Hey guys, I’m starting to pull my hairs out.

just finished swapping in a new long block in my 2000 xj. And when the battery was connected everything was all great, but when I went to crank it, it cranked for a second and died. Thinking since I took several days (only working on it after work) the battery had become discharged. So I charged it over night, and put a jumper on it just to be safe and it does not crank.

It makes a repeated clicking noise only. So I went ahead and checked the voltage on the battery with is at 12.8v. Checked voltage to the starter, 12.8v. All Grounds have no voltage drop, as in I checked voltage between the battery cable to body, 2 grounds on the side of the block, one ground on the dipstick, 2-3 by the ecu, the rear ground to block was previously ripped and gave no problems (ribbon style ground).

I replaced the battery and starter, since I had warranty they did me a favor and changed them out. I jumped the starter outside of the car no problem. I jumped the starter using the battery cables while grounding to the block, no problem. I cleaned the area it grounds to on the bell housing. But it DOES NOT WANT to crank. I can physically spin the motor with little force as normal. I AM GOING NUTS HERE, What the hell am I missing?! Voltage at the starter wire from battery while cranking drops to 11.6v (the lowest). The new block was painted by the remanufacture, is this enough to not allow the starter to not properly ground?

Jeez thanks for looking.

 

Rotten battery cables would be my first guess. While cranking, measure the voltage on the case of the starter to the battery, from the positive post on the solenoid to the case, and wire to the solenoid to the case while cranking. That should help diagnose if it's a cabling problem.

 

0.1v when cranking, when checking the starter case to battery and solenoid to case, the starter is using all available voltage.

battery to solenoid, while cranking again at 11.6v.

connecting a 100 amp jumper directly to the starter while cranking moves the engine very slowly.

 

1) your battery must be proven good via load test (and preferably hydrometer...both should be free at the battery shop)... multimeter simply will not do..how old is battery ? ..if > 3 yrs, replace it

2) 100A Jumper Leads ?..that is not enough Amps for a Jumper Cable imo..they should be ~400A ?

3) testing an unloaded Starter on a battery does not mean it will spin the engine

the fault must be logical, the starter should be connected in situ to a known good 450CCA+ battery, 400A jumper cables.

one more thing, if you short the solenoid, 12V and starter, (key on run), with a ring spanner, and it starts, you have a bad starter solenoid..make sure you are not in gear

 

The battery was load tested at 3 different locations with 3 different load testers.

the jumper is a 100amp jumper, that ran in parallel with the battery, thus having enough juice to spin the engine.

the battery is a 650cca yellowtop optima battery, 1 year old. Grabbed a new battery to humor me.

The starter was replaced 3 months ago, clicking problem again replaced for giggles since it had warranty...same problem.

I am am currently making my own cables.... seeing how it goes.

Thanks for the help, but it still not cranking.

Im thinking it’s a grounding problem at the bell housing/ block.

 

Cranking now with 1200a jumper grounded to ac compressor only not on the battery terminal. Making new ground wires tomorrow see if it’ll crank without the jumper, ground wires at the battery showed no voltage drop so I’m calling it a night due to possibly the frustration really blinding the obvious.

thanks again

 

Just a heads up for anyone that may come across this during a search:

After being extremely frustrated I got a 1200 amp jumper box and grounded the box to the battery, it continued to have the same problem, no crank no start just repeated clicking. I then grounded the box somewhere else on the block and engine cranked fine.

Again I found no voltage drop on the grounds of the battery. I decided to make my own cables (both positive and negative) using whatever thick wiring 4AWG wire from homedepot $10, 3x copper lugs packs (6 lugs total) $10, and new battery terminals $5. I added a redundant ground from the battery to one of the studded grounds located on the passenger side engine block to be sure it was well grounded.

the engine started with the original battery without the jumper and without missing a beat.

New engine had the lifters run in and will be broken in tomorrow. Thanks, pm me if you want more info on how I made the wires or questions.

i came to this conclusion after going through all the checks, finding nothing wrong, and finally having a jump box be grounded somewhere else, other than the battery negative. Usually if I know I have a bad battery I wouldn’t ground it directly to the battery for safety reasons (leaking batteries can explode due to the spark when connecting). I probably should’ve just run an ohm meter on the ground cable since I was already checking resistance on the positive solenoid cable from the battery.

 

Thanks for the update.