Hi all,
While driving down the road, My 1992 SL1 (over 200k miles) was running along just fine then started to lose power and was having trouble staying on....until it just turned off. Temperature was fine...in the normal range. A/c was off. No warning lights came on. Plenty of oil. All lights and radio are working just fine. My first thought was the alternator....but I'm not sure because I think that would have left they battery drained. Bt the battery seems fine because the lights and radio work fine. When I try to start it, I hear the starter underneath click and try to grab but it never starts turning. It doesn't crank at all. Maybe the battery does not have enough juice to make the starter crank....but it does have enough juice for the lights and radio, however, that wouldn't explain why it lost power and died while driving. I'm at a loss.

Any ideas would be great


Thanks
Caiman

 

First cut a half inch of the positive battery cable at the battery end and see if you have the dreaded green/blue of corrosion.
Second take the battery out. With a full charge have it LOAD tested.

 

Tested the battery at autozone.....it's good.and just finished replacing the starter...no change. Still clicks once and does not start.

Not sure what to try next

 

Can you rotate the engine by hand or is it locked up? If you can rotate it by hand, then you should start checking your engine grounds first. And I mean every one you can find. Make sure they all have clean and tight connections.

 

I would like to give you a short answer that says replace this gizmo and something good should happen. The problem is I don't have a clue. And replacing parts by guessing gets expensive.
The simplest way I can think of to get something pointed in the right direction is to try to understand what is taking place so you know what to look for.
One of those things is to try to start the car while the head lights are on.
If some one is watching the head lights either directly or looking from the drivers seat into a reflection so that they can be seen, as you turn the key and hear the klick what are the head lights doing.
If they are getting dim or trying to go out then the connections of the main battery wires either at the battery or where they connect into the car for power distribution are damaged. Corrosion or loose or something like that.
As the starter try's to draw a lot of current which is what it does, the poor connections some where absorb a whole bunch of power and it diverts that power so the head lights and the starter just do not function well. That means sort out the big battery cables and look for problems at where ever the ends are, one end is naturally the battery. The others? Some place.
If the lights stay on bright it is a similar situation but specifically related to the starter not the rest of the car.
So the wiring going to the starter needs to be investigated.
If you have a meter, such as the one HARBOR FREIGHT sells for cheap it would help you if you know how to use one. That and some test leads to free up your hands.

It sounds as if there is a connection problem, either at the battery, the starter or where the battery wires are bolted on to the rest of the car. I would not replace anything else until you are able to find something bad.

The car being a 92 is a bit long in tooth and it has a high probability of having some kind of connection problem.

 

thanks for the replies....

Rubehayseed, can you tell me how i would rotate the engine by hand? I've never done that.

uncljohn, i'll try your suggestions starting with the headlights. I agree, changing parts without a diagnosis will be very costly.

 

The front of your engine is on the passenger side of the vehicle. If you look at the bottom of the front of the engine, you will see the crankshaft pulley and the big bolt that holds it on, but you can also see that it is very difficult to put a wrench on to it.

Jack up the front passenger side of the vehicle at the jack point just behind the wheel well, put a jackstand under this side at the front tow point. Remove the wheel and the inside lower wheel well cover. Now you can easily get to this bolt. Put a wrench or ratchet on it and turn the bolt clockwise. The engine should turn with about 20 to 40 lbs of force.

You may be able to do this without jacking up the vehicle by turning the wheels all the way to the right, I have not tried this on a Saturn but it has worked for me on other vehicles.

If you can't get it to turn, remove all the spark plugs and try again. If it still won't turn, try turning it CCW for just a few degrees (up to 45 degrees) and then CW. If it goes CCW for a few degrees and then CW back to the original position and stops, then you probably have a broken timing chain, though this should have made a bit of noise when it first stopped.

If you can turn it by hand through two complete revolutions with the 20-40 lbs of force or so, then the issue is with either the battery cables or the battery. The autozone test might have led you down the primrose path to a false conclusion. They have to perform a load test, this is a big honking piece of test equipment that measure battery voltage when a large resistor is placed in the circuit. By large resistor, I mean physically large to absorb the power, but a low resistance to conduct a lot of amps.

If they just put a volt meter on it or if they put it on a charger and it read fully charged, that is not a good test of the battery. This is rare but I have had this happen to me a couple of times. A connection inside the battery, cell to cell or cell to terminal breaks. The voltage is still available at the terminals and if a battery charger is put on it, it will read fully charges as it does not accept very many amps. But the battery is incapable of delivering very many amps. It might have just enough connection to deliver enough to light up the headlights, but it cannot provide enough power to either start or sustain the engine running.

The alternator may no longer have a voltage regulator in it, most are regulated by the computer now. If the computer is not getting enough voltage to keep it alive, it will stop providing exciting current to the field coil of the alternator, that makes the alternator look bad too.

Or you could just have a bad connection at one of the ends of your battery cables.

 

Keith....now that you mention it, I DID hear a clicking noise before the car lost power. Right after the clicking noise, the car hesitated when i stepped on the gas and felt like it was struggling to move...then lost power and slowed down and turned off. I never considered the timing chain.

I tried turning the engine as you described...i already had the front passenger wheel off because i changed the starter motor (it was easier to get to with the wheel off). it wont budge in either direction...and i used all i had in me. i have not removed the spark plugs yet but i'll try that later today after work.

my guess now is that the engine is locked and when the starter tries to engage, it can't move the flywheel because the engine is locked. (i'm just guessing based on the timing chain theory)

i traced the cables to and from the battery and starter and they all look pretty new with no corrosion or exposed parts. i don't doubt that autozone could have given me false info. they just hooked the battery up to their small battery tester that gives them a printout of the battery health. perhaps i should try using the batter from my truck to see if that starts the car (i'll do that and let you know).

uncljohn.... i looked at the headlights while someone tried to start the car. they dim a little, but not really that much. After that is when i traced the wired as described above. they all look good.

what do you think?

 

Sounds to me like either your engine ran out of oil and locked up or the timing chain broke and locked it. Either way, you're going to have to dig into it. And thanks, Keith, for telling him the procedure. With the wife out of commission, I'm having to do everything around the house for now. Yesterday was a busy day.

 

I feel your pain, my wife tore her ACL a couple months back so I have to do everything and take care of her. Doc says 6-9 months to heal. I suspect she is milking it a little too. Breakfast in bed and waited on hand and foot.