It's always the simple things
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Cruisin'
Joined: Oct 2023
Posts: 9
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From: Lincolnshire
It's always the simple things
I just wanted to share my recent "Car won't crank" story in the hopes it will save another person time and money!
My car (1987 944S) would often fail to start; the dreaded "Solenoid starter click". After that, all the electrics would die out, I'd have to go in to the boot to turn the battery cut-off off and on again to reset the vehicle and boom, it would fire up a second time.
After a while I noticed this was getting worse, the car wouldn't start until I completed this procedure 2 times, and at the extreme, 20+ times with my partner helping out turning the key to speed things up.
One morning, it failed to start completely. *Solenoid click*, restart, *Solenoid click* and so on. Given that the issue appeared to be getting worse, my inexperienced brain jumped to starter failure. Bench test revealed it working fine but someone online said the bench test isn't a reliable method so I went ahead and purchased a new starter.
3 weeks and many swear words later the new starter is fitted... *Solenoid click*.
"Check grounds" I know you're screaming, and that's eventually what I started paying attention to just about every thread that mentioned it. Battery cable, Bell housing, Solenoid, Firewall ground etc. I was going around one-by-one when I was about to give up at the bell housing ground because on my car it's buried by a sea of wires tubes and may have meant intake manifold off!
That's when I was about to connect a spare battery terminal cable to the body by the battery I noticed on the battery cut-off switch "Keep clean and tight". My heart raced excitedly as I ran inside, got some break cleaner and cleaned it. It wasn't dirty, but I wanted to get it right. I went back to the car and twisted it tight, tighter than I ever had before...
AND BAM. IT FIRED STRAIGHT UP.
Oh what a relief! I'm so happy. It's still SORN'd due to sill rust but at least now I can drive it to a garage!
My car (1987 944S) would often fail to start; the dreaded "Solenoid starter click". After that, all the electrics would die out, I'd have to go in to the boot to turn the battery cut-off off and on again to reset the vehicle and boom, it would fire up a second time.
After a while I noticed this was getting worse, the car wouldn't start until I completed this procedure 2 times, and at the extreme, 20+ times with my partner helping out turning the key to speed things up.
One morning, it failed to start completely. *Solenoid click*, restart, *Solenoid click* and so on. Given that the issue appeared to be getting worse, my inexperienced brain jumped to starter failure. Bench test revealed it working fine but someone online said the bench test isn't a reliable method so I went ahead and purchased a new starter.
3 weeks and many swear words later the new starter is fitted... *Solenoid click*.
"Check grounds" I know you're screaming, and that's eventually what I started paying attention to just about every thread that mentioned it. Battery cable, Bell housing, Solenoid, Firewall ground etc. I was going around one-by-one when I was about to give up at the bell housing ground because on my car it's buried by a sea of wires tubes and may have meant intake manifold off!
That's when I was about to connect a spare battery terminal cable to the body by the battery I noticed on the battery cut-off switch "Keep clean and tight". My heart raced excitedly as I ran inside, got some break cleaner and cleaned it. It wasn't dirty, but I wanted to get it right. I went back to the car and twisted it tight, tighter than I ever had before...
AND BAM. IT FIRED STRAIGHT UP.
Oh what a relief! I'm so happy. It's still SORN'd due to sill rust but at least now I can drive it to a garage!
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Joined: Apr 2025
Posts: 93
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Ahhh…I’ve been in that “shoulda tried simple things first” many times. That is why blogs like this are somewhat dangerous. Many helpful people, but many deep dark suggestions that made me start digging and yanking and pulling and… My story is when my old car wouldn’t start. I replaced the starter twice, lying in the rain. Nothing till I had my wife try to start the car while I looked under the hood. I heard a sizzling sound being caused by a corroded positive battery cable. Ten minutes later it all worked.