Since August the Impala has been hard to start with the engine hot, as if the starter were soaking heat and dragging. This is a pretty common problem with Chevrolet engines with headers that are tight to the starter. Until the other day when I drove to the hardware store for something it’d start after setting for 5-10 minutes, but this time we couldn’t even jump it. I was going to get a gear drive starter for it, but thought I’d first make a heat shield and/or wrap the head pipe, so this morning I went out and got under the car. The head pipe is less than half an inch from the starter, making wrapping it tough, and there’s no way at all to get a heat shield between the two. After I finally got the pipe wrapped I tried starting it, and it wouldn’t start, turned over very slowly a couple times then nothing. Battery, two years old, showed 14.26 volts resting. I had just put a battery in the T’bird project so I swapped them out. The 454 lit right up. What? I took its battery to O’Rielley’s to test it , and sure enough, failed a load test. 6 days past its 24 month warranty date. Happily they replaced it anyway, so I’m glad for that.
So it wasn't a heat soak issue at all. Definitely another lesson in addressing the basics first, the amount of times folks jump into electrical faults without checking Battery, Fuses and Grounds first is crazy. Glad you got it sorted!
I should have figured this out sooner, just based on the symptoms, but at least I didn't spend any extra $$ on a gear drive starter and wasted a day dropping the exhaust to put it in. In my defense, the 4 or 5 times when it didn't start when warmed up, it did after a few minutes to let it "cool down". When it wouldn't start with a jump the lightbulb came on. Dimly...
Yes, that first bit of any electrical testing "With a good, fully charged battery," carries a LOT of weight! Glad you got to the root cause and got it warrantied.
You might want to look into a shield anyway. You will curse installing it and when the starter needs dropping, but it will probably increase the life of the starter. https://www.summitracing.com/search/part-type/starter-heat-shields/make/chevrolet
I went to NAPA a few weeks ago to replace a battery of theirs that failed in my dune buggy. It was a "5 year" battery that I bought 3 years ago so I figured it would just be replaced. I wasn't aware that the "warranty" doesn't cover replacing the battery per se, I got a credit for 2/5ths of the price of what I paid for it (minus the sales tax). Of course, the price of batteries is greater now than three years ago, so I got like $30 off the new battery, paid my taxes again and charged a $5.00 disposal fee for the old battery. And they want us driving electric cars? Rant over, sorry B, gad you mixed the impaler. You should call it Vlad.
This is a way to check a battery until you buy a load tester. If you have removable battery caps, remove them all have someone crank the eng. over until it is struggling to turn over. While someone is cranking you are watching all the cells in the battery if you see some or one of them boiling,the battery has a bad cell and needs replacement. Protect your face and eyes when working on a battery.
There is a (imo) better one to get. I went to AZ in my driver last year because I could only start the truck with the charger on it. The guy came out with a small meter-thing. Hit a button, small wires so very little load, and said “yep, bad battery, only has a surface charge”. How that little meter thing tested that the battery couldn’t take a load, I don’t know.
They still credit you for a core charge here. If WA is going to do that, it's going to cause a situation like this. https://powermetal.substack.com/p/the-7-million-recycling-scam
I remember years ago being taught in auto tech classes that auto batteries had two sorts of voltage ratings; "surface" voltage and "deep" voltage. It was common for a nearly dead battery to still show 12v to 13v when tested with a simple voltmeter. The voltmeter put barely any load on the battery to determine this reading and essentially only indicated that the battery wasn't completely dead, or that in fact it was a 12v instead of a 6v battery. A load test is the most accurate way to check real battery health. A given amp load is placed on the battery for a specific time and the voltage is monitored. A good battery will still show maybe 10v to 12v while a battery on its way out may only show 4v or 5v, or even less. When doing any diagnostic work we were always encouraged to "knock off" any surface charge before continuing by quickly putting a couple high load cycles on the battery with the tester. Doing this with a load tester was a quick way to determine whether you should continue your diagnosis or not, especially with higher amp load circuits.
So, heat soak is still present. A great battery can overcome it. A weak battery, maybe not. Does the battery ground bolt to the engine? When I had minor heat soak problem, moving ground cable from fram to engine solved it forevermore. Same battery.
When I put the SBC in my 40 Ford I not only wrapped the exhaust pipe next to the starter but also put a DEI insulation heat shield on the starter. As hot as it gets down here I've never experienced a hot start problem. It is flexible and you could squeeze it on there I think.
Ground to engine block, second ground from block to core support. It wasn't not a ground issue. There's absolutely no room for heat shield, there's less than 1/2" between the exhaust head pipe and the starter, and it runs the full length of the starter. It never was a heat soak problem, it was a battery failure. I drove the car today, it cranked and started every time, cold or hot. It's got a Ford solenoid on the firewall from the previous owner/builder. It's all better now, and O'Rielley's was great about exchanging it out of the 2 year warranty, no core charge either. Well, I did leave the failed one so, it wasn't an issue.
From the motorcycle world just put a volt meter on the battery and hit the start button. If it drops to 9+/- volts buy a battery.
I own vehicles with a total of 10 batteries,,all have removable caps. all batteries less than 5 yrs old.
I had a problem like that years ago and I took the starter off, cleaned and painted it with vht white paint and it cured the problem.
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