I guess that not a lot of guys knew how to do it.
 
Mike.

 

[Del91574]

If your harness is good and the collector portion of the car isn't likely to happen (it's a driver) then I'd recommend picking up a GM weatherpak connector kit over the grease.

 

[mikefamig]

If your harness is good and the collector portion of the car isn't likely to happen (it's a driver) then I'd recommend picking up a GM weatherpak connector kit over the grease.

That's not feasible because the connector is very difficult to access and the car is starting fine with the lighter spring in the solenoid. Life is full of compromise.
 
Mike.

 

[pete_c]

The problem or at least it's symptoms have been cured. I discovered that by putting a shorter weaker return spring in the solenoid that it takes less power to depress it an activate the starter motor. I still have a pretty large voltage drop across the connector in the car's firewall (about 2 volts) but the car is starting consistently.
 
Now I'm at the point that I can drive the car and I'm learning to trust it again but I plan to either improve the problem that I have with the connector or do the rewire with the relay switch. If you catch up on the thread you'll see that I'm on to an electrical conductive grease that has a high silver content that improves a poor physical connection by filling gaps with silver and by repelling moisture. 
 
Right now it is convertible season and it's good to have the car back on the road.

 
That is where I lost the thread a bit as I assumed all was OK.  
 
So you are now a happy camper and just adding insurance with your adds of electrical conductive grease and the shielding piece which will give you a bit more piece of mind.
 
 

I worked at a local MG Triumph dealership in the 1970's as a British Leyland mechanic and have fond memories of the old Brits. I got the job because I had learned to tune multiple carbs on my motorcycles and I guess that not a lot of guys knew how to do it.

 
The first car I drove in the 1960's / 70's was a 1964 Pontiac Gran Prix.  I didn't really do too much with it because it ran just fine.
 
The car that taught about automobiles though was a 1966 Triumph Spitfire.  It looked nice but had mechanical issues.  Around that time I started to hang around a family that raced cars.  (Tuttle?) Well I was thunderstruck by the daughter.  Our dates though were mostly in her parents shop.  Her father (and her) showed me how to work on the Spitfire at the time.  I took the head off and hand ground the valves reseating them. Easy to do. I sold the car when I went to school.  After I was done with school the fond memories of the Triumph had me purchasing another one.  The newer one was purchased from a person near where I lived for his daughter whom was just starting school (college).  She drove it for 6 months and gave it back to her father saying she didn't like it.  He put an ad up for it and I purchased it.  Never really have driven it that much as it has a bit less than 30k miles on it.
 
Well too around the 70's (when I had the Trans Am) someone gave me a motor cycle to use one summer in Chicago.  Well too would switch the Trans Am for a new Mustang convertible that my girlfriend (her daddy owned an oil company and left his wife and kids for his secretary at the time - spoiled the daughter) was driving at the time.   Gas was cheap at the time and I recall driving down (well it was more of a race) a few times to a little fishing cottage in the Ozarks (Bull Shoals lake) for a bit of relaxing.  Geez you could fish for hours there and never see a soul. I enjoyed the motorcyle more than the TransAm/Mustang that summer in Chicago.  My dorm neighbor (Rodger) had moved next door in my apartment building.  Never did drive much (although he got multiple degrees in the sciences and seemed to be around for a long time) but he was driving a new car ever week.  One week a brand new very yellow Lotus Espirit, then a new 911 one other week. Thinking it was to impress the different girls he dated at the college next door. One early morning (3AM) he called me from the girls dormatory next door to help him with his 911 as it had literally died in front of the entrance of the dormatory.  The dormatory guards had been threatening to tow the vehicle away.  It was one of those very cold and windy winter nights in Chicago (well we were next to the lake).  Thinkiing back that we got it started before frostbite kicked in.   He was into gizmos. (saw and played with an early microwave oven - size of console television at the time).The motorcycle also had 3 carburators on it and I learned a bit about that stuff that summer in Chicago.

 

[Del91574]

That's not feasible because the connector is very difficult to access and the car is starting fine with the lighter spring in the solenoid. Life is full of compromise.
 
Mike.

1970 GTO here. Accessed my solenoid connectors once to do the swap and never looked back.

 

[mikefamig]

1970 GTO here. Accessed my solenoid connectors once to do the swap and never looked back.

I think that we have a misunderstanding here DEL. I don't have a problem with the connections on  he starter or solenoid. There is a large connector that is located in the firewall and plugs into the back of the fuse box which carries about a dozen leads and is very difficult to access without removing the brake master cylinder and power brake booster. And that is only the male half of the plug which mates to the under-dash wiring harness behind the fuse box inside the passenger compartment. The real fix would be to replace the under-dash harness and the engine harness but the car is fully assembled and that is not likely to happen now.
 
Where exactly did you use the weatherpack on your GTO?
 
Mike.

 

[mikefamig]

1970 GTO here. Accessed my solenoid connectors once to do the swap and never looked back.

 
I did replace the connectors in my center floor console harness for the two wires in the solenoid circuit by removing the wires from the existing plug assembly and installing Anderson power poles. These are pretty nice connectors and weather proofing is unnecessary inside the car.
 
Mike.

 

[mikefamig]

I think that the conductive grease that RAL suggested will improve the connection and is a sensible solution because you avoid cutting up the OEM wiring harness. The stuff has a high content of silver in it and claims to last for a very long time without hardening.
 
Also the car has been starting good for days now since I installed the lighter solenoid spring and I received a starter heat shield in the mail yesterday that I will install soon just for good measure.
 
I've done a lot of reading on this topic recently and learned that this is a known problem with GM cars and that many of them failed long before my car which is almost 50 years old. I see it as poor engineering in the first place  on GM's part. Both Ford and Chrysler placed a low power relay switch in the system and located it away from the hot engine which I consider to be a much better plan. Earlier in this thread Pete_c recommended adding a relay as a solution which is just the same as the Ford and Chrysler system.
 
Mike.

 

[JohnDennis]

You have probably checked all of your ground connections, but you might double check.  Unlike A/C current, D/C current is very sensitive to dirty or corroded connections. just a little rust can create a lot of resistance.
 
 
John

 

[mikefamig]

You have probably checked all of your ground connections, but you might double check.  Unlike A/C current, D/C current is very sensitive to dirty or corroded connections. just a little rust can create a lot of resistance.
 
 
John

 
John
 
I have been through this system front to back and back to front and have cleaned all connections. I also have the negative battery cable connected to the engine block which is connected to the starter motor which gives the circuit a short return path to the battery.
 
It isn't that DC current is more susceptible to rust or dirty connections, it is that your house AC has much more power to overcome a questionable connection than most of the DC circuits that you encounter day to day including the car. You are talking about 120 volts versus 12 volts.
 
Mike.

 

[mikefamig]

You have probably checked all of your ground connections, but you might double check.  Unlike A/C current, D/C current is very sensitive to dirty or corroded connections. just a little rust can create a lot of resistance.
 
 
John

John
 
I get a lot of suggestions similar to yours about rust and it's a good thought but the car is very clean and there isn't a wire in it that hasn't been taken apart, cleaned up and put back together. But sometimes you think that you did a good job cleaning up a connection and it's not as good as you thought. At this point I think that I have the problem narrowed down to one connector that was hard to get to and hard to even see well so I may not have made it clean enough.
 
Mike.

 

[mikefamig]

Update and thanks for all the replies.
 
So the last post here was in June and here it is November and the car is still starting fine even at full running temperature on hot summer days. Through all of my work improving old connections the power getting to the starter solenoid is much improved and combined with reducing the spring strength in the solenoid switch I think that the problem is behind me.
 
I've done a load of searching on the net and have learned that GM became aware of this problem way back in the 60's and offered a weaker spring as the cure. I think that the engineers designed the circuit with just barely enough power to do the job and some cars were failing even when nearly new.
 
Mike.
 
EDIT for the Chevy car guys out there -

It seems that the replacement spring was GM part #1958679, but it is long ago discontinued

 

[LarrylLix]

Winter is coming with colder ambient thickening the grease. Time will tell.
Hope your cure worked and isn't just a temporary fix.