WTF? does this sound like a starter problem

I have to take the body off my tudor but I can't until I move my summer car. Unfortunately it's dead. The car is an 87 Monte SS with a 350 and HEI ignition. About two months ago I dove it, came home then hopped back in and it was doing the dead battery click thing. I went and got a new battery and it rolled over, so I shut it off gave it some gas and tried it again, and the dead battery thing started all over. I left it on the charger over night, same result. The dome light would come on when I opened the door and the radio still worked but after I tried to start it, nothing. Now the dome light, radio, or headlights don't work and battery doesn't even click. I checked the battery with my multimeter and it was just over twelve volts. I checked the post on the starter and there's 12 volts there too. So what causes this? It was like everything started slowly dying, i.e. dome light, radio, key in ignition chime, headlights but the battery has 12 volts so what's going on?

 

No.
It sounds like a bad connection problem.

 

Yeah, bad connection at the battery post. Same thing happened to me before with the same symptoms. Pull off the battery cable and scrub all the **** from the post and the cable and make sure it's tight. If you get a weak connection, there's just barely enough juice to light up a dome light, but when you turn the key, you get click and then everything goes dead. You might have to get new battery cable(s) if the old ones are corroded to hell.

Careful when charging a battery all night. If you overcharge it, the battery case gets hot and the sides bulge out and it ruins the battery -- and it's also filled with explosive hydrogen gas. If I have to leave a battery charger on all night, I usually put it on a slow 1 or 2 amp charge, which is easier on the battery, and not too risky if you forget to take it off exactly when you should.

 

Pretty sure in michigan winters, the banana gear is the first thing to check.

 

Be sure to check the ground cable at the block as well.A loose nut at the starter positive cable also.....

 

Also make sure you have a ground strap from engine to firewall.

 

Is that anything like a banana hammock? You know the Speedo thingys the old guys were when the swim at the Y.

 

Hmmm...I drove it around since spring with no ground strap to the firewall. It has one small one off the battery ground cable to the fender but that's it. I did pick one up for the manifold to the firewall the other day. Did I screw something up not using one this whole time?

 

Never been to the YMCA....don't the village people frequent that place??

 

You can't have too many ground straps.....I doubt you screwed anything up not having one....unless you are burning up throttle cables.

 

If you go without a ground cable between the engine and frame, sometimes it can screw up the bearings in the U-joints if that's the only ground path to the engine. The current has to flow through the roller bearings in the U-joints.

 

Another weird thing is this wasn't an old setup. I put the new engine in around April and used a brand new Optima battery from my racecar. It wasn't like this was a corroded, crusty old battery. It worked fine for six months, I parked it then hopped back in two hours later and it was dead.

 

check the cables too, somtimes the connections are good, but the cables themselves are toast

 

HAHAHAHA..............this thread just reminded me of a great story from my Tow Truck driving days. One afternoon I got a call to go and jumpstart a car. When I got there the owner said that the same morning he had gone down to the local Pep Boys and bought a brand new battery and the car still wouldnt start. I opened the hood and looked at the battery...............the idiot didnt know that you have to take the litte red and black caps off the posts before you connect the cables.

 

I'm thinking the starter solenoid or relay, what am I missing here?

 

Wow, at work we would call that "industrial strength stupid." For the record, my battery has screw in terminals.

 

You know, I was thinking that too. I did the old screw driver trick trying to get the starter to roll over. It sparked but that was it. That's why I originally wondered if this was a starter problem.

 

Give the starter a good wack and see if that helps.

 

Take a sharp knife/Awl and probe into the cables themselves...sometimes they fill up with corrosion-[white powder and not ANTHRAX.....
ESPECIALLY if the cables are aluminum....they will not conduct a full 12 volts and that is a no no ,on a computer car.....

 

Where is the clicking coming from? If you get your battery connections solid and still have a problem-I'm guessing your relay switch is fried(fuseable links and fuses good?) or theres a problem with the selenoid or its contacts- maybe the selenoid plunger is stuck and wont engage? try a general search on the web for 'clicking starter' you'll find your not alone with this problem.

 

Don't tell anybody but there's no computer anymore Now it just has a normal HEI, a 600 Holley, and headers, no oxygen sensors/anti-knock deals.

 

You might have twelve volts just sitting there, but when you crank it, what do the volts drop to? also, if the cable is corroded on the inside, like choprods said, you will still get 12 at the starter, but the cable won't have enough continuity to roll the starter over. Take your multi meter and set it to ohm's, or resistance. Put one probe on one end of the starter cable, and one on the other. Any reading over about .2 ohms is bad news bears. Go here if you have trouble figuring out what I just said. http://www.smartgauge.co.uk/alt_how.html
Sometimes what I write makes sense to me but not to others.

 

Might be a dumb question but any ideas where would I find the relay switch or the fusable link? The headers are real close, maybe even touching so I knew the starter would eventually fail.

 

Sounds like a bad starter to me, or the motor is locking up.
Are the cables getting hot when you try to crank it?

If you jumped the starter and it cranked easy , probably just a bad connection or solinoid.

If the motor seems tight, try to spin it by hand, put a wrench on the crank bolt and turn it,, if it seems tight,, pull the plugs and see if it makes a differance.

If not, bad motor..

 

Thats not good. Starters can burn up easily enough by their own heat much less putting a header too close.
Like 55 said if the cables are heating up when you crank or if you smell burning you might have seized it up or the windings may have come apart shorting out the starter internally. I had mine slow down and short out which burned up my battery cables and melted my negative clamp before I knew what was happening.
The autozone.com has repair manuals in their database for all years and models. Give it a try.
If you end up having to change out the starter you should definitly put a heat shield of some sort above and over (but not touching) the new one to protect it from the header's heat if they're that close. That kind of heat could have done countless things to the starter and at this point it would probably be best to remove it and take a look inside of it if possible.