Violent clicking on start up

[Guest]

Oh the joys of boating! On Saturday I was already to make the first trip since the boat was back in the water. Fully fuelled and heading out off the Hamble the fan belt breaks, return to berth to doscover that the alternator has slipped, fan belt snaps and alternator now rubbing great chunks out of the cooling hoses. Spend rest of Saturday fixing everthing and go to start engine only to be greeted by violent clicking noise from the starter. Leave it for a bit, try again and it starts. Turn off, restart only to be greeted by the same violent clicking yet again. Any ideas? The engine is a Volvo V8.

Thanks in advance.

 

[c_j]

How long did you leave it running.

Sounds like low battery to me with either solenoid or Starter unable to engage due to lack of battery power.

Could be bad connection to starter but bearing in mind the alternator belt problem almost certain to be low battery.

CJ
chris@stone.uk.com

 

[Guest]

Don't worry - That clicking is very likely the starter solenoid jumping in and out due to your battery being low. The noise should disappear when you have your charging system working properly and in full use.

BernieB.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, thought of that so left batteries on charge and retried yesterday with batteries fully charged. Fired up fine and left running for about 10 mins. I switched off and tried again, did this several times and then problem re-occured.

 

[c_j]

It takes an enormous amount of energy for your battery to swing those V8's.
It could be that your battery is on the way out but I am sure from what you say that it is battery related.

1) I understand you to say that you charged for 10 hours to fully charged. are you sure it was fully charged?

2) It started fine and you ran it for 10 mins and then continued to stop and start until problem reoccured.

I say again that you really punish your batteries on start up, but it could be a bad connection somewhere between the battery, solenoid, and starter motor. or even the alternator is damaged and not charging the batteries. But in any set up if you continually stop and start the engine there will eventuall be that clicking sound when there just is not enough energy in the battery to swing the engine

In my business I have seen countless starter motors changed when in fact new batteries were the answer.

Get the battery state and the output from the alternator checked.

CJ
chris@stone.uk.com

 

[andyball]

agree with c_j : I've seen the problem literally dozens of times, and only once was it a faulty starter motor: every other time .....a flat (or faulty) battery.

It takes a fairly chunky charger to fully charge a V8 starter battery from flat in 10hrs......

 

[Guest]

Thanks guys. The battery is new and I checked the output - 12.84. On charging it rose to 13.46. I have left the battery on charge so I'll see what happens. I really appreciate your help.

 

[KevL]

I agree that the flat battery theory is the most likely cause but there are other possibilities.


So here is what you do. Attempt to start it and watch your voltmeter. If it's a battery with low charge the engine will crank slowly and your voltmeter will drop to about 10V before the battery can't crank the engine. If it is something else like an in gear switch, faulty wiring, faulty starter solenoid etc. then there will be something like 11.5V or more showing on your voltmeter.

Hope this helps

KevL

 

[longjohnsilver]

Have you also checked that the new alternator belt is not slipping and therefore not charging the battery properly. I agree with the others, almost certainly a lack of power thru to the starter.

 

[Trevethan]

My Lister diesel engine is doing just this. I recharged all three batteries (one is brand new) and tried them in turn... no luck.

Eventually coughed up for an engineer to come have a look. He hooked it up to his power pack and it would almost catch but not quite. Starter turns fine when when not connected to the flywheel but lacks the power to turn the thing over when connected.

It seems the starter motor is shot and needs a re-furb. Oh joy indeed.

Good luck and hope it works out for you

 

[c_j]

Of couse it can always be the starter but have you considered this with your Lister.

One battery new? It is unfortunately a mistake to replace one. The other two bring it down. Trying to jump start any engine relies on getting a good contact and I have seen experienced fitters fail to do this.

I think one of the posts summed it up. Starter motor 10 percent of the time and batteries 90.

CJ
chris@stone.uk.com

 

[Trevethan]

The new battery was connected up all by itself. I removed the other two. (Its a 12v system and the new battery has a capacity of 100 amp/hours.

I agree, battery is most likely, but if that fails. and there are no short circuits, then the starter is likely culprit isn't it?

Regards,

Nick

 

[andyball]

Testing the starter away from the boat should be something that a refurb firm could do before you shell out.

I did a similar sounding process of elimination once, and had almost concluded that the starter was u/s ( a motorcycle one, v.expensive, and some years ago when few if any firms repaired them)...... before saying "spend £350",I asked some more searching questions, and tried moving the engine by hand : turned out the crank' had been out & reassembled incorrectly, so was binding like crazy: the starter was fine.

 

[trev]

Make a specific check on the earth strap on the starter.
I had the same problem last year at the after the winter lay-up. I was about to shell out 600 oncers for a new starter (yes ! Volvo!) and decided on one more "thorough" check - PHEW!!

Trev