****posted in Newbies forum, Didnt see which forum i clicked, sry folks****
Howdy,
Well it all started a few weeks ago when the gfs dad and i changed the starter... it started up sounding funny and i thought nothing of it..but after a couple of days it didn't go away... we figured either he put a wire on the wrong terminal? or he chipped a couple of flywheel teeth on the way in..
September 9: 4.39pm - i start the car up and it keeps turning over and engaging its self with a vrrrrrr noise so i was like wtf, so i turned the car off and it kept starting over and over ... jumping forward ..or stuttering back forward back forward and it did this for like 10minutes ...so i Tried to start it again and rev the engine to try get the noise to go away, well anyway it didn't so i popped the hood and saw a bunch of smoke come from the engine.
i look at it but cant see nothing really wrong mainly due to the fact the engine was too hot to touch and theres alot of smoke and it STUNK. couldn't breathe it in.. so i called the tow truck company and waited on a tow.
September 9: 6.15pm - the tow truck driver gets to me and asks whats up bla bla and sees that my car is too low, damn side skirt so he calls for a flatbed - Eta... 90 minutes, while i was waiting i managed to remove my front bumper cause i was bored. when i turned the car to start mode its almost like you could smell the burning but the car wouldn't turn over/start .
September 9: 7:55pm - Flat bed comes and tows me home ... was a pretty cool experience to watch my car goin up on a flatbed..wish ide of got pics buuut its for all the wrong reasons... get home and push my car into my driveway and bless it for the night
September 10: 11.27am - i go to unlock my doors to see if i can find a problem.. maybe a short wire, a burned out wire or see just in general wtf is wrong with my car... none of my power acc work... the night before they all worked fine, and i didnt have the key in the car overnight so im wondering why this happened?
in summary...
1) my car wont start
2) Coolant is just pissing out on the other side (not near the water pump)
3) all my power acc, keyless,radio,window wont work now
is this all one problem? hopefully one of you guys can help me out cause im really stuck on this one
1) my car wont start
2) Coolant is just pissing out on the other side (not near the water pump)
3) all my power acc, keyless,radio,window wont work now
Ok, with the problems I've had, let's see if I can give any help here.
I would say 1 and 3 are related to a battery failure which would explain why it won't start and why you don't have any power. What color is the coolant (orange, green) and what condition is it in? If it's rusty looking, you could have rusted freeze out plugs. The guy who had my Z28 before me never changed the coolant so when I got it, it was only a few months until the freezeplugs rusted out and started leaking coolant. You have to look to see where the coolant is coming out specifically to see if it could be a freezeplug or something.
Also, with the battery issue, the starter if installed wrong (was it doing it itself) trying to start the car over and over again can drain it. So yea, I'd look at the starter, battery, alternator just incase, then have a glance over to exactly where coolant is coming from. One of the tricks my uncle does (a mechanic) is to use a mirror tilted at an angle to see where the coolant is coming from.
Good luck man, sounds like it'll be fun to fix.
I know, I've been there.
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1992 Chevrolet Camaro RS 3.1L V6 A4- Metallic Green
1995 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 M6- Patriot Red
1995 Chevrolet Cavalier A4- Winter beater/purple
Well the water pump was changed a month ago and worked fine up untill..well this morning when i saw the big leak, the coolant was orange but now i put water in there just to watch how fast it drains.
the battery is a brand new optima yellow top less than 2 months old aswell, Alternator is in the same boat.. 2 months old, maybe 3 and the starter problem never happened with my old starter.. when we installed the new one.. thats when it started going wrong... hope that gives ya a little bit info
"was it doing it its self" <-- i pulled the key out of the ignition and it still happened..still kept turning
would that cause my car to not start anymore and not turn over?
Ummmm, while.... your not supposed to let your starter go for longer than 10 seconds at a time, never mind 10 minutes so I'd say you've pretty much fried your new starter.
The power wire ground out, bypassed your starter switch and ran your starter for the full 10 minutes BEFORE you started revving to make the noise go away.
Now since a starter running while the engine is going makes quite a noise, one must assume you really revved the crap out of your engine to shut the noise up. Since the running starter never had a chance to disengage from the engine, the speeding engine either turned the starter motor too fast for its operating speed, reversing the flow of electricity ( an electric motor acts like a generator in reverse, creating the power instead of using it) or, the already melted starter created a huge drag on the engine, its seized components acting like a giant brake. Now since all this noise, kaos and general metal shredding and squealing noise did not seem to bother you previous to revving, when most people would have panicked and immediately shut the car off, I will assume you continued to rev for another 5 or 10 minutes probably over heating the car and blowing the intake gasket, or worse but just as likely, the head gasket.
Hopefully the grounded out electricity shooting from your coil at an amplified voltage didn't fry too many of your sensitive computer components as well as the starter and the battery, because your going to need to have as many components as possible working to part out and cover your losses before you bring the remaining bulk to the scrapper.
Then again, I am just looking at the picture of a slightly burned starter and coolant soaked engine. I don't have all the facts. It is late at night, I'm bored, too much coffee has make me bugged eyed and ornery. So ummm....maybe by coincidence a wire disconnected from your starter at the same time your frost plug let lose. Yea, thats it. You know those frost plugs just go flying off all the time. Just can't trust those guys on the Internet can you?
I like your thinking. ^^^
But no, they don't go flying off, but they do rust out. It's hard to connect all the dots at some times, especially by internet description.
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1992 Chevrolet Camaro RS 3.1L V6 A4- Metallic Green
1995 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 M6- Patriot Red
1995 Chevrolet Cavalier A4- Winter beater/purple
k, so we have an update ...
i replaced my starter and my engine still wouldnt start, so i checked the fuses and they were all fine .. i guess its wiring problem because i boosted the car to get some juice and the lights came on so i know the battery and alternator are fine... now.. .this is where i encountered a problem
i tried to push my luck and start the car while hooked up to the other car and the starter Still did the same thing as before so i quickly unhooked the booster cables to kill any chance of anything... now would you say its a bad wire or somthing? cause im quiet confused.
maybe a dead starter, and maybe a worng wire on the wrong terminals on teh starter motor?
Ryan1
Yea, it's gotta be the wiring man. Go back over it and make sure you hooked it all up right. Make sure you've got some coolant in there too man, don't want to start it then have it overheat real quick.
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1992 Chevrolet Camaro RS 3.1L V6 A4- Metallic Green
1995 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 M6- Patriot Red
1995 Chevrolet Cavalier A4- Winter beater/purple
Right now im runnin on Water, cause well.. .dex cool is just too expensive to watch it drip out.
the wiring .. i have a red and black wire on the small terminal (size 8 nut) on the starter then about 3 wires on the other terminal (size 13? nut) does that sound right.. then a bunch of other wires grounded out to the two bolts on the side of the starter ( does it matter what Order these are connected to the side?)
i thought that sounded right but im not sure, if they are all in the correct place i guess ive got a burnt wire or somthing somewhere else in the car =(
p.s does my wiring sound correct?
Andrew, seriously, your on starter number two already and with that coolant leak happening about the same time your revving the crap out of your car chances are something blew and odds are it was NOT the bloody frost plug. I have never had a frost plug blow from revving the snot out of a GM, but I have blown a 1/4" hole in the head gasket of a chevette.
At minimum drive down Guelph Line tomorrow, buy yourself a Haynes manual at Crappy Tire and figure out the wiring for that starter. You really should be taking that thing into a mechanic, but you got stubborn written all over you (Sweeney = Scottish) so I am not even gonna bother say that.
Hmm, Sweeney = Irish but close enough im gonna get it towed to a garage i think cause ive had enough with it, ill get them to diagnose it =/
thx for the advice
Pearl WhiteZ wrote:Andrew, seriously, your on starter number two already and with that coolant leak happening about the same time your revving the crap out of your car chances are something blew and odds are it was NOT the bloody frost plug. I have never had a frost plug blow from revving the snot out of a GM, but I have blown a 1/4" hole in the head gasket of a chevette.
At minimum drive down Guelph Line tomorrow, buy yourself a Haynes manual at Crappy Tire and figure out the wiring for that starter. You really should be taking that thing into a mechanic, but you got stubborn written all over you (Sweeney = Scottish) so I am not even gonna bother say that.
You got a stick up your ass or what man? I agreed with you saying it probably wasn't the FREEZE plug and that they don't blow out anyways. They simply rust out. It was a guess at the time. Damn man, @!#$ get over yourself.
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1992 Chevrolet Camaro RS 3.1L V6 A4- Metallic Green
1995 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 M6- Patriot Red
1995 Chevrolet Cavalier A4- Winter beater/purple
did you replace the power wire to the starter and the battery groung wire?
see ya!
Found the problem, a burnt out wire and a bad sensor or somthing i forget what he said...
fix was $210 :/
