93 Grand Caravan Starting Problems

[JPT993]

We're having recent problems with our 93 Grand Caravan SE starting. Seems random. We have replaced the battery w/in the last month and the starter w/in the last week. My wife was driving the car yesterday and parked it for about an hour and then tried to start it with not even a click from the starter. All the lights still work when this occured. I returned back to the car a couple of hours later and tried starting the car and it started right up. Any ideas on what might be causing this problem or what to look at? Thx. JT

[adbaker]

Originally Posted by JPT993

We're having recent problems with our 93 Grand Caravan SE starting. Seems random. We have replaced the battery w/in the last month and the starter w/in the last week. My wife was driving the car yesterday and parked it for about an hour and then tried to start it with not even a click from the starter. All the lights still work when this occured. I returned back to the car a couple of hours later and tried starting the car and it started right up. Any ideas on what might be causing this problem or what to look at? Thx. JT

I had this problem on a 1996 Caravan and (finally) made an easy fix. Would get the "click", but starter wouldn't kick in. Could usually get it started after many repeated attempts at turning the key. Checked that battery connections were clean and tight first, still didn't work. Then I checked the starter connections. This is easy to do as the starter is in the front of the engine behind the radiator and easy to inspect.

The ground is a metal strap bolted to the starter. Made sure that was clean and tight, (it was). The positive connection to the starter is a snap on metal clip. Removed that and noticed that the female connector was likely more open than it should have been. I used a standard screwdriver to bend it as to make a tigher connection when snapped back onto the starter. Before reconnecting it, I sprayed it with WD-40 to clean and then filled the female connector with grease. It has been over a month now with no more starting problems!!