Starter question

On Jan 30, 3:42 pm, A Lieberma wrote:
A Lieberma wrote 8.18:

Update to the below posting.

My A&P pulled my plane in. Bear with me on this, but the bendex or
selenoids????? needed a good WD40ing and that fixed the starter problem.
MY GUESS is the cold weather gummed up the works? Dunno.

The starter is still in good shape from what my A&P said. It's an
prestolite starter for those that asked what kind of starter I had in my
plane.

I described the problem in the third paragraph in my original post,
initially, when he called me, he said I had a bad turn coordinator
causing the noise that I best described to him as a gyro winding down
after the master switch was put on.

He called me back a second time and said, it wasn't the turn coordinator
that was broken. The turn coordinator wasn't getting enough volts to
keep it running, so it would start up, and then shut down as the battery
was only putting out 9 volts.

I had a new battery installed in 02/03, so I guess I was on the end life
of the battery.

This should fix all problems (I hope) and will fly it in the pattern
tomorrow to make sure all systems are go.

Now, all of this raises a couple of question. Exactly what is the
ammeter for if I wasn't showing any sign of discharge on a battery not
running full tilt?

When I put the master on, it was exactly where it is everytime I started
the plane, with no sign if discharge. I know the meter works, as when I
put my landing light on, it will swing to the left. When I fire the
engine, the needle swings slightly right and settles back in the middle.

When the battery does go belly up, does the starter click like a car when
a bad battery is the problem?

Thanks all for the input!

Allen



Went flying today. Go to crank the engine for start, nothing. Turn
the key, got like a jiggle of the prop. Turn all electrical things
off, figuring the battery drained, and then started just the alt and
bat, same thing, jiggle of the prop. Tried once more, and got the
prop to turn and fired right up.

Just had the durn starter replaced in July with a new one.

I don't think it was the battery, as nothing moved when I turned the
key, just a strange noise, no clicking like it would sound with a dead
battery. When I fired up the master and alternator, I heard a noise
sounding like something was draining the battery, yet the meter was
stable in the middle, not indicating any discharge.

Last week, when I cranked it, it struggled on the first turn of the
prop, but it started, so I had attributed it to maybe my battery being
low, it being very cold by MS standards, but after today, watching the
electrical amnmeter, the load was fine once the engine was running.

Am I having a bad run of starters, or should I be looking elsewhere
for a problem?

Grant you, I try to fly two times a week, but I would think I would
have gotten more starts out of this starter then 6 months worth.

Plane normally starts with one or two turns of the prop, so it's not
like the starter is running for any period of time or been abused.

Allen- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

According to the Battery Tender folks, the health of the battery can
be determined by measuring the voltage across the terminals after the
battery has been at rest for about 24 hrs. A full 100% charged battery
will show 12.9 volts, and a fully discharged one will show 11.4 volts.
If a battery shows 12.05 volts, halfway in between, it has 50%
capacity. Mine shows 12.6 volts, which is 80% of full charge. Here is
there website explaining it in more detail

http://batterytender.com/faqs.php/#1

Bud