starting problems

[jgallegos1]

Have a 67 sedan deville bought it running took it home let it sit for like a week and starting working on it. I replaced a bent push rod, battery, starter, and ground strap from engine to chassis. Now my car won't start!!! I turn the ignition I hear CLICK and nothing happens I try to restart it but I have no power no lights turn on or anything ...

Like I mentioned before I bought the car car running and didn't mess with anything else but what I replaced and now it won't start. I'm super stumped on why this is happening.

Any reason why this is going on

[TJ Hopland]

Is the click coming from the starter or is it other relays and devices under the hood or in the dash making the click?  Is there a sort of ring or clang to the sound?   If the clicks are relays and such it could be the park neutral switch.   Did you try wiggling the shifter around or try starting it in all the gears?

Sitting can often cause issues with the starter solenoid.   The electrical contacts inside them corrode.   What can happen is that when you hit the key it starts to engage but the position the engine stopped in happens to align the tooth on the flywheel with the tooth on the starter so they are basically just hitting each other.   Normally this is not a problem because the starter begins to turn so the teeth move and the gear can fully engage.   Problem is with the corrosion the starter does not start to turn.   If the engine happened to stop so the teeth did line up correctly the gear can fully engage which allows more pressure on the contact plate and the engine will usually start.  Sometimes continually trying will sort of work through the corrosion and help short term.   You can also try and move the engine slightly by grabbing belts or what ever you can so the tooth alignment changes.  Both not really fixes but will point you in the right direction.   

[Scot Minesinger]

This same thing happened to me on a 67.  You may not have a good contact with ground strap on frame or at starter (always look at what you last did that could cause the clicking).  Anyway to test for this it is super easy.  Take one jumper cable and connect it battery terminal negative and the other to a good engine black ground like alternator bracket or something.  If the car turns over you know it is the ground strap connections. 

The bent push rod is a thing, how in the world did that happen?  It could obviously be part of the problem.  Have you removed the spark plugs and turned the engine by hand to be sure it is not locked up?

[Julien Abrahams]

Yes, I would also be worried about why the push rod had bent in the first place. Has the timing chain perhaps skipped a tooth causing the piston to hit the valve?
With regard to the non-starting: X2 on what Scot said: check the ground strap from the chassis to the starter. Remember, the starter takes a lot of juice .

[savemy67]

Hello J,

I have '67 Sedan DeVille.  My car starts, but I will eventually pull my starter and rebuild it.  Your post said you touched 4 things - pushrod, battery, starter, ground-strap.  You can probably rule out the pushrod as a cause of your most recent problem.  That leaves battery, starter, and strap.  Based on your description of the problem, it sounds like the solenoid is not getting enough voltage to move the plunger which engages the starter drive and starter motor.  Check your battery connections again, and check the position and connections of the wiring at the solenoid.

Is the battery a new battery, or an old battery new to your car?  Check the battery and the battery cable connections.  Does a multimeter indicate you have about 12 volts at the battery?  Are the cable connections clean and snug?

Is the starter new, remanufactured, or used?  If used, did you test the starter before installing it by applying 12 volts to it to see if the starter motor turned?  When the starter was installed, were all the mounting bosses on the starter and block clean?  Were the starter attaching bolts torqued properly?  Were all the starter electrical connections clean, correctly placed, and snug?  Did you get the correct starter for your car with the correct number of teeth on the drive gear?

The strap should have two connections.  Were they both clean when the replacement strap was installed?  A strap is a simple device, but was it checked for continuity?

Since the car was OK before you worked on the four items, it is highly likely that you may have overlooked something when replacing the items on which you worked.  Retrace your steps, and you should be able to resolve your problem.  Good luck.

Christopher Winter