Love to learn from actual experiences but many are best viewed when behind you.
This one is about the car being hard to start and isn't quite behind us yet.
But this year I'm determined not to miss getting to Vic gathering so we are fighting back.
The start of our 4 day
melbourne cup weekend was a pre-commitment to breaking thru a
rock ledge on 4wd track I'm constructing, before then heading off to
camp overnight to
test out a rudimentry double bed setup I have built inside our Nissan Patrol.
After some hours
rock breaking, I started the car and it hesitated on startup and I though maybe I had run the battery down a bit and forgot about it.
A few hours later we are packed and ready for a short run to anywhere in the
bush to
camp overnight and
test out sleeping in the car.
Again it hesitated, turned over slowly then the starter motor picked up speed and away we go.
Drive a hour to a town in Vic called Marysville where we mixed in amongst enormous crowds at the various sidewalk coffee shops.
This time car started instantly, and we head up to
camp near a place called
Jericho as the seasonal road closures ended last weekend and all the tracks are open.
Whoops, one then two access tracks still had locked gates so we detour to a place called
Woods point and got some ice-creams.
Its now 4 hours into our 2 hour trip, but the battery seems to have charged and the minor problem is forgotten about.
An hour later we arrive at a secluded river frontage
camp spot that the huge number of other campers we passed have not yet found and we
check it out, however on re-positioning the car
it again gives the whrr whhr sound before it fires up.
Now I'm getting unsure and a bit concerned so we abandon the quiet
camp spot and decide to move onto to one of the many busy sites along the
Goulburn river, and park near a group of other Nissan 4wders.
Nice spot, so we have a chardonnay before setting up
camp.
We are under some trees and just then the first wave of a storm comes in with wind gusts and it starts to rain.
Decide to move car away from trees, jump in and you guessed it. Whrr! Whrr! from the starter and this time it did not pick up speed and start.
Ok! , I've had enough and pull out our secret weapon, a hand sized 400g li-ion batt pack which we always carry as a backup and wack it across the car battery, this little gem can push nearly
200 amps by itself and yep the car started.
The car has a good accurate voltmeter and I knew that it had been charging properly during the previous drive so I was quite surprized at what had happened and unsure about the problem know.
The battery, a spiral wound heavy, Exide Orbital, heavy duty unit was only 3 years old but I suppose it could have gone.
Not being comfortable about my diagnosis we elected to play safe and drive 4 hours
home and still sleep in the car in our own driveway overnight.
Along the way I would not turn the cars engine off.
90 mins later we arrive in the country town of
Mansfield at 5mins to 7pm to be told that they had just switched of the coffee machines, tuff luck.
Keep driving thru heavy constant rain to arrive
home some 8 hours after the start of out two hour trip and go to sleep inside car in our own driveway.
Next morning I carefully watch the voltmeter which is at 12.6v and the car starts instantly.
A 4hr drive and charge must have fixed the problem.
1 hour later I decide to take the car down to a battery place to get a
check done, and go to start it and "Click" , no start, not even a whrr! whrr! and the battery volts are still reading 12v.
She's dead in the driveway !
A second spare battery does not start the car either, so being a manual we gingerly tow start the car in the drive (a trick in itself), and do a few tests.
The battery is given a clean bill of health at a
test place delivering 840 cranking amps.
With engine running we flick the starter on briefly to listen for grind that indicates the starter solenoid has worked and thrown the starter gear in.
It does, so the only thing I can think of is a poling or stuffed starter motor.
Two Nissan dealers couldn't look at the problem for 3 days so
while we aren't
mechanics, and haven't done this before I decide that only chance to get car back for weekend is to give it repairing it myself a go.
So while everyone is at bbq's enjoying the cup race , we fight away with hard to remove bolts and finally the starter motor is out and we pull off the end and it looks like the two lead in brushes are at the end of their travel and contact is intermittant.
I push and prod the brushes and get the motor to turn just once.
I decide that the brushes are so short now that the lead connected to them is at the end of its movement slot and preventing the brushes from further travel, and hence no contact.
Decide that if I was deep in the
bush I could file things a bit and get it going enough to start car and rescue myself , so I'm sort of happy.
So after all the false leads, its an almost stuffed and intermittant starter motor that has done 172000km.
Wake up an auto electrican at 7am this morning and leave it with him.
Hears hoping we can get it sorted in time to yet make the Vic gathering this weekend ! , although we might be sporting a few bandaids on the knuckles.
Would be interested in any comments that could have made this diagnosis better or clear up any errors I might have made in above analysis.