Well for the first time in 6 years of ownership my sig car left me stranded. At work which is luckily only a mile or so away from home. So I pulled the starter out and tried unbolted to the motor(but still attached to the factory wiring) and it worked. I reinstall it and it just goes 'click' and nothing happens. I tried bypassing the starter relay and still no dice, will not turn. I put my ratchet on the crank and turned it a few degrees just incase something was binding, didn't help. I am going to put the battery on the charge tomorrow just to be doubly sure it's not a power issue, but I really don't think it is because it gives a good spark on the wires when I touch the starter relay wire to power.

Other than that, has anyone ever had a starter die enough to run when out of the car but not turn over while in the car?? I am going to install a spare starter tomorrow but wondering if anyone else has any experiences to throw out here...?

Yes they can act like that. Spinning with no load is easy.

could it be a bad ground when installed? rubber engine mounts, rubber tranny mount, poor ground strap on the block...

what did you ground the starter with when it was removed?

Motor ground is good, the ground strap goes right from the battery to an intake manifold bolt on a stock intake. When I tested it I used a booster cable to ground it.

Does the starter make just a clicking sound. Or does it make constant noise and not turn the engine over. The chrysler starters have an over-running clutch in them. The clutch cracks and is not strong enough to turn the engine over but will free run ( out of the car) and appear to be good.

Are you sure it is the starter that is giving one click noise? The relay itself will give one click noise when key is turned. I had the one click situation as u describe, I was hearing the relay click, and the starter had bad ground.

I always figured if they didn't work in the car then I didn't give a sh*t if they worked on the bench.

Try jump the relay terminals and see if the startere spins the engine over.

If the bendix isn't strong enough to fully engage the starter teeth to the ring gear, or if the contact points in the starter are toasted you can get those symptoms. The contact points in the bendix that complete the circuit make a spark when connected and over time they eat themselves up. It can be hit or miss in or out of the car because one of the contact points is supposed to rotate with use, providing fresh contact area to make the connection. Or the higher resistance in the burnt contact when trying to turn a motor over is preventing it from working, but with no load and the same electrical resistance, on the bench, it spins free. Sometimes you can file the burnt contacts smooth, other times they need to be replaced.

if it's not the relay clicking I'd toss another one in to get you going & if you want, open up the old one & see if anything looks off. A basic good visual inspection works wonders

Not to hijack, but I had a similar problem with my engine after instal. I used battery charger in the start positiom to get it to work. I just assumed it was the battery. After working try to get it started, it just went click.
Jim

When the bushingis in the armature wear out you can bench test it as good. However when you put it in the engine under load the armature cocks and hits the the magnets, this grounds out the motor and nothing happens.

Well still no luck. I swapped in a junkyard starter from the u-pull yard and it acts the same way. I tried unhooking the starter signal line from the relay, and the click sound the starter makes is noticably different than the click sound of the relay working by itself. I tried removing and cleaning my battery terminals and ends and got them nice and shiney, made no difference. I tried bypassing my ground with booster cables going from the battery negative to two seperate ground locations on the engine, no help there either. I tried hooking up my battery charger and tried firing it up on the 'boost' position, no help there either. I would be happy even with just a slow ruuur ruuur crank, but I get nothing, just a click. I can see my rad fan doesn't even budge.

I really don't know what else to do. I guess I'll have to exchange the junkyard starter for a new one just to rule that out all together. Starter bolts are nice and tight and the starter looks to be meshing properly with the trans case. I rotated the engine 1/2 rotation with the ratchet, no difference there either. Power wire to the starter is nice and tight and connectors are clean. Perhaps I should try running a new wire from the starter to the battery in case my power wire is not delivering the full volume of current??

I had a similar problem--turns out the 40-year old wire from the relay to the starter had been cooked by the heat from the headers, but the battery cable to the starter was good.

Tried to jump it with a screwdriver at the relay--only a click.

But then I jumped across the two terminals at the starter--and it cranked. May be worth a try--just make sure the key is in "run".



Another random thought--do you have an automatic or manual tranny?.......

It's an auto trans. I tried jumping the relay wire to the power wire at the relay and that just gave the same click, so that makes me think the neutral switch has nothing to do with it, plus I tried it in drive just for kicks and got no noise at all, so the neutral switch is doing its job correctly it seems.

I never thought of the relay wire itself being cooked, I'll have to try jumping it from underneath with a screwdriver to see if I get anything.

If you get a click it isn't the neutrall switch.
Try to jump the two terminals on the starter.

I think it's the cable TO THE STARTER

Well got home from work today and touched the key and she cranked right over. I did nothing since the night before at which time it would not crank at all. I took out the positive harness and cleaned/sanded all connectors, washers, bolts, nuts from the harness to the battery to the starter. Put on an all new brass positive connector, sanded the copper wires a bit so they were nice and shiney before clamping it down. I pulled the gound cable, sanded it down good and moved it to a different spot so it's not grounding through an oily intake manifold bolt. So I figure I went through all the positive and negitive connections to run the starter so it HAS to work. Still cranking fine so I'll keep driving it and see if it starts doing it again. I don't know if any of the steps I did solved the problem seeing as how it managed to 'cure' itself while I was at work...