ive got a S4 TII in an 84 gsl, gsl transmission and starter, engine has NA flywheel. have had same problem on two separate transmission starter combinations.

when i turn the key and the car is cold the starter sounds like its throwing, it spins, but wont turn the engine, just whirs uselessly. every so often itll grind a bit, eventually it starts the car. when the car is warm, say after running for 10 minits, its fine until cold again. works everytime, fires right up warm, misses an whirs cold. as i said two separate starters n transmissions, same result. any ideas?

not really the best forum for it but at least i get a response here :p

 

please help if you can.
ill take shots in the dark, wild guesses, clueless ramblings, anything at this point to get this figured out its driving me nuts. i cant understand how its possible that it can take near 10 minits of useless spinning before turning the engine cold and no problems whatsoever warm.
id think it was the starter except ive run two different starters on it, both with the same result, and the starter its got on it now came straight off a car that i never had any start problems with. are there subtle differences in some series starters or flywheels? far as i know theres NA an then turbo an auto an thier respective starters and thats about that.
this is a bit of a pain in the *** cuz the only time i have trouble is when i need to get to work in the morning and i gotta leave 10 minits early in case the starter is in a bad mood, and then again when i wanna go home an im usually in a bad mood :P not to mentiopn i put tooo much time money an effort into making this thing look good and run well to sit thru the embarassment of spinnin the starter a hundred times to start it.

 

Sounds like a bad solenoid on perhaps both starters. The solenoid is what kicks out the motor to hit the flywheel. Its one of the more common problems. Another thing too that i've seen happen is just the stock wiring (atleast on FB's) start getting pretty corroded and actually not give out the needed amps (Thats positive and negative, just because you see voltage doesn't mean you have anywhere near the needed amps).

For testing that is actually quite easy to bench test. Take a booster cable, and hook it up to the starter (ground to the casing of the starter, and positive to where the positive cable is suppose to go), once all hooked up, grab a screwdriver with a well insulated handle, and tap the positive cable to the center connection on the starter solenoid (that replicated you turning on the key). If the starter pops out and spins, then its a wiring issue, if it just spins and not pop out its a solenoid issue. Also with the wiring I've had success on some by just wire brushing the copper stud off the solenoid, and the connector on the cables (Adding a bit of di-electric grease would also help too by keeping a stronger connection, and preventing corrosion)

If you need a solenoid, let me know I have pretty much a brand new one ( been on the car for only a day (will be 2 tomorrow), I'm replacing my starter as my brushes are gone, and the armature inside it chewed up. I couldn't find any brushed and armature to buy so I had to get the whole thing new and would have a spare solenoid. I'll give it to you for the price that I bought it (20$).

I hope that helps out.

Sam

 

i appreciate the offer, and the suggestion. i guess it cant hurt to pop the starter off and see that its working but i dont think its at fault. reason being the current TII engine was in FB GSL-SE (or some wild hybrid) and had this problem. i then took a 84 GSL, popped TII engine into it, now its on a totally different transmission, starter, driverain, wiring, everything, the engine changed cars. the GSL prior to the swap was happily firing up its 12A without a hiccup, now its doing the same thing the original car was doing, which leads me to believe its the engine, but i dont understand how it can be. i looked at the flywheel when i swapped and saw no issue.

i can hear the solenoid popping when i turn the key.

as far as voltage and wiring go it doesnt seem likely. if the first time i hit the starter it doesnt have enough jam to work properly, then 5-10 minits later after repeated abuse the battery and constant attempts it finally starts like magic, cranks hard, fires up, with what has to be a weaker battery then when i started, it seems unlikely a voltage issue.

ive got plenty of starters kickin around to try but i really expect the same results regardless. if its the engine then how?
could the ring gear be in the wrong place? (too far from starter seems unlikely cuz it starts up fine once warm)
could the ring gear be actually spinning on the flywheel without falling off untill i finally get enough friction to stop it? (it makes sense but just doesnt.. id imagine it would have been knocked clean off by now if it was free enough to spin)
could it be a case of the solenoid is not throwing out as far cold then hot? (this just hit an kinda makes sense, after spinnin it for a while it warms up enough to fully pop out. problem being as i stated above its been on two different setups with same result, different starters)
could i have the wrong ring gear entirely? (seems unlikely, its the right one after it runs for 10 minits)

believe me im not too lazy to search, i cant find anyone on this or 3 other rotary forums that have had this issue, ive been tryin to sort it out for the better part of a month. everyone else wants to whine "it just clicks" an then after 100 of those no one wants to dig on some original **** when they see a starter question :P

 

If I were you I'd be benchtesting it first. Just to make sure. Another easy way to make sure its not wiring while leaving the starter on the car is by taking jumper cables again and adding another one to the power, and ground it at one of the starter bolts.

Seeing if your flywheel teeth are gone would be easy to see if you just pull off the starter and look inside. I highly doubt it, I've never heard of any rx7 breaking flywheel teeth.

As far as hear the solenoid popping doesn't mean anything. There's 2 systems in the solenoid, one to pop it, and one to lock it after being popped, if it doesn't produce enough juice to lock it, then it'll pop momentarily and go back.

I've seen starter go easily, or not work after using a really thick oil weight. Like when I was using 0-30 in my car no issues whats so ever, did an oil change to 20-50, and the extra load from the heavy oil started to show all the signs of the starter dying. On that same topic, a 12a rotating assembly weighs less than a 13b, but yet they both use the same starter power rating.

It doesn't hurt to take the whole starter apart and fully clean it (I just use rubbing alcohol and a rag). You can also clean up the commutators by wire brushing them or sanding them with a 800 grit or so paper. Mine had chunks missing out of the commutators and had led to un-even brush wear. You can also grab a small flat head screw driver and clean up inbetween every slot. And lastly when reassembling, you can grease up both ends of it and slap it back together. This will you a good idea how the condition of everything is on the inside and should start easier and what not atleast.

 

From my understanding the TII bell housings are a little larger to makes space for the larger TII flywheel and clutch. for the starter being mounted to that TII tranny, i'm surprised it's touching that NA flywheel at all. I'd consider swapping out the N/a Flywheel. a little more grabbing force from the clutch may not be a bad thing and i do have 2 TII flywheels here if you would like.

 

ah progress, this i wasnt aware of and sounds like it could be the problem.

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this is my understanding as well. however im just using the stock FB transmission and starter. however i may take you up on the TII flywheel, thatll get me that much closer to bein able to pop in a TII trans.

 

well its fixed, swapped in my old FC NA starter and it seems to be working fine thus far

perhaps the FB and FC NA starters arent as "the same" as people think, the fc one is smaller and as a bonus, works. fb gsl trans, fc NA starter, NA flywheel, TII engine.... Franken7 rides on

 

They're not exactly the same, but they are interchangeable. I've definatly swapped them out. The whole size thing too could be one is stock and one is aftermarket (not sure how they are stock to stock comparison, but just saying its a possibility). One thing that I know though is that some companies offer the starter in 1.2KW, and other at 1.4KW. I haven't looked up what stock is suppose to be.

lastly there is actually one more thing that could be different. Inbetween the solenoid and the starter, there's a spacer in there. Although they're not that thick, It could make that bit of a difference.