chancecasey

What am i missing? I disconnected the fuel pump fuse, tried turning it over, and hear the starter solenoid click, but no crank.

The engine will turn by hand - I suspect the battery is so out of juice - but I have a BIG charger hooked up to it charging at max capacity - maybe the low battery is draining too much juice for the starter to turn the engine over?

KirkF

More likely you forgot one of the starter wires. I would double check that first. Its easy to miss one of them. It was only recently someone else on here or pelican did the same thing after their rebuild.

Kirk

chancecasey

double-checked those already - they are on correctly

one thing - the charger shows a current draw of about 10 amps - when I try to crank it - current draw jumps up to 30 amps.

darth

The jump in current indicates the solenoid is OK but I would check the battery and its' connections, the starter needs a lot more than 30 amps and if the battery can't supply it or there are poor connections the engine isn't gonna turn over.

Hope this helps
Bill
90C2

Geoffrey

Can you turn the engine over by hand?

wsybert

If it is one of those smaller chargers and not a booster/charger, it will not be sufficient to start while the battery is low. You may end up killing the charger. You will need a 90+ amp booster/charger to be able to get a crank. Did you try a jump from another car?
Bill

Red rooster

Chance,
Woa there ! Dont use a boost charger unless you have a spare DME/AC controller/ABS/Dash etc lying around !!Boost charger volts are in danger of killing everything electronic on the car !!

What you need is a fully charged , proper size battery.Peak current draw on a cold 911 motor is around 1000 Amps !

If the battery is still charging at 10 Amps it has a way to go.For a bit of a boost use booster cables and another battery.

Good luck

Geoff

wsybert

Sorry for the mislead. I wasn't really suggesting it,(although as i read it again it looks that way...) just that those small battery chargers won't crank an engine if the battery is dead. Rooster is right, charge the battery. Safest way to go.

chancecasey

Yes, the motor turns by hand - the charger has 2 modes, 40 amp and 2 amp (both 12 volts), 2 amp wasn't doing anything, so charged it on 40 amp for an hour or two. Turned it down to 2 amp before I went to bed last night, just put it back on 40 amp this morning - looks like the charging of the battery is only drawing about 5 amps now which is good.

Yeah it totally seems like not enough power - I was just doing the math - 40 amps x 12 volts is 480 watts - about 1/2 kw - shouldn't that be enough power to crank it over?

Maybe not - I didn't feel like jumping it with another car or changing out the battery - I was in a weird mood after putting 25 hours of work into it in 2 days. I'll try that today if it still doesn't crank.

chancecasey

One thing I just remembered - the short, fat cable that connects the battery negative terminal to the body is uninsulated, braided copper wire. There is a pretty severe kink in it just before it attaches to the body. Doesn't look like it's broken - but thought I'd thow that out there in case anyone has had to replace this.

Hopefully "they" will tell me my battery is bad - and it really is - and a new one will crank it right up.

darth

I think your battery is toast, if it isn't charged after 2 hours @ 40 amps then there is a bad connection between the battery and the starter on the big leads.

Red rooster

Chance,
Seriously , a 911 motor needs 800-1000amps to crank cold !!! Your 40 amp charger is interesting but will not provide cranking power.

To test your battery , turn on the headlights , on then crank . If the lights go right out your battery is flat/stuffed. If they stay about the same illumination but no crank then there is a power supply/ground/starter issue !

What this is doing is using the headlights as a test lamp ! I know it may sound a bit primitive but the concept is based on some very sound engineering concepts !and it does help to sort where the problem is.

Give it a go ?

Geoff

chancecasey

OK - took a LONG lunch from work and went home, picked up the battery, took it to Sears - passed with flying colors.

So - looked at the starter connections again - you won't believe this - the positive cable had latched onto the correct terminal when I was raising the engine - somehow I forgot to undo the nut and put it on - and last time I checked it looked "on" - but I was admittedly feeling a bit rushed. Sooooo,

Starter cranks over motor great - and we're getting spark - but apparently no fuel. I check the fuel pump fuse and, in another bone-headed move - had put the fuse into the "blank" slot. Ok - I put it back in the correct slot - cranked it about 10 times for 6 or 7 seconds at a time - still nothing.

Except now I know for sure my oil line - the long one from the engine to the oil filter - is leaking at the pressure fitting. Fabulous.

The only thing I can think of now is if:
1. I somehow fried the DME (the fuse for it is ok though)
2. I didn't position the flywheel sensor correctly.

On the sensor thing - I got it almost exactly 1mm from the teeth. The one thing I didn't check was the lateral alignment - mainly because it didn't have any shims on it - now I'm worried that maybe since I replaced a Freudo-whatever flywheel with a LUK maybe the teeth sit farther forward or back and I was supposed to use some shims. If that was the case I'm going to be sick to my stomach. Can I put a simple meter on the connector for this to see if it's sensing correctly?

KirkF

Do I win a prize on the starter motor?

If I remember correctly: if you are getting spark, then your flywheel sensor is fine. I would check the fuel pressure first, Take off the fuel line and make sure the pump is pumping. If not then jump out your dme relay (which if I remember correctly also turns on the fuel pump, or was that my 944? Anyways you get the idea..)
Once you know for sure you have fuel and spark, then we can start looking at the more subtle problems that could be happening, like checking if the injectors are firing, etc.

Kirk

chancecasey

Either you get a prize or I get a pie in the face. What can I say, my little head hurts the past couple days

I thought of pulling a fuel line off but not excited about squirting fuel in my engine compartment - is there a convenient one to pull off? I guess I could take the air filter off and put a jar under the fuel filter.

Or, can you just "feel" the pump working? Maybe I could climb under the car and put my hand on it while wifey cranks the motor.