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Failing Starter Relay???

Bruzilla

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Orange Park, FL
I've been having a problem over the past couple of weeks. Sometimes the 440 will start fine, and sometimes the starter seems to have a hard time getting the job done. This happens when the engine is hot or cold. The battery cable is fine, battery and cables are fine, and the starter is only about a year old.

When the starter does have issues, I'll hear the relay clicking a half dozen or so times, like you hear when you try to start with a weak battery, but the battery is fully charged, so I'm wondering if this could be just the relay starting to bite the dust? I've never had one go bad before so I don't know what the symptoms are.
 
If it's clicking it's getting power from the ignition switch, jump the posts on the relay with a screwdriver and if it turns over it's a bad relay
 
Load test your "charged" battery. Too much voltage drop will do it.
 
And your ground is shiny clean?
 
Im going through the same issue..
 
Use a remote starter button connected to the secondary relay terminals, or short the terminal connections together to eliminate the relay, wiring, or ignition switch as the problem. If the problem persists, has to be a starter or starter solenoid contacts problem.
 
Use a remote starter button connected to the secondary relay terminals, or short the terminal connections together to eliminate the relay, wiring, or ignition switch as the problem. If the problem persists, has to be a starter or starter solenoid contacts problem.
Did not read post #2 did you! Your excused.
 
I have had cars that started easily by crossing the terminals under the hood but were slow cranking from the key. I attribute that to worn and corroded wiring. It can be mind boggling to think that the wiring in our cars have seen 44-60 years of heating, cooling, cold weather, hot weather....
 
ground?
 
I think I found the problem. :) About two months ago, I had a fan belt come loose and then it went bad. Both times I was driving around on the battery for about 20 minutes. Since then I've driven the car a lot, but always short hops of a mile or two to go to one store or another, and often at night, so I suspected between starting, using the lights, stereo blasting, etc., the battery was never really getting fully charged back to where it was before the belt issues.

So I charged it up yesterday and started it and it was fine. Let the 440 get up to op temp and shut it down and it started fine. Drove it about 40 miles and stopped and it started again fine. So it looks like it was just the battery getting weak and not getting recharged enough.
 
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