cliff.b
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Posts posted by cliff.b
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Having never taken a starter motor to bits I felt compelled to dismantle my knackered one to see how it works.
I didn't realise that the armature and the field coils are effectively in series, with the current flowing through both. So I am assuming the timing of the current flow through both is managed by the commutator?
Now, just as a matter of interest, I am
trying to see if it will clean up ok 🙂
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20 minutes ago, RogerH said:
Those women type people are very cunning.
Roger
Indeed. If only I had learnt that when I was younger lol
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Lovely sunny day here but a bit chilly so surprised when Mrs Cliff suggested we take the Spitty out for a drive.
Subsequently, when we were near Peterborough it was suggested that we might as well pop into some shops. I can't help wondering if that was the plan all along and this was all a clever ruse to get me to go with her.
Anyway, it was a nice 50+ mile drive there and back👍
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8 minutes ago, Mathew said:
Glad the motor sorted your starting. Sorry i had to rush you a bit as we had to get to Nottingham by 17:00 to pick up a bonnet for the gt6, sort off. More of that later elsewhere.
That motor pictured is fubar, scrap by the looks of the shaft. Best spend your time driving than messing about on starters!
Yes, I suspect you are right about that. Interestingly, when I connected to the battery once removed from the car it still turned over slowly, even with no load.
It has a lovely clean and shiny Bendix and the outside looks newly painted, but all of that is irrelevant if it's knackered.
Anyway, many thanks for your help with this 👍
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Ok, Mathew very kindly let me have one of his spare starter motors and all is now well 😁. So as we suspected, it was the motor and now it is now spinning the engine faster than it ever did before.
Took the end off the old starter and the following pics show the commutator and brushes
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2 hours ago, clive said:
I found my flat battery issues were down to a USB charger, took a couple of weeks. It was drawing 0.1 amps, which appears insignificant, but 2.4AH a day, 17AH/week. When the battery is a 44AH one, 2 weeks and the car won't start.
Solution, remember to pull it out after use!
Always good advice 😉
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2 hours ago, PeteH said:
SWMBO`s car has the (irritating) "stop/start" feature. For the size of engine ,1200cc, the battery is huge. As big if not bigger than that on the 3L Merc; diesel.!! I would assume, the Amps that would deliver would indeed need some sort of "control" feature (relay?).
Pete
This has got me thinking about when owners fit the largest possible battery to aid starting performance.
If the max "cranking amps" a battery can deliver is higher, could this increase the possibility of overheating the starter motor?
I know the rationale is probably that the car will start more easily, so the opposite is true, but what if it doesn't start due to a fault of some kind and you just keep cranking it 🤔
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On 26/01/2022 at 19:44, Tipidave said:
I had thought that a switched terminal would be best… however now you mention that I guess I could also install a socket to allow the connection of my battery conditioner without a need to open bonnet if it were a permanent live…. Hmmm! 😀👍
One thing to consider is that some usb chargers take a small current even when not being used, so if on a permanent live, they could be draining the battery.
Probably very slowly so may not be an issue but some appear to have a switch fitted to turn them on, so perhaps it is 🤔
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16 minutes ago, Mathew said:
I have four spare starters, your welcome to one of them. Your only down the road from me if you want to come and collect. Pm me if interested.
Thanks. I have PM you 👍
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Think I will take the starter off tomorrow and dismantle it.
Depending on what I find I may be back for further advice 👍
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18 minutes ago, Pete Lewis said:
the trouble with running a battery flat is as the volts drop the amps go up so the end effect can be you cook the motor
are you sure its not just the bendix has jammed in mesh from it running flat ???
a failed field winding will give a similar effect of a flat battery
Pete
Pete, what you say about "cooking it" and the field windings could make sense.
Usually, I only turn it over for about 3 or 4 seconds at a time but thinking back, on this occasion I was getting frustrated and cranked it longer and it was after this that the problem started occurring. But I just assumed the long cranking had flattened the battery.
Now, I'm not sure the battery ever was flat.
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4 minutes ago, Colin Lindsay said:
eBay of course!! I actually bought two within a very short space of time, an M35G for a tenner and a brand new M35J for £24. The G has the removable band round it so makes access to the brushes a doddle, but I couldn't resist the second which had a buy-it-now of £24 and £3 postage.
I'm usually inclined to buy one that looks good but might require refurbished, and repair it off the car so it's a straight swap - this one is only £5 buy-it-now.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/224763517088?hash=item3454f318a0:g:OVUAAOSwy6thy1JZ
Make sure any you buy has the correct number of teeth on the drive gear; we need 9.
Ok, many thanks 👍
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3 minutes ago, NonMember said:
It's worth turning the starter a quarter turn with the square peg on the end. Sometimes this moves the commutator to a better spot and it will then start... until the next time it doesn't. However, that's usually a good sign the brushes need replacing.
It has been alternating between turning over slowly and just clicking, so I presume it's stopping in a variety of places.
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23 minutes ago, Iain T said:
I'm far from an electrical wizard (but I'm learning) I agree with you sounds like the starter has a problem. Did you have a slow turning starter before this failure?
Iain
It definitely has been turning over since the weather is colder but I would expect that due to oil viscosity. I wouldn't say it has been overly slow but I have never had to crank it long before.
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2 minutes ago, Pete Lewis said:
the trouble with running a battery flat is as the volts drop the amps go up so the end effect can be you cook the motor
are you sure its not just the bendix has jammed in mesh from it running flat ???
a failed field winding will give a similar effect of a flat battery
Pete
The Bendix did jam a couple of times when the starter was turning over very slowly but freed up ok when I rocked the car in gear.
Incidentally, I forgot to mention that I bump started the car off the drive and drove a few miles and when I got back it was still doing the same with a warm engine.
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11 minutes ago, Colin Lindsay said:
Doug just beat me to it!!
That's the place to start (no pun intended!) - run a cable directly to the starter from the battery and see how it turns.
If it turns fine then the fault is in the connections; clean up all cables and terminals and check the solenoid; they can gum up alarmingly inside. Last one I dismantled was bright green inside.
You can also remove the starter and loosen the end plate enough to get a jet of contact cleaner inside, I always recommend Servisol.
If you need a replacement starter shop around, last one I bought was NOS and cost me £24 in December past.
Yes, I tried cables direct from battery to starter & engine block and still the same, but not certain just touching the lead to the battery would allow sufficient current to flow.
Where did you get your starter from?
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I foolishly forgot to use the choke when trying to start my Spitfire yesterday and so turned it over multiple times before it started turning very slowly and then just the solenoid click.
Realised my mistake, assumed I had flattened the battery so tried a jump start from other car, but still turning very slowly or just clicking.
Put on charge overnight and checked, cleaned & tightened all connections, but still the same. Got my meter out and saw voltage at started +ve terminal same as battery when cranking, also lights not dimming. Finally ran jumper cables direct from battery to block & starter but no difference.
I'm thinking it's the starter itself but would appreciate any opinions. Also, if it is the starter, is it likely to be a clean up & new brushes or should I be expecting to replace it?
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7 hours ago, ahebron said:
Imagine the belt squeal on a Herald when that switched in.
It would warn other road users of the vehicle approaching at high speed lol
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4 hours ago, cliff.b said:
I think you are right.
I believe a mechanical supercharger can use up to 20% of the engine power so finding an electric substitute for that may be a challenge.
Maybe another smaller petrol (bike?) engine to drive the supercharger 😁
Actually, this reminded me about an aborted development of the Avro Lancaster that would have used a 5th Merlin engine in the fuselage to drive a massive supercharger to feed the other 4 engines.
It was designed to reach over 40,000ft, at which altitude it could achieve 400MPH making it impervious to attack.
Or did I dream this 🙄🤔😴
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2 hours ago, ahebron said:
How about fitting it on the nose of the diff.
No losses going through the drive train, could be used when in neutral for stealth mode.
Or how about an electric motor/overdrive combination.That is the the wrong attitude, how do you find out about things if you do not do stuff you do not know about.
You either survive and learn from what you did or you don't.And here is a link to a 12 volt electric blower
.https://duryeatechnologies.com/duryea-electric-supercharger/Hmm, have I understood that link correctly, the electric supercharger draws 600 Amps at 12v 😱
Not for long, I presume lol
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55 minutes ago, Sparky_Spit said:
I once tried a bodged together an "electric turbo" on an A Series Mini engine. My first test setup was an electric hairdryer plugged into the mains with the car stationary and the hairdryer connected the the carb inlet via a suitable rubber tube, just to try the principle. It did help increase revs by quite a bit so I then used a 12v nautical blower motor and integral fan (about 3" in diameter, designed for evacuating fumes from a boat's engine compartment) to see if it worked out on the road.
Basically, it didn't. It appears that to produce a turbo effect strong enough to give any measurable boost would have needed a much, much larger motor and fan, drawing far more current than the car's 12v system could deliver. It was probably a good thing that I stopped there, before I blew myself up.
I think you are right.
I believe a mechanical supercharger can use up to 20% of the engine power so finding an electric substitute for that may be a challenge.
Maybe another smaller petrol (bike?) engine to drive the supercharger 😁
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25 minutes ago, Wagger said:
How about a big vacuum tank (evacuated by manifold vacuum) in the front that 'Opens' big vents that point forward operated by a kickdown switch, with a pessurised one in the boot blasting rearwards at the same time. (Yeah, that is short lived and silly). I do have strange dreams.
Digressing again, I once loaned my estate car to a colleague who was moving house and had use of his Toyota Mk1 with a supercharger operated by a clutch when kicked-down. Had a load of fun with that in two days.
Bang goes the drive train on the Vitesse if I do that!
How about an electric turbo?
It is difficult not to try some of these.
Good job I have no big motors laying around or I would be doing some of it.
Ha ha. Or fit a giant flywheel that is spun up to very high speed by regenerative braking then the energy released via a clutch when extra "oomph" is required?
Like those friction drive toy cars we all used to have lol
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9 minutes ago, NonMember said:
It's certainly not a completely mad idea. Such integrated starter generator systems enjoyed a brief spell of popularity recently - mostly for stop-start applications - but limiting to 48V to keep within the "low voltage" regulations (and thus avoid lots of extra safety concerns) meant their usefulness for "a bit of extra power when needed" was severely limited.
Yes, keeping to 48v would make things a lot easier but drawing 200amps for shortish periods seems feasible and would give somewhere near the power I was envisiging.
My bike battery is 10Ah at 36v (0.36KWh) and is both small and fairly light. I can visualise a 20Ah 48v battery fitting into the existing battery space and actually being lighter. I think this would be ample for short bursts of acceleration or improving fuel economy, especially as it could recharge when engine demand was low.
As you may have worked out, last night was one of those sleepless ones 😒
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13 minutes ago, Colin Lindsay said:
Not mad, but short of sleep especially when the brain starts working overtime just when it should be shutting down. It's the time when I get the 'eureka' moments and realise what's been causing problems in the garage all day, but thankfully I don't usually get straight up and do anything about it. (I did once, many many years ago when I suddenly realised why I couldn't get a computer-based recording program to work, so fired up the computer at 3am and my partner of the time who was working at 8am was not impressed at all, especially when I started playing music)
However: a self-charging hybrid Triumph... interesting. Cuts in when needed.... reminds me of those old mopeds where you had to pedal to get uphills...
Yes, I've actually got up to test something out occasionally. Sometimes it bugs me so much I know that the only way I will ever get any sleep at all 😴
And I was thinking it would work a bit like an electric bike, giving more oomph when needed. Maybe a microswitch activated at full throttle or a "go faster button" on the dash lol
Starter motor woes ☹️
in Electrical System
Posted
Yes, I know, but Just interested to see if this sort of commutator damage is recoverable to add to my library of useless information lol