John,
Several years back, I had a similar problem on my Aerostar. Every once in a
while, the car would not start. Not only not start, but the radio would loose
the settings and no electrical apparatus would work. Turn the ignition many
times and then all of a sudden, the car would turn over strongly and start as if
nothing was wrong. Thought it was the ignition switch but that wouldn't explain
it all.
After several months of this (only did it maybe 10 times) after checking the
obvious connections and battery charge, I decided that I would change out the
battery anyway. Even though it was only to years old. These intermittants are
devils to troubleshoot. It was a very cheap experiment compared to electronic
modules etc. Lo and behold, it never gave me a problem again. I concluded that
the battery had a major intermittant open. When it worked, it worked well. When
it didn't, well.....
Never heard of this before or since. It was a Montgomery wards battery. Maybe
this could be your problem.
Chuck Schaefer
John Steczkowski wrote:
> Well, I sent email the other day about how my MGB had died. At that time I
> speculated that a wire had broken or something because the car was
> electrically dead. Well, I went to go look at fixing it and it ran fine. So,
> I drove it to work this morning, started fine, drove it to work with no
> incident. I went out to go get lunch and it did the same thing, started to
> crank, starter engaged, started to turn and then dead. As I was sitting
> there, I thought that maybe the starter solenoid was causing the problem. I
> got the lug wrench out of the trunk and wrapped the solenoid and it did the
> same thing, but didn't start. I now think that it's the solenoid that's bad,
> unfortuneatley, that doesn't do me a bit of good as far as getting the car
> started.
>
> Any other ideas. I guess I start with replacing the solenoid.
>
> The really unfortuneate part is that I'm in a down hill parking space, so I
> can't even bump start the car....
>
> Hmm.... Hopefully it'll decide to start when I'm ready to go home and I can
> get it home....
>
> -----
> John Steczkowski
> Director of Software Engineering
> Crossroads Systems, Inc.
> 512-794-2742
> stecz@crossroads.com
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