Could a big drop in ambient temp. make for difficult cranking? Car is garaged where temp. is in mid 30's, battery shows 12.38V on the meter. Can hear starter solenoid trip but won't turn over. This is a freshly rebuilt 8BA, using 20/50 oil, 8.7 compression and new starter. Had no problems a few days ago when it was much warmer. Any ideas?
I went through that last year and it turned out to be the battery. It was a few years old and showed 12.5 V, but was lacking the cold amps. Funny, when I went to the parts store, there were 4 other people with the same issue. New, heavy duty battery got me going. Haven't had any trouble this year and she's covered, but cold.
Pull the plugs and see if it turns over. If not, check your grounds, especially where the starter mounts to the bell housing. If it was freshly painted that could be your problem. Otherwisw might just be tight from the fresh rebuild.
Connect a voltmeter and see what the voltage is when trying to start. I've had problems before with an older battery that showed good voltage until a load was applied. Very likely time for a new battery.
Probably no help to you, but reminds me of a story my dad told me. This happened many years ago. Local farmer had a wagon load of soybeans behind his tractor. Parked it for the night, planning to take in to town to unload the next day. Next morning it wouldn't start. Wouldn't even turn over. Locked up tight. Started looking for the problem. Got as far as taking out spark plugs. Found one hole packed clear full of soy beans. Mouse had spent all night crawling up the under slung exhaust pipe dropping beans in the open exhaust valve. I actually had a similar situation on a SBC engine I got from a salvage yard. Went to change exhaust manifolds and one was packed with acorn shells. Yes, temperature will make a difference. Especially with 20/50 oil, but i would think it would at least turn over slowly. And battery condition. Volts may be OK but may not have the amperage for a cold start. Could have the battery load tested. Can you turn it by hand with the fan belt? If the stater is not doing anything, could be stuck brushes in the starter. Try rapping on the starter with a wrench or small hammer.
Thanks everyone for responding ..................you gotta love this site! Will try all the above, can't rock the car yet on jack stands. The battery is Optima and it's less than a year old.
This is the time of the year were we, in the Great White North, find out if our batteries are good still. OFTEN, I can fix it will a quick wiggle of a pos/neg terminal cable (amazing how many people have this problem). Once the cold weather hits, the cold cranking amps die and it won't turn the car over. The only way to test the battery is bring it to a store and have them test them with load.
Get some help and check the battery voltage when the starter is engaged, your battery is probably shot and the 20w50 is way to thick at that temp! Gary
O.K. I just went through this last week. I have a trickle charger on my battery. I know it is always up. Cl***ic example of when cars had points (my Ford still does). OXIDE kills the contacts when humidity is up and Temps drop. I went through the exercise of rocking car in gear ,etc. I had to crawl underneath and loosen/wiggle?/retighten the ground strap/cable on starter and PRESTO car fired! Best of Luck!
P.S. 36 TUDOR: I also have a two month old OPTIMA because I didn't want to deal with weak batteries any more. Do yourself a favor if you don't drive your car every week and get a trickle charger, at least for the winter.
Batt. voltage should be between 13.2 and 13.8. I'd throw it on a charger and see if it'll take a full charge.
Turn headlights on and hit starter. If they go dim, the battery's dead or bad. If they go out, you have a bad battery cable connection.
I hope you have better luck with that Optima than I or anyone else I know that tried one. Temperatures in the 30s shouldn't cause any problems cranking unless you had water in the block and it got cold enough to freeze. -30 is a different story.
Hit the starter ****on and voltage went from 12.38V to 9.99V; it did crank, but only every other try.
Temps in mid-30s isn't really cold enough to say that the temperature is the problem-- meaning that the oil is slowing things down or that the battery is frozen. I'd look at connections and battery power.
Battery is dead for sure. With the age of your battery it should take a charge. As someone else said , it should be over 13.5 sitting. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Charge the battery up real well using a low amperage setting. This will allow the battery to take a deep charge that should help this along. In the meantime try and warm the engine up using a block heater before trying to crank it again. If still no go, then swap battery and see what happens.
You may need a charger rated for AGM battery, if your using an Optima battery or charge it through another battery it's possible to ruin an Optima with incorrect charging procedures.
Not may you do. It is possible as you stated to charge it through another battery. Just charge a regular non AGM battery and hook good jumper cables to the Optima. I've had several over the years. I love them. Sent via Illinois Bell Telephone Company's Car Radiotelephone
I just replaced a battery that had 12.6 to 13.0 volts, perfect hydrometer readings and when we put a load test on it tested bad. Same as yours wouldnt start the engine. Load test it
This is good advice. I worked at a bmw dealer. One of the techs was toubleshooting a no-crank (just click-click). New starter, no help. New batt, no help. Snap-On car jumper hooked up to the new batt - cranked over really good. Too bad about the rod going through the piston. One of the cylinders was full over water/anti-freeze, which hydrolocked the engine. This car model actually had an open service bulletin on it for coolant leaks. The service writer never noted that on the ticket
Had a 6V Optima that lasted 12 years with normal type charging method. Never had to do special charging with it. ***** relay got it one day.
The problem is when they are dead or very low a regular charger will not bring them up. This is why people call them junk. I found this out the hard way after several of mine would not charge and I tossed em out. Sent via Illinois Bell Telephone Company's Car Radiotelephone
Optima gave the local dealers that line about needing a special charger too. They got the chargers to use on returned batteries and to sell to customers. They had more trouble with the chargers than the batteries and it still wouldn't charge the bad batteries. Now it's difficult to find a dealer for them.
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