Z28_

Hi guys!!
I have a weird starter problem - my car keeps burning those guys in no time. I had to replace my original starter 1 month ago after putting 132k on it and new one was working fine at the beginning until a few days ago it just died completely out of the blue. Advanced Auto exchanged it for a new (remanufactured) one, but when I put it in it just made a clicking sound for a few secs and died too. I thought the engine might be stuck but when I pushed on the belt it was turning just fine.
Now I have to go for another starter but I'm afraid same thing is gonna to happen - does anybody have an idea what else might be causing this??? My car is a Chevy Cavalier - 2.2L OHV 1992.
Thanks!

amac209

make sure you have a good battery and good connections at battery, block ground, and starter. do the starters make noise after it's running? you might need to shim it the pinion might stay stuck and over heat it. did they bench test the bad starters? try a voltage drop test between the battery and starter wire while cranking if there is a significant drop the wire is corroded and resistive. lots of reman starters are junk but i'd say its a wiring problem

Z28_

Thanks for the reply amac209!
Now I think the battery is fine but u might be right about the wires..I had a brand new starter today, they tested it out for me at Advanced - worked perfect over there, didnt even make a sound after I put it in- now I think something is blown or battery might be down cause its already been a week. Could it be that there is some fuse that is blown ( I know some models have those along the wires themselves) or just the wires are too corroded??
And still its weird how would corroded wires cause the starter to click and then get stuck???? I mean I could bet that the flywheel was stuck but it was moving fine as I already said.
What do u mean by shimming the pinion? Never done that but do I still need to do it if it turns out wires are bad?
Again thanks a lot for the help - I am really stumbled over here?

amac209

if the starter spins at the store and just clicks on the car you have a problem with the battery or battery cables. don't worry about the whole shimming thing that doesn't need to be done very often. what happens is there isn't enough clearence for the gear to engage and disengage smoothly and it gets stuck this has nothing to do with wires. i'm sure that cleaning/tightening the battery cables or replacing them if necessary will solve your starter problem. make sure your battery is charged

doormouse1058

If your really unlucky you could have a flywheel problem. . . .

Dominick

Have you had a rework on your Cavalier to keep the ignition switch from burning up? This rework will cause excessive current to pass through the starter solenoid and burn up the solenoid. In this rework a relay was mounted on the upper radiator support so that the solenoid current does not pass through the ignition switch.

amac209

i've never had a problem with burning up ignition switches on chevy's. if there was too much current flowing through the switch it would be due to the starter solenoid. all the fords use an extra relay it wouldn't take much to install one.

Dominick

Somebody has had the problem of burning ignition switches because the NHTSA ordered a recall of GM cars in 2002(02V070000) to add the relay to take the solenoid current out of the ignition switch and feed it through the relay. They have issued a new recall in this February to do the same thing to another group of cars.