My 2001 DII has been running and starting fine but today the starter isn't working. No groan, nothing. The battery is good and everything else has been working fine.

Symptoms:
Solenoid clicking.
Separate clicking under Passenger side of dash.
Dash backlight on heater and clock dim when key is in start position, which is normal.

Any ideas?
Thanks!

 

You sure your battery is good? It could be your starter but you are describing exactly what happens when a battery is dying a slow death, at a certain point it stops cranking and the starter and solenoid just click. At least that is what happened to me. My battery was reading fine too as far a voltage went but it was just not putting out enough current I guess to start my truck. Hooking it up to a charger overnight saved me a couple mornings but a new battery solved my problem.

 

The battery is good, less than a year old and holds voltage under load.

 

give your starter a light rap with a small hammer.

sounds to me like your brushes are stuck.

 

Bad starter.

 

Bad starter or bad connections in the starter circuit, which includes the ground points.
Battery to starter cable. Starter to ground. Ground to battery.

 

I would agree sounds like a jammed bendix or bad connections to the starter, a few gentle hammer taps should resolve a jammed bendix and cleaning the connection points would resolve bad connections.

 

jhammerstorm- what did you end up having to do to fix it? Mine is doing the exact same thing.

Thanks!

Pat

 

Hi, this might be a big nothing but I had the same problem when I first bought the Rover. I had to get a head gasket job right away after buying it (yeah) and when it came back, it appeared my battery was shot. Just that lovely clicking.

I got a brand new batt but when I had the place put a volt meter on it to make sure the alt was good, the test came back bad. So I bought a new alt, no cheap thing, and the voltage test came back AGAIN with a fail.

After half losing my mind, I trached every cable I could find and finally found and additional ground that isn't found on most cars hence the origional mechanic that did the head gasket forgetting to put it back on and the batt place missing it as well.

If you look behind the batt compartment on the metal over the passanger side wheel well, there is a nut with two black cable grounds going to it. One cable is coming from the batt to this nut. Another one leaves that nut and goes to the bracket on the alt. Make sure they are both attached, clean and the bolt holding them is tight. Then you might want to make sure the cable going from that nut to the alt bracket is attached to that alt bracket and is clean and tight.

That might not be your problem but it was mine and this little oversite cost me a ton of cash. Good luck.

 

hi all,
my starter is sticking as well ('01 DII), and hitting it with a hammer is getting old (but works every time). Can it be disassembled to clean, or should I bite the bullet and buy a new one for $200 thru Atlantic British?