Knuckledragger
blowing chunks and grabbing porcelain
I am moving from California where I grew up to Arizona, where they have not gone so crazy. Each trip I fill the truck and usually haul a trailer full of household stuff to the new place. My truck has non functional sending units. Maybe I should say dysfunctional, since they actually do something, just not what I need. So I have to predict the amount of mileage I can get from one tank before switching. I have become pretty good at it over ten years, but once in a while, things go wrong. Last week, I got it in spades.
Going up a 75 mile highway from 1000 feet to 5000 feet is not too tough to do if you are not in a hurry, but in an N/A idi, you have to have patience not practiced elsewhere. So, I am about 5 miles from my destination and have forgotten about switching tanks. Turns out that my calculations were pretty spot on, the engine quit 5 miles after my notes told me to switch tanks. Fortunately, I was in the slow lane, but was also going uphill and did not have enough forward motion to get out of traffic completely.
After a very short interlude of cursing myself for forgetting, I set about trying to restart the engine and managed to burn up the starter solenoid. Fortunately, a guy who is a heavy hauler by trade just happened to drive by and offered to tow me out of traffic. For about 10 minutes, I was expecting some Semi/trailer going 55 mph to smash into my truck and trailer. Did I say it was on the wrong end of a blind sweep on the highway? Anyway, he hauled me and my rig the 5 -6 miles into town and out of traffic, to my eternal thanks. That was just the beginning of the story that lasted a week.
So I take out the starter and go to all four of the auto parts stores in town, finding that the last one I get to actually had a solenoid that would fit, and was listed as the one I "needed." And they only had one. So I put it on the starter, crawl under the truck and re-install the starter to discover that it almost worked. I turned the key and could hear the bendix throw out the pinion, banging on the flywheel, but no motor spinning. This is a 1985 truck with the big, heavy AC Delco starter, not those little puny gear drive units. I am at a loss to explain what did not happen, so I take out the starter again (this is twice) and take it completely apart. One of the four brushes seems low, so I try to get another, no such luck. I put it together and try to test just the motor with a nice battery charger, turns out the charger does not work. I later find that it was user error, the charger is just fine, I am an idiot. I try some cheap, old jumper cables (with black clamps on one end of each cable, red clamps on the other end) with aluminum wire, and they also fail to do anything. Including show a spark when touching ends together. So my buddy comes over with some actual, real jumper cables and we find out the motor runs. So I put the starter back in and - still no motor when the switch is turned. I am thinking that maybe the motor is not really working and call a friend who just happens to be coming to town (it is a 400+ mile trip) in a day or so and arrange for him to see my 88 year old mother to collect a key for my shop where I have a brand new rebuilt starter motor (but no solenoid. That was robbed the last time it burned out. Different story). I continue to mess around, hoping I will not need it, but am sure it is the answer. It isn't.
Now I am getting frustrated and decide that the magnetic switch on the fender might be to blame. I was really cranking the starter when stuck in traffic, who knows what else could have happened? So I go out and buy two, because I have one on the fender, one in front of the battery. I am VERY careful to change all wires to the correct terminals, have two nice new, shiny switches, maybe now the motor will spin? No. In fact, now my glow plug light does not work. Great. My wife is making friends like crazy in the new neighborhood and finds a couple a block away that I am sure we will be friendly with for years. She is a quilter (a serious quilter with a garage sized quilting area - in their garage), he is a drag racer with a 93 F150 that looks pretty darn serious. He says he is an electrics **** and offers to help me figure out what gives. Turns out the magnetic switch in front of the battery that looks exactly like the one on the fender well is NOT the same. It activated the glow plug system, and I needed to put the old one back in. One disaster at a time.
Well, this mess is eating up my time, and I had planned to leave on Monday. It is Tuesday, and I am no closer to moving the truck than last Wednesday. Oh, yeah. I forgot to add that I left it at a local mechanic to have him look at it, he didn't for two days, so I had it towed to may house. I am working under the truck laying on gravel. I take out the starter again, maybe just for practice. I go to the Car Quest auto parts where I got the first solenoid, and tell them my tale. They show me a slightly different solenoid and tell me that the plunger has to fit just right or it will not work. They further tell me that they have a bench tester they can use to verify what is and is not working. They will not sell me the other solenoid until I bring the starter in Wednesday morning. I have lost count of the times I have put the starter in and taken it out, I think the grand total was 4. But I now know how to get the top bolt in and out without much problem at all, and can drop or install one of these babies in about 15-20 minutes without breaking a sweat.
Wednesday morning! I take the starter in to Car Quest and they hook it up to find that the solenoid works, and the motor works, just not together. I take off my solenoid and install the shorter one, with the little copper tube extension. Turns out there is a big difference in plunger sizes used on these motors, and Ford or IH cheaped out, using the short one with small diameter. Turns out that is just what the doctor ordered, the bendix popped out, the motor spun up and everything was wonderful. I took the starter back, installed it (now that I can do it in my sleep), crossed fingers and heard the cackle I had missed for days.
Everyone who heard of the problem I was having said, "why don't you just get another truck?" as if a 36 year old diesel truck was a problem that needed to be solved. Some people, I swear.
Going up a 75 mile highway from 1000 feet to 5000 feet is not too tough to do if you are not in a hurry, but in an N/A idi, you have to have patience not practiced elsewhere. So, I am about 5 miles from my destination and have forgotten about switching tanks. Turns out that my calculations were pretty spot on, the engine quit 5 miles after my notes told me to switch tanks. Fortunately, I was in the slow lane, but was also going uphill and did not have enough forward motion to get out of traffic completely.
After a very short interlude of cursing myself for forgetting, I set about trying to restart the engine and managed to burn up the starter solenoid. Fortunately, a guy who is a heavy hauler by trade just happened to drive by and offered to tow me out of traffic. For about 10 minutes, I was expecting some Semi/trailer going 55 mph to smash into my truck and trailer. Did I say it was on the wrong end of a blind sweep on the highway? Anyway, he hauled me and my rig the 5 -6 miles into town and out of traffic, to my eternal thanks. That was just the beginning of the story that lasted a week.
So I take out the starter and go to all four of the auto parts stores in town, finding that the last one I get to actually had a solenoid that would fit, and was listed as the one I "needed." And they only had one. So I put it on the starter, crawl under the truck and re-install the starter to discover that it almost worked. I turned the key and could hear the bendix throw out the pinion, banging on the flywheel, but no motor spinning. This is a 1985 truck with the big, heavy AC Delco starter, not those little puny gear drive units. I am at a loss to explain what did not happen, so I take out the starter again (this is twice) and take it completely apart. One of the four brushes seems low, so I try to get another, no such luck. I put it together and try to test just the motor with a nice battery charger, turns out the charger does not work. I later find that it was user error, the charger is just fine, I am an idiot. I try some cheap, old jumper cables (with black clamps on one end of each cable, red clamps on the other end) with aluminum wire, and they also fail to do anything. Including show a spark when touching ends together. So my buddy comes over with some actual, real jumper cables and we find out the motor runs. So I put the starter back in and - still no motor when the switch is turned. I am thinking that maybe the motor is not really working and call a friend who just happens to be coming to town (it is a 400+ mile trip) in a day or so and arrange for him to see my 88 year old mother to collect a key for my shop where I have a brand new rebuilt starter motor (but no solenoid. That was robbed the last time it burned out. Different story). I continue to mess around, hoping I will not need it, but am sure it is the answer. It isn't.
Now I am getting frustrated and decide that the magnetic switch on the fender might be to blame. I was really cranking the starter when stuck in traffic, who knows what else could have happened? So I go out and buy two, because I have one on the fender, one in front of the battery. I am VERY careful to change all wires to the correct terminals, have two nice new, shiny switches, maybe now the motor will spin? No. In fact, now my glow plug light does not work. Great. My wife is making friends like crazy in the new neighborhood and finds a couple a block away that I am sure we will be friendly with for years. She is a quilter (a serious quilter with a garage sized quilting area - in their garage), he is a drag racer with a 93 F150 that looks pretty darn serious. He says he is an electrics **** and offers to help me figure out what gives. Turns out the magnetic switch in front of the battery that looks exactly like the one on the fender well is NOT the same. It activated the glow plug system, and I needed to put the old one back in. One disaster at a time.
Well, this mess is eating up my time, and I had planned to leave on Monday. It is Tuesday, and I am no closer to moving the truck than last Wednesday. Oh, yeah. I forgot to add that I left it at a local mechanic to have him look at it, he didn't for two days, so I had it towed to may house. I am working under the truck laying on gravel. I take out the starter again, maybe just for practice. I go to the Car Quest auto parts where I got the first solenoid, and tell them my tale. They show me a slightly different solenoid and tell me that the plunger has to fit just right or it will not work. They further tell me that they have a bench tester they can use to verify what is and is not working. They will not sell me the other solenoid until I bring the starter in Wednesday morning. I have lost count of the times I have put the starter in and taken it out, I think the grand total was 4. But I now know how to get the top bolt in and out without much problem at all, and can drop or install one of these babies in about 15-20 minutes without breaking a sweat.
Wednesday morning! I take the starter in to Car Quest and they hook it up to find that the solenoid works, and the motor works, just not together. I take off my solenoid and install the shorter one, with the little copper tube extension. Turns out there is a big difference in plunger sizes used on these motors, and Ford or IH cheaped out, using the short one with small diameter. Turns out that is just what the doctor ordered, the bendix popped out, the motor spun up and everything was wonderful. I took the starter back, installed it (now that I can do it in my sleep), crossed fingers and heard the cackle I had missed for days.
Everyone who heard of the problem I was having said, "why don't you just get another truck?" as if a 36 year old diesel truck was a problem that needed to be solved. Some people, I swear.
I'm glad you got it all worked out, and thanks for the info. Not sure I would have ever worried about changing just the solenoid but if I ever do, now I know. It's the cheap short one!
