starting problems

[nibor]

Hi just tried to start my griff 500 sounded lumpy as hell to begin with but now just turns over and wont fire up and run.Is this a sarter motor problem? It has not been used for a few weeks but started sraight away then.It has never failed to start in the 4 years I have owned it.Any help appreciated.

[GreenV8S]

nibor said:

Hi just tried to start my griff 500 sounded lumpy as hell to begin with but now just turns over and wont fire up and run.Is this a sarter motor problem? It has not been used for a few weeks but started sraight away then.It has never failed to start in the 4 years I have owned it.Any help appreciated.

If it cranks over then the starter motor is fine.

You can't be sure without going through a full diagnosis, but I think it's probably just flooded. There's a small chance that if you leave it for a couple of hours and try again, it'll fire up. If not, you will need to replace the plugs (NGK B7ECS). While you're getting the plugs get a passive strobe light (very cheap flash light that connects in line with an HT lead and flashes each time a spark occurs), make sure it is a cheap passive strobe not the more expensive active strobe. This will enable you to confirm that you are actually getting a spark, which is the next thing to check if clean plugs don't fix it.

Also make sure the battery doesn't run flat while you're trying to start it, either boost it from another car with jump leads while you're starting it, or get the battery on charge now. It's much harder to get a car to fire up with a marginal battery, even if there's nothing else wrong.

[nibor]

Hi thanks for the reply.However I was maybe a bit too eager to post a question.After a couple of hours of fault finding and coming up with nothing I thought it best to start with something simple and nip off to the garage and purchase 5litres of super unleaded.After two turns of the key the engine fired into life.Turns out the fuel guage is giving a false reading (read a 1/4 full before filling up).Sorry to waste your time but relief on my part that it was nothing more serious.cheers