Intermittent starting not starting issue?

Tap the side of the starter to vibrate it and see if it starts then. If it does it's the brushes inside.
They make rebuild kits for them but it's sometimes better to just get a new one these days if the price is right... best wishes and happy holidays.

I don’t typically have access to the starter when it shuts off. I would have done that if I’d did have access in fact, I was doing that by tapping the relays before I swapped them to see if they were sticking.

I guess my question back to you from the data I provided would you concur that it’s more than likely the starter? I understand you can’t say for 100% certainty by diagnosing through a forum and if I replace the starter and it doesn’t fix it you don’t want folks coming back to you saying you said it was this or that. But from the data I provided would you agree that replacing the starter would be a logical next step? I can’t think of any other tests I can easily do or maybe an avenue that I haven’t ventured down. Final thoughts?

I believe my next step is replacing the starter regardless of your response but I’m just making sure that there’s not something I’m missing here and be like have yo7 tried this or maybe you could try this or that before you throw a starter at it. Anyway, I appreciate any insight.

Yep, sounds pretty typical for the beginning of a bad starter.

look for a bad cable. Loose bolts holding the starter to the engine. loose or bad ground cable from the battery to the body and or engine. And try tapping the starter if you can get to it and if you don't find anything there, then yep" might be time for a new starter. hope this helps.

Hi guys. I think you're on the right path, but to replace the starter, you gotta get to it. As long as you have to do that, I like to know with more certainty, so I would pursue attaching a clip lead, (small jumper wire), that can be run to a test light, then run the wire under the back of the hood and clip the light under the right wiper arm so you can see it. Watch out for grounded wires as they won't be fused, but typical clip leads are small enough to burn up without much excitement.

To start this test, my preference is to connect the test light to the switched side of the solenoid. That's either blue arrow in the photo. The test light will turn on only during cranking. If it turns on full brightness but the starter motor doesn't run, it has worn brushes, but that would be the less common cause.

By the way, you mentioned you hear a click when the starter is dead. It's important to differentiate the very light click from the starter relay, as opposed to a rather loud, single clunk from the starter. If all you hear is the light relay click, you'll need to look in the solenoid / starter relay circuit. I can post diagrams for you guys if it comes to that. You may not hear the relay click when you're inside the car. The clunk from the starter solenoid can be heard from a long way off.

Assuming the test light does not light up during the cranking attempt, move the jumper wire to the top solenoid terminal, (red arrow). That one is hot all the time so don't let anything touch ground. Expect it to dim a little during cranking, but if it goes out completely, along with the failure to crank, one of the cables has a corroded connection. That was common on older Fords, and it occurred under the insulation where you couldn't easily see it, at the end attached to that terminal. A bad connection at a battery cable clamp isn't likely as you said everything else keeps working.

If you find the 12 volts at the red arrow never goes away, but it fails to show up at the blue arrows during cranking, the contacts are burned inside the solenoid. Older Chrysler models as far back as the late 1980s, and Toyotas, used a neat little Nippendenso starter. Failure of those contacts was extremely common, but they were also rather easy to replace, and cost less than $6.00 for the pair. I'm not aware of such a history with this newer design, and this design, while pretty common, doesn't lend itself to an easy repair. Just replace the starter as MECHTRIX suggested.

These tests work best with the older, inexpensive test light with a small incandescent bulb inside. You'll probably want to disconnect it when it isn't needed so it doesn't run the battery down over a few days, and doesn't become a distraction. The newer test lights with built-in voltmeters, or a digital voltmeter, will work too, but they're a lot harder to read. If you don't have these tools, Harbor Freight Tools has a pack of small jumper wires for less than $4.00, a test light for about the same, and a perfectly fine digital meter for $7.00. Walmart and hardware stores have the test lights and meters too.

Polarity doesn't matter with standard test lights, so you can attach the ground clip to the starter solenoid, then use a jumper wire from the test light's probe, to ground. That way nothing can short out if you accidentally bump the probe to ground.

I'll be around about this time each day in case you guys needs more of my wondrous wisdom.

Hey thanks Caradiodoc for the assistance. Unfortunately, I had already jumped into changing the starter prior to your post. I did have 12v going to the red arrow of your starter pic all the time and never going away during the crank procedure utilizing a multimeter.

I would not suggest changing this starter without a lift though. I did it on car ramps or at the very least get this thing as high as you can on jack stands if possible. It’s only 2 mount bolts but the upper 15mm bolt is a bear and the lower 14mm bolt you leave for last. And the 13mm starter post nut you can do either first or second just make sure you do the lower bolt last. I will say I could barely touch the upper bolt with the tips of my fingers. So I had to get my arm buried as high as possible feel the bolt and then feed the ratchet to my right hand with my left hand coming thru under the wheel well close out and try to remember where the bolt was from feel as there are a couple nearby bolts too that you could end up on if not careful. And the harness on this thing was tied down every 8 inches or so as the harness barely had enough slack to get it off the starter post. I tried freeing them up but without tearing the car apart immensely I couldn’t get any more slack. In fact, I had to use 2 long 18-inch flat screwdrivers to work the lead up and off of the post as it kept getting angled on the threads with such little slack in it. Let me tell when I finally got it off the post, I felt like I hit the lottery, lol.

I am not proud to say it took me about 5 hours from start to finish that includes some testing but still way too long. It also included a handful of breaks as it was hell on my right hand and arm and I’ve got bruises to prove it, lol. But I think a lot of that was induced from doing it on car ramps laying backwards on concrete in a slightly sloped driveway.as the vehicle was only about 5-6 inches above my chest. Stupid is as stupid does, haha.

It took a little bit of creativity as it may involved some log ratchet extensions and wobble socket adapters at different points too. Once you get the upper bolt your home free, and hopefully you don’t have the issues with almost no slack on the post lead as it would have been fairly easy otherwise. Once I had the starter out it took only about 30-45 minutes to put back in.

In any case, this has been an intermittent problem, so we won’t know until we drive it more but for now it seems like the starter was the problem. Knock on wood!

CARADIODOC and MECHTRIX are some of our best! let us know how it goes :)