HOT ENGINE = POOR STARTING

[MCFADDEN]

Having solved all my previously posted problems, I thought I would indulge my wife & spend a night in a London hotel. The mode of transport.... you guessed a nice griff 500. Anyway, after an hour or so of traffic pulled up @ the side of Harrods for the wife to pop in to one of the shops. Anyway, on trying to restart the car after 10 minutes. The battery /alternator did not seem to have enough power to turn the engine over.The electric fans were on so I disconnected these to leave more power to crank the engine & sure enough it started.

This has happened on a few occasions when the engine is hot.

The battery charge is showing a healthy 14 to 15 volts normally, dropping to 12 to 13 when the fans are on.

What do you think is the problem as when not hot the car starts fine.

I have being told the alternator is ok but if so why is there not enough power in the battery to turn it over when the fans are on?

Any recommendations, as getting out to disconnect the fans is a bit of a pain & I do not like adding to the myth that TVR's are unreliable or troublesome, by being the man at the shops or petrol station with the bonnet up!

[beano500]

I believe there is a known issue with starter motors. Depending upon the age of your Griff, it may be that you have one of the many that were not up to the job. 500's upto about '96 I believe and the telltale sign is that they fail when hot but after cooling will work again.

[julianhj]

I had this problem last summer - turned out to be early signs of starter motor on the way out.

Edited to say - beano500 beat me to it!

>> Edited by julianhj on Wednesday 19th March 21:51

[whitechimp500]

This happens to me on every track day.
Early AM the starter works like a steam engine.
Trying to start the bugger after a good thrashing, you'd think the battery was on its way out.
After the lunch time break,starter's grafting like a good 'un.
Rest of the day,its doing the dying fly.
Next morning - no problem.

BTW. This is a new factory starter fitted last summer (original expired on a track day after above symptoms).

Think its possible that Griff/Chim 500's do have "issues" with starter motors soaking up all that underbonnet heat.

I'll probably fit some sort of reflective heat shielding to mine at some point (demon tweeks catalogue has a couple of different sorts).
Either that, or treat the starter as a consumable .

[EdT]

hang on though.. in mcfadden's case is it the usual starter motor problem that's the issue ?

I've found that as my battery is now getting old (4+ years) that starting whilst both fans spin away can be a bit of an issue. Expect diagnosis = tired battery for me in this case. Likewise when running I get a very healthy reading.

Ed

[Ballistic Banana]

Yep happened to me last year,started to do it it now and again and then got worse in the end i change the starter and also wrapped it in heat shield fom David Beer at Modwise, cured the problem straight away.
Have heard of someone putting a larger cable from the battey to the starter that has also cured the problem,something to do with the heatsoak and the cable breaking down under load?? not sure about that one myself (work in the electricity ind aswell).
I think the starter solinoid breaksdown due to the heat soak and hence the pin that engages the flywheel sticks in the solinoid.

If u do a search in the griffith forumds u should find more info.

BB

[whitechimp500]

Fair point Edt.
Is it a poor battery being affected by the extra load created by the fans - running whilst the engine is hot ?.
Or
Is it a starter motor fault - again due to a hot engine bay ?.

If the fault occurs in cool conditions AND when the battery is under load - i.e engine not running -but say headlamps/ heater on.
Then it probably points to the battery ?

If it only happens when hot then i'd be inclined to say its the starter.

(Edited to say ,id also be inclined to get someone actually Qualified to comment, to look at it rather than me and Edt ).

[shpub]

Check the earths... The fans pull around 25 Amps which need a good earth otherwise you get lots of funny problems and that can inlcude the solenoid not pulling in and making good contact and hence the starter problems.

[david beer]

Mine did this, ie slow crank when hot. New battery, sorted. It would crank fine when cold but did not have much spare capacity if it didnt "catch" first time.

[xain]

Agree with Steve, but I would add that I had exactly this problem that got worse and worse, and in the end I believe it was due to a bad contact on the starter solenoid connector (the little spade connector, *not* the big red cable)

Try disconnecting the battery and cleaning this connector/spade and applying some vaseline. It sounds exactly like my problem, and mine has never given me trouble since. Before the fix it would fail every single time I tried to restart it.

Gotta be worth a look! Think of the savings.

[MCFADDEN]

The problem is only when hot.

Even if I have the fans running all the time from cold by bypassing the otter switch, there is enough power to start.

Does this mean it is the starter, if so how much, where from, what type, etc.

Thanks for the help thus far.

PS - New battery less than 2 years ago