Thanks for adding your own experience Ch4ppie. That is a great contribution for your first post!!

Your experience and head scratching has absolutely matched my own. I think that your eventual diagnosis is exactly correct with regard to the solenoid plunger rotating and therefore giving an intermittently good/bad connection. I guess that your solenoid repair was a lot cheaper than my own full starter motor replacement as well!!

Interestingly, the LR Indy who fixed it, anticipating lengthy diagnostic investigations had warned that it may be 3 - 4 weeks before they could get to it, but as soon as he heard the clicking solenoid, knew exactly what the problem was and car was back the next day!!

Steve

I have found exactly the same cause of starting issues as CH4PPIE ie worn and pitted contacts in the starter motor solenoid.

I had intermittent starting issues for 4 months during which I always managed to get it to start after multiple tries but it was not its usual start first time. The sequence of actions before finding the issues were:

I found the negative battery terminal was loose despite the clamp bolt being tight (a distorted clamp fixed by filing the surfaces that meet at around the tightening bolt hole). This made things better for a while.

Then I found I could get it started by using a jump lead between the negative battery terminal and the gear box. So I fitted the 'second earth' from the battery negative terminal direct to the starter motor as detailed in another thread. This fixed it for a while but it got progressively worse again.

So I bought a solenoid refurb kit on ebay for $40. This weekend I removed the starter motor and stripped the solenoid and the cause of the starting problem was obvious.

Technically what I had experienced was high resistance in the starter circuit (cables, terminals, solenoid etc) causing a lack of current to flow to the starter motor. The battery terminal fix and second earth reduced the circuit resistance in each case so improving the starting temporarily. However the solenoid contacts were continuing to get progressively worse ie resistance increasing.

Removing and replacing the Starter Motor is relatively simple. There is a YouTube by Riley's Autos that has good info, but you don't have to remove the radiator hose or the top air pipe as he does. The airbox simply unclips if you pull it straight up but disconnect the clip to the air pipe and undo air sensor plug first.



Best tip he gives is to remove the 8mm bolt that holds the cable clip just below the starter. This enables you to move the thick bundle of cables out of the way to get to the starter motor bolts.

This YouTube video shows how to overhaul the solenoid: . I recommend you carefully clean the dirt out of the solenoid with brake cleaner fluid on a rag.

Last edited by Bumpf on 14th Oct 2023 9:56 am. Edited 1 time in total

Thanks. Ive put that video in my slowing enlarging bank of "things that might go wrong"
 Jules

A good bet is to replace them same time as the cam belt. Since the starter has to be taken off, the incremental time is small. If you get others to do the change, get the kit off eBay 1st and take it in when the work is scheduled

Bumpf wrote:

I have found exactly the same cause of starting issues as CH4PPIE ie worn and pitted contacts in the starter motor solenoid.

I had intermittent starting issues for 4 months during which I always managed to get it to start after multiple tries but it was not its usual start first time. The sequence of actions before finding the issues were:

I found the negative battery terminal was lose despite the clamp bolt being tight (a distorted clamp fixed by filing the surfaces that meet at around the tightening bolt hole). This made things better for a while.

Then I found I could get it started by using a jump lead between the negative battery terminal and the gear box. So I fitted the 'second earth' from the battery negative terminal direct to the starter motor as detailed in another thread. This fixed it for a while but it got progressively worse again.

So I bought a solenoid refurb kit on ebay for $40. This weekend I removed the starter motor and stripped the solenoid and the cause of the starting problem was obvious.

Technically what I had experienced was high resistance in the starter circuit (cables, terminals, solenoid etc) causing a lack of current to flow to the starter motor. The battery terminal fix and second earth reduced the circuit resistance in each case so improving the starting temporarily. However the solenoid contacts were continuing to get progressively worse ie resistance increasing.

Removing and replacing the Starter Motor is relatively simple. There is a YouTube by Riley's Autos that has good info, but you don't have to remove the radiator hose or the top air pipe as he does. The airbox simply unclips if you pull it straight up but disconnect the clip to the air pipe and undo air sensor plug first.



Best tip he gives is to remove the 8mm bolt that holds the cable clip just below the starter. This enables you to move the thick bundle of cables out of the way to get to the starter motor bolts.

This YouTube video shows how to overhaul the solenoid: . I recommend you carefully clean the dirt out of the solenoid with brake cleaner fluid on a rag.