bob p

My 1962 Super 88 has been sitting outside for years. I'm trying to get it running.

The car ran OK when it was last used, but that was many years ago. It was put-up because it had a leaking fuel tank. Years later, the engine is easy to crank with the plugs out but hard to crank with plugs in.

With a newly rebuilt starter and a new battery and plugs in, the engine cranks like I have a dead battery. I only get a few cranks out of the battery and then the cranking stops. I've already toasted the starter once, and had to have it rebuilt.

The motor isn't seized -- the first thing that I did was to pull the plugs and oil the cylinders. It was easy to rotate with a breaker bar with the plugs out. With the plugs out it cranks easily using the starter. Put the plugs in and it's a bear to crank -- almost impossible.

I've already re-pulled all the plugs, and probed all of the cylinders with a hose and syringe to verify the absence of fluids. I don't have hydro-lock. The car has been sitting with Mobil1 synthetic in it, and the oil is clean. I drained a quart out of the pan and didn't get any water.

The only other thing that I can think of as being the problem is improper timing. Last time I worked on the car, I did pull the distributor and do some cranking before putting it back, but when I put it back I did set cylinder #1 to TDC and aligned the distributor so that it was pointing to the #1 spark tower. I'm thinking that the timing should be right, but since I'm only trying to crank without trying to fire, I don't think that the distributor timing really matters. What's bothering me is the difficulty of cranking with the plugs in.

I'm at a loss to determine why the crank is so hard when the plugs are in. The only thing that I can imagine is that the valve timing would have to be way off, but I'm having trouble imagining how that could have happened. The car ran OK when it was shut down. It's hard to imagine that the valve timing has gone bad while it has been sitting.

Ideas?

59-59-59

Are you using a battery with the same amps or more than what you had on there? (Or what is needed?) Are the battery cables 53 years old? Did you make sure you have an excellent ground on the negative side? Is there a ground strap from the rear of the cylinder head to the firewall?

bob p

I'm using a brand new / huge battery off of my truck. With 53 y/o cables. I smoked one starter. I think I'm getting plenty of current. I have to check on the grounding strap. Good idea.

I'm worried about stuck valves. I guess I'm going to have to pull the covers.

The 394 Rocket is a non-interference motor, right?

oldcutlass

It is going to crank harder with the plugs in, but should still crank. Most problems with the engine actually stopping during crank is when the timing is too far advanced during a normal start and tries to kick back.

rustyroger

I doubt if you have stuck valves, or at least since you have already turned the engine they aren't the cause of your problem.
Assuming you have points ignition you can set the initial timing quite accurately. Run a small lamp in series with the -ve wire on the coil with the ignition on, turn the engine slowly toward tdc, when the lamp goes out that is where the timing is.
It's also possible you have some oil around the top ring giving you more compression than the starter motor can handle. By the time you read this I guess it will be early morning where you are and it might spin over much easier now because residual oil will have had a chance to drain past the rings.

Roger.

pogo69

how much oil did you put in the cylinders...is it locking up?

stan 65 cutlass

to check if it is your timing, unplug the coil wire and try again

bob p

Thanks for the help, Gents.

Here's some additional information that may help to clarify my present condition.

I'm thinking that excessive oil added via the plug holes may not be responsible for the hard crank -- I only put in about 5cc per cylinder and it's had several days to pass through. I think I mentioned that yesterday I used a syringe to confirm that all of the cylinders have been evacuated and there is no hydrolock.

I'm not actually trying to fire the engine at this point. After I removed the plugs and oiled-up the cylinders, I pulled the carb to rebuild it, and pulled the fuel tank to clean it. Before putting the carb back on I needed to crank the engine to flush out the fuel lines and check the fuel pump's output. So I plumbed a gas can to supply the fuel pump, pulled the plugs, and cranked the engine to flush the fuel into a waste container. So far so good. Cranks easy with plugs out. But if I put the plugs back in the freshly rebuilt starter and new truck battery are straining maximally, and can barely move the engine before everything comes to a rapid halt. To get full revolutions out of the engine I have to risk smoking the starter. I think that my plugs-in crank problem is FAR WORSE than you guys are giving it credit for.

When referring to "timing", you guys are referring to *ignition* timing, right?

I don't see how ignition/distributor timing would make a difference if I'm cranking without trying to fire. In that case the car should crank like any car that's trying to start but won't start. It isn't. Most cars that have a crank-no-start problem can crank effortlessly until the battery is dead. Not the case here -- It's nearly *IMPOSSIBLE* to crank the motor with the plugs in. I mean *IMPOSSIBLE*. With the plugs out no problem, but with the plugs in I get maybe one second of crank before everything stops dead. Then I have to top-off the battery while I wait for the starter to cool down.

So what are the potential causes for this? I guess residual oil in the cylinders might be responsible, but the resistance to cranking is WAY MORE than I think you guys are understanding. My concern is that valve timing is the only thing that can cause this type of problem, and nothing has been changed since the last time the motor ran that could effect valve timing. The only thing that I can think of is the ultimate in bad valve timing -- stuck valves.

When the crank cycle occurs during the plugs-in condition, it seems like the engine is very hard to crank, but turns over until a point, and then it just wants to stop. Period. I'm concerned that I might have a stuck valve that's causing this problem and that everything stops when the starter has to work against engine compression on a cylinder where there is no air exchange.

Some more questions:

Can anyone tel me if this is an interference_engine or a non-interference engine?

If I do encounter a stuck valve when I pull the covers, what are the best ways to try to un-freeze them?

oldcutlass

A stuck valve can be unstuck with penetrant and a rubber mallet. I've run across varnished fuel causing this problem. Make sure the piston is at it's lowest point and the valve is not loaded spray penetrant on the valve stems and tap with the mallet until it pops back with no problems. Then spin the engine and spray all the valve stems to make sure they move freely.

MDchanic

How about if you turn the engine over by hand with a breaker bar with all the plugs in?

Have you tried it with only one plug installed, and then moved that plug to each cylinder, to see whether compression in particular cylinders is causing the problem?

Are you certain that the cam timing is correct?

I agree that this is not a problem caused by oil in the cylinders.

- Eric

bob p

I haven't tried using the breaker bar with the plugs in. Actually, I haven't used the breaker bar on the motor in years, as the starter turns it over OK with the plugs out.

can you explain what the point is of trying to use the breaker bar with the plugs in -- instead of the starter with the plugs in? I don't understand the rationale for this test, so I'd appreciate it if you could explain it to me, rather than waiting for me to come back with a result, and waiting for another response to it. I'd like to get as much information as possible up-front, so that I'm not forced to drag this out over several days while we exchange replies.

I'm assuming that your comments refer to a starter test. I doubt that is the problem. The starter is freshly rebuilt. I watched them test it at the rebuild. It's got plenty of torque. I don't think the starter is the problem. I think that the problem is that the starter is working against abnormally high resistance to turning with the plugs in.

No, I haven't tried that. That's a good idea. I'm guessing that if that test provides a positive result, it will point at the cylinders that had intake valves open while the car was sitting idle.

I don't understand how that could be a problem, so if this is something I should be thinking about, I'm going to need some help understanding what you're thinking. Here's where I am so far:

This is not a strange car that is unknown to me. I bought it 20 years ago when the original owner died. I had it tuned and used it as a daily driver. It was in good running condition until the fuel tank was damaged and I parked it.

The car ran fine the last time that the engine was running. I have never had the motor open. I have not removed the crankshaft or the cam, or adjusted any timing chains since it was last running. The car has just sat idle. I have never checked cam timing (don't know how). Based upon how the car was running the last time I drove it, I think the cam timing was OK.

A few years ago I tried to get it running, but gave up on it because of a fuel delivery problem. I rotated the engine with a breaker bar and then with the starter while I had the distributor out. When putting the distributor back in, I used a wooden dowel in the spark plug hole of cylinder #1 to confirm TDC. I then installed the distributor so that the rotor was pointing to the tower for Cylinder #1.

Now I'm working on getting it running again. This time, I haven't used a breaker bar. I just removed plugs to oil the cylinders, and rotated the motor to bring cylinder 1 to TDC, and confirmed that the distributor rotor was still pointing to the correct plug tower. I used the starter to bring cylinder 1 near TDC, and then fine-tuned the location of TDC by gently pushing one of the fan blades back and forth. with the plugs out, the engine is so easy to turn that I can spin the crankshaft by turning the fan, and transmitting the rotation through the belt. It's easy to turn with plugs out, but it's a bear to crank with the with plugs in. I have not done any ignition timing adjustments because I have not fired the engine.

I have never looked at cam timing. I've never had the engine apart, or even had the valvecovers off. My simple understanding of cam timing is that it if the block was properly machined and the camshaft properly assembled, and it was running OK the last time it ran, then cam timing should be OK, unless I moved / slipped the timing chains when using the breaker bar. This motor was never frozen, and I have never had to apply enough force on a breaker bar to elicit a pop or to slip the timing chains. I don't think that a starter is capable of slipping the cam timing, is it? I have never had this motor open. I don't think that I have ever applied enough force that I think I could have slipped the timing chains.

It's hard to imagine that I've got screwed-up cam timing, but I have never checked cam timing before, so I'm not sure where you're going with this. I'd appreciate some more information.

MDchanic

Okay, so your cam timing can't be a factor. Just making sure.

The reason you should try turning it with the breaker bar is that it will allow you to feel what the resistance feels like - Does it feel like compression building, or does it feel like an obstruction, or does it feel like general friction, and it will allow you to hear any noises that are being made at various points as you turn, and relate them to where the crank is positioned.
It would give you more information, and that might lead you to figure out what the problem is.

- Eric

cjsdad

The size of your truck battery is not the determining factor in how strong it is. What you want to have is high "Cold Cranking Amps" . Your battery should have that listed on the top. 550 CCA or something like that. A large battery with only 350 CCA would not turn a high resistance starter for long. A 550-850 CCA battery would turn a high resistance starter well regardless of it's size. You need to have just as much negative (ground) current capacity as you have on the positive side of the starter circuit. Good solid connections on the grounds as well as the positives. Poor connections will cause a voltage drop and the current goes way up to compensate, burning out starters and draining batteries for example.

I don't know if yours is a non-interference engine or not, but if the valves are sticking open the piston would hit and bind if the plugs are in or not. And if the valves are stuck open, any compression would be lost on that cylinder and the engine would turn more easily. A compression test would tell if you have stuck valves or not.

If the ignition timing is too far advanced it will cause the engine to fight against the starter. The easiest way to avoid this is to pull the coil wire. Vapors from the oil you put in the cylinders would try to ignite even if there is no fuel. Try the procedure above to find out where your timing is at and retard it if it is too far advanced.

m371961

Just jumping in with a consideration, but I may be way off. Is it possible that when the starter is under load (plugs in engine), it just cannot draw the needed current due to bad cable or starter ground? Cables can corrode inside. If you have the room maybe run jumpers to the starter positive and ground the housing from the battery.

bob p

Checking CCA is a good idea. My truck battery is 850 CCA. I've never had a truck with a small battery. I'll try the jumpers.

The motor doesn't seem to have any symptoms of a valve being stuck open. If anything, it seems to be to be behaving like compression is too high and a valve is stuck closed.

My compression gauge isn't in it's box. I can try to pull the valve covers Wednesday. Tonight we're having an unexpected freeze and a forecast for 1-3" of snow tomorrow followed by the Tuesday in the mid 50s. Crazy weather. Before I do anything else I need to drain out the water that I had put in the radiator during my fluid exchange/check and put in antifreeze.

Does anybody know what the size is of the nut on the balancer? For the life of me, I can't imagine how I used a breaker bar to rotate the engine before, as I don't think I've got a socket that big and I'll need to buy one to fit. Knowing the size would help. Not in my books. Thanks.

Oldsragger

.

Greg Rogers

Is your newly rebuilt starter bad? Did it crank ok before the starter was installed?

don71

This is my belief as well. Cables/conductivity issue.

I too could be wrong, But let us know what you learn.

CutlassDad

The crank bolt hex head is 1 1/8 (1.125)

Oldsragger

cables are ok to check or replace with thicker ones, i had 2 engines some time in the past with old thin cables that make the engine so slow and heavy to start before, replaced them with ticker one 53mm2 size, from alternator to battery and to engine block, after that it sounds the engine starts on adrenalin injected.

Another thing, maybe its not possible, but the ignition plugs isnt to long that they crash in the piston on top so thw engine cant turn? Anyway i would crank it by hand first with plugs in. You Will feel when the pistons get up and down, when it goes down its easy to turn. (in that little moment)

If it's easy to crank with the plugs out and engine goes around the valves in head should be fine and not hang. Cause the camshaft will press the lifters up(valve down) when turning the engine, ( im not sure if a valve can hang when its open, so the cam lifters dont have contact with the cam bulge when cranking) but if so it should crash in the piston in wrong timing.

oddball

$5 on bad wires/connections (supply, ground AND solenoid) or crappy starter. Jumper straight to the sucker and use a remote start switch or a jumper wire to trigger the solenoid. If it still has problems then get another starter. Especially if it's a parts-store-special.

The only difference is minor resistance from cranking pressure, which isn't really THAT much. Stuck valves won't cause that much of a problem either.

bob p

1-1/8. thanks.

i was able to do some electrical testing today once the snow melted.

i don't have a remote starter / trigger switch cable. without it i couldn't do a direct battery-to-starter test on the car. there isn't enough room to attach jumper cables and trigger the starter without a remote trigger switch cable.

i removed all of the starter cables and polished the battery terminals with a wire brush, the battery cable, the +12V terminal block, all of the terminals on the terminal block, the cable going to the starter, and the starter terminals. i didn't do a positive side voltage drop test -- i just moved directly to buffing all of the positive terminals. they needed it.

for the ground side, i removed the ground strap between the battery and the engine block, cleaned the terminals with a wire brush, and used a wire wheel to buff clean the grounding strap's bolt attachment point at the block. that should take care of the possibility of voltage drop on the ground side, with the exception being that i didn't remove the starter to buff clean it's grounding points to the flywheel housing.

no improvement. still barely cranks with plugs in.

i pulled the starter to buff clean it's case grounding points and studs. while it's out i'm going to take it in for bench testing.

all of the starter's (+) side connections have been buffed clean. if the problem lies in the starter circuit, i'm thinking that it has to be either:
A) voltage drop on the ground side of the starter circuit, at the bolt-on attachment to the engine; (this should go away when i wire brush it), or
B) lazy starter

if it's not the starter, i guess i'll have to blame the engine and pull the valvecovers.

are there any other ground connections that i need to be looking for? like any other grounding straps that I may have missed? on the engine? firewall? frame? elsewhere?

i was really hoping the starter circuit was to blame, but so far the results have not been encouraging.

more to follow...

cjsdad

If your battery to solenoid "positive" cable is good and the battery to engine "negative" cable is good, that completes the starter circuit. If your solenoid is on the starter that is. The other negative cables, engine to body and engine to frame, are for the rest of the vehicle's electrical circuits. I'm still not familiar with your engine. If the solenoid is remote like on a F**d, then the problem could be the solenoid. It sounds like you may just have a weak starter though. Rebuilt or not, if the starter is working right it should be able to turn the engine over against the cylinder compression. I don't think there is anything inside your valve covers that will make the engine start easier, if your valves are sticking or bent you won't have any compression at all.

gs72

Like Stan 65 said, disconnect either the pos. or neg wire to the coil to disable the ign sys. Then crank it over with the plugs in. If it cranks over normally, you are fighting ignition timing that is way too advanced. And yes it will cause hard cranking.

bob p

Thanks for the advice.

I have already removed all of the accessories. None of them were binding, so removing them didn't make a difference on cranking.

Oil filter should be OK -- before the car was put up, I did an oil/filter change with Mobil1 15W50 and ran the engine. I've never seen a synthetic sludge up like an oil with a conventional base. I drained a quart of oil to examine it and it looked good -- clean/clear, no water./

Plugs have never been left out, though squirrels did make a mess of the carb by building a nest. I had to pull the carb to rebuild it, and vacuum a couple of tiny leaves out of the intake. There was rust on the carb's secondary butterflies. Possibly from urine? I'm wondering if more of that rust may be effecting valves.

I've been reading about freeing stuck engines. It seems that everyone focuses on breaking the pistons free by putting penetrating oil in cylinders, though nobody seems to mention freeing up other parts that may be stuck, like lifters and the valvetrain. What's the best way to make sure those aren't stuck? As you suggested, I was planning on pulling the valvecovers and watching the valves while turning the crank to verify nothing is stuck, and lubricating whatever I could using PB Blaster.

With regard to oiling -- Instead of relying on cranking to bring up the oil pressure, how does one manually turn the oil pump? I've heard about removing the distributor and manually turning the oil pump while the engine is still to force engine oiling, but I'm not sure how it's done. I don't know what sort of tools may be required for the 394, but turning the oil pump to circulate oil before trying to crank sounds like it would be a good idea.

bob p

I pulled the starter last night and took it to AutoZone today for testing.

The clerk tried to do a lookup for a 1962 Super 88 and the computer didn't have a match. I was told that AutoZone couldn't test my starter because they don't sell my starter.

They claimed to need the application to verify that they sell the starter, before doing the test, so that the computer could give pass/fail results. Apparently they can't just do a test for voltage and current, and let you make your own decision about the results -- their computer system controls every aspect of the store, and it won't even allow them to test a starter unless they know they can sell the replacement.


Knowing that the 1962 & 1963 starters are the same, and knowing that most catalog lookups don't go farther back than 1963, I told the clerk to look for a 1963 Super 88 because I knew that was the same starter. BINGO! It was in their system.

Here are the results:


Free-spinning starter test results from Autozone:
On the bench the starter pulls plenty of amps with no significant voltage drop and it spins fast. They don't have the ability to test the starter under load unless I bring the car to them, so they can test it on the car.

I'm thinking that the starter test results point back to the engine. Some internal problem seems to be causing the difficult crank. I seriously doubt that it's the starter, though I will clean the grounding attachment points with a wire wheel when it goes back on.

Yesterday I did the cleaning to eliminate (+) voltage drops and most of the places for grounding voltage drops. This starter test suggests that the starter isn't the problem -- unless there is some high resistance point that I don't know about between the starter's mounting point on the flywheel housing and the ground strap attachment where it bolts to the front of hte engine block.

Now I'm back to worrying about internal engine problems.

don71

It seems the starter checks out ok, and that's great. I still think you have a cable/resistance issue. Cleaning the connections will be of some help, but if the problem is still there, its gotta be the cables. You said in your third post that the cables are 53 yrs old.

At this point I don't see priming the engine oil pump will do you any good. Every attempt you have made to start and turn over thus far is pumping oil. You have all ready primed it.

I still don't think you have any engine parts seizing going on. I really believe it purely an electrical problem. Next time you crank this engine heavily,(plugs in) reach down and touch/grab the positive and negative cables. They'll probably be very warm to the touch and possibly hot. That's my point, If you were to remove the insulation on these cables, they are probably pretty nasty inside.

Since you have tried cranking without the ignition hooked up, tells me its not the timing as of yet. That might be a problem later, not a big deal.

I tried carefully to re-read everything you've told us. Those are my thoughts. I got no problem with you telling me I'm wrong that's the fun and challenging thing about diagnosis across the interwebs. Lets us know how it turns out.

MDchanic

Have you tried to see how it feels while turning it over with a breaker bar yet?

- Eric

bob p

I don't know why this keeps happening, but after I log in the board keeps logging me out. If I type a long post that requires several minutes of typing, when I try to preview the post, I get taken to the log-in page again, and all of my typing is lost. It's quite frustrating. To avoid losing text I end up having to type posts in a word processor, then cut and paste.

Anyone else have this problem?


I appreciate that you guys enjoy trying to remote-diagnose a car on the internet as much as you do. I appreciate everyone's insights.


Back to the car:

STARTER: I don't think that I ever said that my starter wiring was 53 years old, and it isn't. The car's wiring loom and ignition circuit are old, but the starter wiring was replaced ~10 years ago, is in great condition, and has no "miles" on it.

The ground strap from the battery to the front of the block is original woven copper mesh. It is original but it has been cleaned.

The (+) cable from the battery post to the terminal block near the vreg is recent (~10 years old, zero miles). It's still in good condition and I just wire buffed the terminals. Same goes for the (+) cable going from the terminal block to the starter 12V stud. "Recent" cable, buffed the terminals. I also wire-buffed the terminals on the starter. There shouldn't be any significant impedance on the (+) side.

I honestly don't think that cabling is the issue. When I put the starter back on, I'll be sure to do a (+) voltage drop test and a ground voltage drop test. Those should give us the answer once and for all whether the problem is related to wiring. If we don't get voltage drops at high current, then there's no path of high resistance in the cables. We'll see how that works out.

VALVES: Today I pulled the valvecovers and observed the valves while rotating the engine with a 1/2” ratchet. (No breaker bar).

I started off by pulling both valvecovers and saturating the pushrods with PB Blaster spray. About 10 seconds of spray into each pushrod orifice. Then I saturated the rocker arm pivots, the bearing surfaces of the rocker arms, the valvestems and valvesprings. After saturating everything on both sides I let it sit for a while, then I came back and did it all over again. I repeated this several times, using a full can of PB Blaster.

After about an hour I gently tapped the rocker arms at the top of each valvestem with a rubber mallet, using a gentle touch to assure that no valves were binding. I tapped gently – not hard enough to drive a valve into a cylinder head. All of the valves were mobile.

Then I tried cranking with the 1-1/8” socket on the 1/2” ratchet. I confirmed that all of the valves were mobile on 2,4,6,8 as I cranked through a full rotation. The cranking was a bit difficult, as I had left the plugs in. When cranking 2,4,6,8 (with plugs in) I could hear the penetrating oil being sucked in / blown out of the cylinders. I didn't notice any particularly troublesome spots – it just seemed like I was working against compression. I pulled the plugs before proceeding to confirm movement on 1,3,5,7, just to make things easier for me.

All 16 pushrods and valves were moving. I wasn't able to gauge whether or not they were all moving far enough, I just verified that they were moving. At this point it looks like sticky valves/pushrods aren't the source of my problem.

CYLINDERS: Thinking back, when I first tried rotating the engine, I only put 5cc of motor oil into each cylinder. In retrospect that may not have been enough. Looking at things now, I'm getting the impression that I haven't adequately lubed the cylinders enough for an engine that has been sitting for so long. It seems that there's enough starter power to deal with engine corrosion (good crank with plugs out), but not enough power too deal with both corrosion AND compression (plugs in).

I'm going to be sidelined for a couple of days while weather dips below freezing. To try to accomplish something while I'm not able to work on the car, I've decided to fill the cylinders with an 50/50 ATF/Acetone mixture to soak the combustion chambers. While they soak, I'm going to continue to saturate the top end with PB Blaster spray. Hopefully a couple of days of sitting in penetrating fluids will help the cranking situation. Monday (3 days of soaking) I'll purge the cylinders, drain the pain, put in new oil, and see how it cranks.

Any other suggestions?

MDchanic

It really has the feel of a bad starter to me, especially if the starter cables are fairly new.

If it felt normal turning it over by hand with the plugs in, with a ratchet, then I don't think you've got any unusual friction or interference problems, and I think all that lube you're spraying around has no useful purpose.

I'd see if I couldn't scrounge up another starter somewhere and just try it.
Is this a high compression motor?
Do you have the high compression starter (1107776), or the low compression starter (1107665)? They made two.

- Eric

Charlie Jones

I'm beginning to think that your problem may be too much oil, etc. in the cylinders.
This engine has a compression ratio of 10.25 to 1. Add another 5 CC's or more of oil and your compression ratio goes up to 13 to 1 or more.
I think you should try spinning the engine over for an extended period of time with the plugs removed in an attempt to remove as much oil as possible from the cylinders.
Crank the engine for 30 to 45 seconds at a time and then put your hand on the starter to make sure you aren't overheating it. If you can't hold your hand on the starter comfortably , then let it cool off.
Hold a piece of paper over one of the spark plug holes , until you are sure it is expelling no more oil.
Put the plugs back in and try firing it up. If it starts and runs it's probably going to smoke like hell. Just hope your neighbors don't call the fire dept.

Octania

I heard
"dist'r was removed
engine turned
dist'r reset at TDC #1"

BUT NOT A COMPRESSION STROKE TDC #1

Therefore it may be in backfire mode. 180 degrees out.

I would
Disconnect the + wire to the coil: ign not needed yet.
Remove all the plugs
remove rocker covers
verify she spins freely.
Do her by hand 2-3 turns to get a feel.
Lube the valve stems
Might as well juice the pistons again lightly.
Watch valve action while starter cranks the engine. Make sure they all behave alike.

While you are watching the valves, watch for #1 xst, then intake... then STOP CRANKING.

using a finger or thumb on the #1 plug hole, to verify comression stroke, bring timing marks up to TDC or 5-10 btdc. STOP TURNING.

Attach coil wire + to its post. Atach your test lite from coil - where the distributor pts wire is, to a good ground, so that when the pts are closed your test light is out, and when pts are open, your test light glows.

Watch coil output lying near engine for the spark. Turn dist'r housing in normal fwd direction until your test light is OUT indicating closed pts. Then carefully turn the dist'r housing against rotor rotaton direction until the test light just comes on, indicating the pts opened. Coil fat wire may produce the spark at this time..

Double check that crank is at 10-0 degrees BTDC. Lock down dist'r housing. Note where the rotor is pointing, that is now your #1 terminal in the cap.

At this point I would be tempted to put ONLY #1 plug in and remove the coil/pts test light, and see if she cranks and starts to run on #1 only with 7 missing plugs. If so, add the rest back in, like 1,4,6,7 = every other one in the firing order. see if she still runs.

Remember to put the plug wires on in the correct direction, as the rotor rotates. Which way is that? 1) consult the manual. 2) watch it while it spins. 3) follow the vacuum advance unit in then curve around the dist'r shaft- that is the way the rotor turns....

Is she runs on 1-4-6-7 in the correct places in the dist'r cap, then flesh it out with the entire
1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2 firing order.

Assuming that is correct. For your engine, check the inake for embossed firing order or any service manual should have that information. Maybe even the interwebs.


As for losing text, I know how that is, there was a setting like cookies or "remember me" when you log in that fixes that, but even so, to be SURE, just before entering all this, I did a ctrl-a [select all text in this box], then ctrl-c [Copy it], THEN hit enter, and if anything goes wrong you still have the text waiting to paste in again. Or save it first in a notepad or word type document.

Charlie Jones

Firing order for a 394 is 1-8-7-3-6-5-4-2

oldcutlass

He has not attempted to fire the engine. He has been having trouble with just spinning it without the ignition hooked up. As stated earlier, once its loose spin it around a few times to blow as much oil out of the cylinders before you put the spark plugs in.

MDchanic

Wrong starter motor.

- Eric

bob p

Thanks for the ideas.

Yes, 10.25:1 is the right number for my car. Most definitely, adding 5cc of oil made the cylinders harder to crank with the plugs in. I think I mentioned that I thought the cylinders had higher compression / were more difficult to crank with the 5cc of oil added. Then I evacuated the oil by sucking it out with a syringe connected via 3/16 hose to 3/16 rigid tubing. The rigid tubing/wand allowed me to suck all of the way around the perimeter of each cylinder, so I'm sure that I got all of the oil out. Then I cranked the motor for several blasts with the plugs out. I'm sure that I got all of the oil out, so the difficulty in cranking that I'm having now is definitely not attributable to the oil. That's why I thought it could be attributable to seized lifters, pushrods, rockers or valves, and that's why I pulled the valve covers and spayed the valvetrain with PB Blaster.
That would make sense if the oil was still in there, but all of the oil has been syringed out and the engine has been cranked enough with the plugs out that any oil that was in there is long gone. The oil that isn't in there now isn't having any effect on the hard to crank problems I have now that the oil is gone.


Good point. That would be very important if I was trying to fire the engine, but so far all of my cranking tests have been done with the ignition disconnected. In that circumstance where the distributor is disconnected, then it doesn't matter if the distributor is at 0 or 180 degrees, right? This will be a key consideration though, when the distributor gets hooked back up.
Well, at least it's not going to be hurting anything by sitting there for a few days.

I have no way of confirming or refuting the opinion that the oil serves no useful purpose, as I didn't check the pushrods while they were dry. I sprayed them before I did the manual crank, and all I know is that things were moving after the spray. For all I know they were seized before the spraying. Or they were not. We'll never know. What I do know is that the friggin' motor is still a bear to crank, and it's straining a perfectly good high torque starter that's pulling one heck of a lot of current on the testbench. That makes me think about internal derangements of the motor.

The numbers soup is creating a real problem for me. I have ZERO reference literature to look at. OEM Delco's web site doesn't have my application. AutoZone doesn't have it. Same for NAPA. I'm sure that someone here has the data, but it doesn't look like it's being shared on the site.

Are the application tables for Oldsmobile published somewhere on this site, or do only a few people here have access to them? Without good data, I'm forced to take blind swings at the problem. That's a really bad approach. Lack of data certainly inhibits progress.

Just for reference, this is the same starter that I had in the car when I was using it as a daily driver, before it developed the fuel tank problem that caused me to put the car up. The same starter has worked on this car for YEARS, and when it tests full strength today. So I'm having trouble swallowing that I've got the wrong starter. If that were the case then I should have been having trouble for years of driving with the wrong starter, but that's not the case. what has changed? Well, the engine has sat for a long time and now it's difficult to crank.

I don't think that my problem is that the starter is weak, but I have no way to know whether the starter is the wrong model. Perhaps it was replaced several years ago, with a new number part that supersedes the old number part. If it was replaced, the replacement had been working just fine on the car.

I think that the problem is that the engine has been sitting. I'm more inclined to blame the engine's reluctance to start on the fact that it's been sitting for so long, but I'm willing to consider any possibilities.

Does anyone have a list of Oldsmobile starter part numbers and year/motor applications that I can look at? Without data, I'm working in the dark.

Looking at my starter, it has "430" embossed into the neck, and "1108746 4319 4" and "Delco-Remy USA" stamped into the body. It must weigh 500 pounds. This starter has worked fine on the car for years, and it tests strong today. If this is the wrong starter for the car then I'd like to see the application table to get a better idea of what's up. I'm reluctant to just blindly buy a new starter when the one I have tests OK.

Delco-Remy Tech support told me Thursday morning via email that they still manufacture the starter for my car, and that the current number for the my 1962 Super 88 is the Remy 25233. Of course, the OEM's current stock numbers don't match what's in the antique parts catalog. Part numbers that aren't what they used to be makes the problem all the more confusing. Even if I were to try to buy a new starter, I wouldn't have any idea what to buy since none of the numbers from 1962 match up to today's numbers.

Thanks again to everyone for their insights.

rustyroger

You got all the oil out that was on top of the pistons, but you won't shift what is between the crown and top ring with a syringe.
However after all this time it shouldn't be an issue. Put some gasoline in the plug holes and let that soak through.
If the starter hasn't been used for a while it's entirely possible that lack of use has allowed it to deteriorate. A load test is the only way to find out for sure. If you have been spinning the engine over for long periods during your current problem that won't have done the starter any good.

Priming the oil system is done by pulling the distributor and cranking the hex drive to the oil pump anti-clockwise.

You say the engine turns with a little resistance with half the plugs in. Try firing the engine up with just one bank of plugs in place, if it runs, and it should, although not very well, do the same with the other bank. Then put all the plugs back and try again.

Roger.

MDchanic

I just gave them to you:
For Olds '57-'63 (and 394 in '64), it's 1107776 for high compression or 1107665 for low compression.



1108746 appears to correspond to a mid-'70s Chevy straight-6 starter.



Okay. I was under the impression that you had replaced the starter in the interim while you were testing.

Regardless, it does not test strong - you said that the store was unable to perform a load test. All you know is that it spins.

It is clearly a rebuild, as its case is from a Chevy, so you cannot be certain what sort of armature in inside.
When you have exhausted all of the other suggestions, I would recommend taking the starter apart and following the connections from the (+) lug through the armature to the brushes and ground.
The proper connections are illustrated in the 1961 Service Manual on pages 13-20 and 13-21.
Note that the windings of the low-compression starter are the same as those used later in the '60s for the low compression 350, while the windings of the high-compression starter are the same as those used on the high compression 350, the 400, and the low compression 455 (the high compression 455 had a different set of windings, and I suspect that is you were to find one of those starters, you could swap its nose and use it on your engine).

Just my opinion, though we haven't completely ruled out the (ten year old) wires yet either.

- Eric

l'esprit de l'escalier: If your starter case is definitely from a straight six (someone else here may be able to confirm that), then it may not be physically large enough to fit the windings for a high compression starter, which would show conclusively that it's a low compression starter.

MDchanic

And another thing...:

You've had your starter out. Did it have the spacer sleeve between the (+) tab and the solenoid, or is the tab screwed directly to the solenoid?

In the photo below, the starter on the left has its tab connected right to the solenoid, which means that its case is shorter, which means that it can't be a high torque starter, while the starter on the right has the spacer sleeve between the solenoid and the starter's (+) tab, which means that its case is large enough to contain high-torque windings.

Starter_Tq_zpsd8879d0d.jpg

- Eric

oddball

$20 on the starter. They do go bad even while just sitting. I revived a '70 Chevelle that had been parked for 12 years. On the third start attempt the starter internally shorted. That was exciting.