What have you done to your Tacoma today? 1st Gen Edition

what kind of belt tension do you have on the fan belts? You should go for around 1/4''-1/8'' deflection

 

Interesting you suspect fan belts, that never occurred to me. I just tightened the tensioner until the power steering belt was good and tight, but I never knew how to measure if it was tight or loose enough. I'll go and check now.

 

I mean..it would be a bit amazing if you over tighten them to the point it wont start. But its not impossible.

 

It’s a little tighter than my other accessory belt, but still within reasonable deflection.

I just don’t understand how running 14v straight from a running car produces the same slow cranking starter. You’d think it’s a bad starter, but it passed at AutoZone. Maybe they’re wrong, who knows. I’ll have to test it myself tomorrow.

 

I'd put a volt meter on the positive lead to the starter while its out and check what it reads while its cranking. You could just have a bad voltage drop somewhere.


Or. Worst case. You fucked up assembling the SC and now you have a lot of drag in the system from something not being right.

 

Taking that starter out was a nightmare, I’m going to end up just replacing it as a preventative thing even if it still tests OK. I’ll do a voltage drop test though.

I’m curious, where could I have made a mistake assembling the SC creating drag?

 

I wouldn't replace the Toyota starter. Thing is bullet proof. If it is bad, it just needs cleaned or the contacts just need replaced that's it. Kit is cheap to fix it.

I don't know haha its a pretty damn simple design so be hard to fuck up. But if the rear bearings weren't seated right that could cause an issue(im not sure if you did a full rebuild on the rotors or what). Or for all we know you left a rag in there haha

 

Well now you got me worried. The rear bearings in the case I wiped out the old grease and repacked it. Did not do a full rebuild, or rebuild at all. Just media blasted everything, cleaned everything, and painted.

I don’t have the OEM starter anymore, it’s a Bosch. PO replaced it some time ago.

 

ah well if its not original then it could just be the starter.

Repacked them? Those are needle bearings..

 

Repacked is the wrong word, I took my finger and cleaned out all the old grease that was on there and put new grease to replace it. I also covered the rotor shaft with more grease and then inserted it into the case.

Point being, I replaced what I took out.

I just don’t understand why the Autozone machine passed it if it’s truly broken.

 

me either. Idk how they test those.

If not, check the starter relay.

 

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen their machine, it has a hatch and they install it inside with alligator leads and bolt it to some kind of artificial load. Hard to tell what’s really going on in there. I just know the big screen said “PASS” in big green letters.

@Speedytech7 called bad starter anyway, so we’ll see what happens. I’m probably just going to replace it anyway.

Removing and installing that starter is a big pain in the ass.

 

I'm assuming their machine tests current draw like the pico machine on that SMA video. I 2nd saving money and rebuilding the starter if you're interested in taking of advantage of it being out. You usually have a problem with whatever you worked on last if everything was functioning properly before taking anything apart. You could take all the belts you installed and see if it cranks smoothly. If you check all the cylinders for excess fuel through the sparkplug holes you'll know there's nothing in them impeding the engine from cranking normally inside the cylinders and if you remove the belt(s) you installed that eliminates that variable as well. I'd still watch the voltage drop on the battery when cranking it like blackdawg said.

 

The original Toyota starter is long gone, replaced by a Bosch. If it’s not too expensive I’ll go buy a reman one from Camelback.

 

It would be unlikely that the motor itself would fail while waiting for you to work on the sc - maybe corrosion forming on the contacts is more likely, but until you saw voltage drop on the battery not going below 10 volts and knowing that the battery has enough cold cranking amps it seems unlikely the starter would have developed a problem giving you a slow crank vs no crank. Can you turn the engine over smoothly via a breaker bar on the crank bolt? If it turns over smoothly you could just clutch start it once you get the fuel rail put back together to figure out if it's anything mechanical or just a mistake in the starter circuit.

 

Everything is put back together, it’s just there is no starter because I removed it.

I’ll have to do more diagnosis later today.

Can’t clutch start it because it’s an Automatic. Haha.

 

Take your jumper cables and go from your pos terminal to to positive terminal on the starter then try and crank. Basically running your own positive battery cable for diagnosis.

 

Are you 100% everything is plugged back in? My truck would likely fire at that speed.

 

Pull the plugs and crank it over, it should spin up easily then. May tell you something, and easy enough to do.

 

I still don't think the full voltage is making it to the starter posts, due to whatever(grounds, connections, etc)
I wish he'd put a meter on the starter terminals while someone cranks it, or he could use the jumper cables or wires and connect straight from a battery to starter posts. At least eliminate all those factors