So i have an old vio 15 with a small yanmar diesel, but has always ran and started right up. First let me preface that this did get up to 3 feet of water around it during helene florida flooding. However no water in oil (water didn't get high enough for intakes dip sticks, etc), i hosed off everything immediately once it receeded, it started first crank and i've used it several times over the past few months without issue. I moved some heavy palms other week, started up as always quick as i turn the key, ran perfect, parked it. Tried to start it another week and it labored turning over, really slow cranking like a dead battery, no start. So i immediately thought 1) ok battery, i charge it same. I pull the battery from an old skid loader that runs , same. I jumped from my wifes car, same! 2) ok ground connection, removed cleaned those, same. Then put the ground cable right on the starter. same. 3) i pull the starter since i'm thinking water didn't get that high but i've had solenoid issues on other stuff due to the water (atv,etc). I jump the starter it seemed sketchy, pops out wouldn't spin after several attempts. On the machine it seemed pretty random but i couldn't tell if it was voltage issue or not, and at this point i'm thinking ok it can be several things due to water exposure. 4) I install a new starter....exact same slowly turning over not enough spin to start the motor. At this point i rig up a solid copper wire 12 gauge to the starter straight to battery, and ground the starter from the battery with the cables. SAME. Is there anything outside of electrical which i feel like i ruled everything out there that could cause this? This literally occurred between starts a few days apart. Thanks for any help, i agree it sounds just like electrical but if i'm running copper to the starter and grounding it directly it would seem that would have ruled that out?
HeavyEquipmentForums
Hello Realbusy, It sounds very dramatic all the things you have tried but it really has not ruled out anything. The very first thing an auto electrician would do was check the voltage being applied to both sides of the solenoid when cranking and also use a clamp on ammeter which would determine if the starter was being supplied adequate power when cranking. If the motor is dragging excessive current could indicate the motor may be poling or there may be excessive load on the pinion. The starter motor can have mechanical or electrical issues which can produce the same symptoms you describe. If you can do some of these electrical tests will have you heading in the right direction. Regards
you had 3' of of salt water flood a rig that has less than 1' of ground clearance. You have corrosion on your various copper connections. Copper corrodes really fast with salt. Salt water also conducts - if you have access to the place between the seat and the tracks - take a look. It holds all kinds of stuff. Corrosion also, while surprisingly fast, is not instant. You rinsed it off, good deal. did you pull the panels and rinse under there? Everything ran immediately after, so all good, right? Not so fast! That engine is isolated by rubber mounts to the frame - so as to not transmit vibration to the tractor. But they use a grounding strap to make sure it's grounded. Make sure that grounding strap is good. Okay, as to your "new starter - wired directly" question. 12 gauge may not be large enough for the current required, I don't know what they have on that motor, but if you are literally just testing the starter, get some big-ol 4 or 6 gauge jumper cables and hit test it that way. if you are trying to test your starter out, actually do it with a totally separate electrical system. disconnect your battery first of course. then just use jumpers to see if you can spin that starter quickly or not. ground directly to a starter mounting bolt or the starter body. grounding to the excavator body is going to cause problems because the frame to engine grounding is probably crap now.
Thanks for tips yeah ground resistance was my first suspect or solenoid. Though water didn't get high to reach it , it could have licked it, nothing got anywhere near the electronics in the seat but i've bypassed all those (safety switch, starter switches, etc). I get the points about voltage drop,reistance, etc, due to how the starter is mounted and it uses basically a connector (sorta like a male spade where i can't even see it mounted) but i've totally isolated the new starter...direct 12gauge copper to the solenoid from the battery and grounded to the starter body and it behaves just like the old one. Can't get a jumper cable directly to the ground bolt or the solenoid (due it being a connector) and the bolt is between starter and engine. But sounds like everyone thinks it's (same as me) voltage and resistance, i'm going to rule out 2 batteries and this set of jumper cables and make a better jumper setup. My chargers all charge them up fine and they're like 9 stages or something and usually throw an error if the battery is bad. My jumper cables i haven't ruled out but they're copper but i'll do that too. I do suspect the original starter solenoid had an issue, jumping it, it would throw but not spin when i removed it but that test was done with same batteries and jumper cables. So let me rule those out all i can think of too! i'll update you! thanks for the help!
out of curiosity, take apart the old starter - see if the brushes and stator have that green corrosion on them. if they do, you know water got that high - or at least splashed. water vapor, salt spray, whatever. it's worth knowing. anyway, your best bet for checking if a starter is good outside the machine is a vise. Clamp the ground lead, or a ground tab in with the body of the starter in the vise jaws, connect the positive to the correct lead, then go to your battery and check if it spins nice and free. it's not a great test, starters pull huge current even if unloaded. most car starters need between 40 and 200 amps just to run... so you will see plenty of sparks and such. anyway, get a multi-meter. hard to do analysis if you don't have baselines, but at least you can check voltages at various places to see what things are and if they make sense. or you can check resistance of wires. pull the plates under the seat. you are going to need to see what's in there and how much corrosion you have.. hopefully it's just hydraulics and can be easily rinsed. but if there's a wire loom or sensors or whatever.. well, you'll need to validate they are all OK.
welp i'm an idiot. Was the battery. I'll cut myself a little slack and learn a lesson because i was surrounded by flooded tools, had replaced 2 solenoids on some other equiptment so i was just certain it was that, especially when 2 batteries wouldn't spin the starter out of the machine, not to mention all the other tools that needed repair. I think the bobcat battery is probably dead for sure, and i suppose the jumper cables just have too much resistance. Is just wierd how that's such a small wire going to the starter. But I did what i should have done, took 5 minutes to run down and get battery tested. threw new one in, 1st lick started.
the other thing is all of my chargers were saying the battery was good. ugh circumstances...
most of your chargers will check voltage. If they reach a voltage near 14.5V-15V DC, they typically can't push any more current. They'll tell you, all good! you can literally take an itty bitty UPS 6AH 12VDC battery, and your charger will tell you it's good. It's just checking the surface voltage is all. To test a battery, you need to put it under load. Recall post #6 where I asked you to put that starter into a vice and test it there? that would pull between 20 and 200amps depending on the starter. a machine that size likely has a smaller 20-30A starter. Starters are not continuous run motors, they are not built for that. they are meant to pull gobs of current to rotate a heavy load at slow speed. They do this, but are terrifically inefficient, and convert a lot of power to heat. That inefficiency is there all the time - not just under load. Had you tested your starter in a vise, you may have discovered that it wouldn't spin for crap there either. Then you'd try the new starter, still no spin... well connect to the battery charger, whoa! lots of sparks, no spin. New/different battery? hey, there, it's spinning. I know: this is a process I've done a few times. it's good you found it before you spent a lot more money on random parts. debugging the simple issues is key to maintenance of anything. Batteries are high, very high maintenance items as compared to alternators, regulators and starters. But it's a consistent issue for people to replace all manner of stuff before checking if the battery is any good.