97 Caravan won't start.

[cheezymoogle]

It makes a clicking sound, anyone know what's wrong with it?

[yogi_123rd]

bad starter/dead-dying battery/or battery cables need cleaning - i.e high resistance from corrosion

[sid1934]

Originally Posted by yogi_123rd

bad starter/dead-dying battery/or battery cables need cleaning - i.e high resistance from corrosion

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!!

[vipergg]

One thing I would do even if it looks clean is to take a toothbrush dipped in a solution of water and baking soda and scrub the inside of the battery terminal connectors , these develop a film that you can't see , had this same type problem occur this summer and I had the battery tested which was fine . It would click and not turn over . After the terminal cleaning and also got a battery terminal brush and roughed up the battery terminals and then put everything back together and tightened down good and viola haven't had another problem since .