I recently went to start my grandmothers Voyager which has been sitting for 2 years since the last time it ran. New Optima battery just installed. Vehicle power works fine until I go to crank the engine. At that time, all power is lost to the vehicle without the engine turning over. If I unhook the battery and then re-install, vehicle has power again. Could this be a starter issue? Of note, the very first time I went to start the vehicle the motor cranked over as usual. I stopped cranking to prime the carb and the second cranking attempt produced the problem described above. Please let me know if anyone has any ideas.

Check the basics first. Clean the battery negative to engine cable at the engine. Also clean the battery negative to body cable. Starter can't crank if the juice can't complete the circuit back to the battery. A corroded connection would cause an intermittent problem.

You do not have a good connection between the batt and the ends. You can go get a batt end cleaner or just tidy them up with some sandpapper.

Guys-

Thanks for the battery tips but I checked/cleaned everything and put back together with dielectric grease and the same thing happens. Battery is a brand new Optima (checked fine at store). Beginning to wonder if there is a problem with the starter or starter solenoid. How hard is it to replace?

Marc

hmm, I would not think it is the starter quite yet. It sounds like not enough juice is being provided to the starter, which is an indication of too much resistance in the cables/connections, or perhaps the battery is weak (perhaps it was sitting around too long?) . If you have access to a good battery from another vehicle, you may want to try starting the car with it, or - if you have one of those portable jump-start devices, you could try hooking that up to start the car and see what happens.