I drove my car to my mechanic friend's private workshop today for its annual oil change and check up. The drive went fine. I parked outside, and five minutes later the car wouldn't start. Had weird electrical gremlins, lights flashing, gauges moving up and back etc... Starter wouldn't engage.
At first we figured it was a bad ground or maybe a bad battery. After checking, the ground and battery were fine. After pushing the car into his shop in 90 deg weather (at least it happened 50 feet away from his garage door, not in traffic somewhere), he got it up on his lift and checked it out
To make a long story short - the wire to the starter must have gradually gotten real hot from my exhaust setup, and the connection started to go bad. Of note, I have Ford CAT delete pipes and Ford Racing Muffler.
He cleaned up wire and reconnected it, then custom fashioned a small additional heat shield for it to prevent it from happening again.
Those of you without CATs might want to check for heat damage near the starter and wire next time your car is up on a lift.
At first we figured it was a bad ground or maybe a bad battery. After checking, the ground and battery were fine. After pushing the car into his shop in 90 deg weather (at least it happened 50 feet away from his garage door, not in traffic somewhere), he got it up on his lift and checked it out
To make a long story short - the wire to the starter must have gradually gotten real hot from my exhaust setup, and the connection started to go bad. Of note, I have Ford CAT delete pipes and Ford Racing Muffler.
He cleaned up wire and reconnected it, then custom fashioned a small additional heat shield for it to prevent it from happening again.
Those of you without CATs might want to check for heat damage near the starter and wire next time your car is up on a lift.
Attachments
Last edited:
I'm sure the same thing has already happened again and the whole thing is probably one big melted ball..