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1998 Escort wont start, no crank


Surrey

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Hello. I have a 1998 Escort wagon, which I have owned for 1 year. It has 223 000 km on it.

The other day, I stopped to get gas, and upon trying to start the car it wouldn't fire up. At first, it half-started, then stalled out. After that, it will not turn over at all. You would get one loud click when you turned the key, but that was it. While fiddling with it, I did notice the thick cable coming off the negative battery cable was getting hot after holding the key to start for a few seconds.

Checked the battery, its good. Lights, stereo, horn are all functioning like normal. Everything cuts out and the dash goes dim when you turn the key to start (which is normal...right?)

Figured must be the starter then. So I pulled it out, and hooked it up to the battery with some jumper cables. It worked fine. So just to make sure, I put the starter back in the car, and again nothing. I got one loud click the first time, and now its not even doing that.

Im pretty stumped. Any suggestions on what might be causing my no-start? Any insight is greatly appreciated!
 


RonD

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Disconnect both battery cables, FIRST

Follow the "thick" Battery cable to where it hooks to the engine block, remove it and clean it's end and the surface it mounts to, also look at both ends of this cable for whitish corrosion, if seen replace cable the corrosion will also be inside under the rubber/plastic sheath.

Now do the same for the Positive battery cable, follow it to it's first connection, remove it and any other wires there, clean it all up and reinstall.

You can get a razor knife and some tape and cut the sheath back on the cables to check for corrosion, then re-tape them, it can't be cleaned if you find any, replace cable.

Small wire brush is good to clean battery connections, at the battery and elsewhere.

Starter motor is the biggest amp draw so that will always be the first thing that will shows signs of a problem when battery cables get corroded and fail to make full contact.
Lights, radio, ect........will work fine, they draw very little amps compared to battery.

And battery can show good volts, 12.3v to 12.8v and still have low amps so can't turn starter motor.

Battery under 12.2v after charging are marginal, they only have 50% of their original amps available.
 
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Surrey

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Disconnect both battery cables, FIRST

Follow the "thick" Battery cable to where it hooks to the engine block, remove it and clean it's end and the surface it mounts to, also look at both ends of this cable for whitish corrosion, if seen replace cable the corrosion will also be inside under the rubber/plastic sheath.

Now do the same for the Positive battery cable, follow it to it's first connection, remove it and any other wires there, clean it all up and reinstall.

You can get a razor knife and some tape and cut the sheath back on the cables to check for corrosion, then re-tape them, it can't be cleaned if you find any, replace cable.

Small wire brush is good to clean battery connections, at the battery and elsewhere.

Starter motor is the biggest amp draw so that will always be the first thing that will shows signs of a problem when battery cables get corroded and fail to make full contact.
Lights, radio, ect........will work fine, they draw very little amps compared to battery.

And battery can show good volts, 12.3v to 12.8v and still have low amps so can't turn starter motor.

Battery under 12.2v after charging are marginal, they only have 50% of their original amps available.
I used the battery out of the car to bench test the starter, and it worked fine. I also tried a different battery in the car and it gave the same results (loud click, no cranking)

I did notice some corrosion on the negative battery cable... So are we thinking bad ground? There is a very short length of cable that runs from the battery to a bracket near the windshield, right under the top edge of the hood, and then it heads under the battery tray from there...This is the cable that was getting hot the other night when messing around...
 

RonD

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I used the battery out of the car to bench test the starter, and it worked fine. I also tried a different battery in the car and it gave the same results (loud click, no cranking)

I did notice some corrosion on the negative battery cable... So are we thinking bad ground? There is a very short length of cable that runs from the battery to a bracket near the windshield, right under the top edge of the hood, and then it heads under the battery tray from there...This is the cable that was getting hot the other night when messing around...
If that's the only negative battery cable then the car would never have started.
There MUST be a large negative battery cable directly from battery to the engine, it must be the same size as the positive battery cable that runs to the starter.

And power actually runs from negative to positive not the other way around like you may have learned in school, "they" goofed up when first testing DC power.
but not important.

Suffice it to say both battery cables need to be the same size.
Large Negative goes to engine block, often right to starter hold down bolt.
Large Positive cable goes to starter motor, or on older vehicles starter relay

Just looked at a '98 escort wiring diagram
Positive cable runs to starter motor but cable shows it as a Black wire, which is fine color isn't the issue.

Negative battery shows 4 cables, larger one should be Black/yellow stripe and it needs to be checked
 
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Surrey

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If that's the only negative battery cable then the car would never have started.
There MUST be a large negative battery cable directly from battery to the engine, it must be the same size as the positive battery cable that runs to the starter.

And power actually runs from negative to positive not the other way around like you may have learned in school, "they" goofed up when first testing DC power.
but not important.

Suffice it to say both battery cables need to be the same size.
Large Negative goes to engine block, often right to starter hold down bolt.
Large Positive cable goes to starter motor, or on older vehicles starter relay

Just looked at a '98 escort wiring diagram
Positive cable runs to starter motor but cable shows it as a Black wire, which is fine color isn't the issue.

Negative battery shows 4 cables, larger one should be Black/yellow stripe and it needs to be checked
I am speaking of a large cable. The black/yellow stripe one.

I guess I am searching for a replacement cable tomorrow...
 

RonD

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If that larger wire doesn't run directly to the engine block(starter motor ground), then find where it does run and check the wires from there as well, one of the same size needs to run to the engine for starter motor power.
 

Surrey

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So I think my problem might be a dropped valve seat. I hear its a relatively common issue with these...

I cannot crank the engine by hand. I put the socket on the crankshaft, it turned a little ways counter clockwise, I changed the ratchet to spin it clockwise, and it went only a little bit forward before stopping.

In the past few months, I've had a random rough idle. It would usually happen when I fired up the car, but more recently it started happening while driving. Typically it would run poorly right after I got off the highway and got into stop-and-go traffic. Give it some gas, and it ran fine. I did hear a mean-sounding clunk the other day when accelerating on the highway to change lanes, and had a short loss of power then too...

So does this all point to valve seat dropped? How do I verify it was the valve seat, and which one(s)?
 

Surrey

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If that larger wire doesn't run directly to the engine block(starter motor ground), then find where it does run and check the wires from there as well, one of the same size needs to run to the engine for starter motor power.
Upon tracing it, it goes from the battery, to a little bracket under the windshield (like 6" length of wire from battery to bracket) then continues under the battery tray, into a bundle of wires for about a 1.5 feet, then comes out of the bundle and double-backs on itself to connect to a bracket thats held by one of the starter bolts...

But as you can read in my previous post, I dont think electrical is my issue anymore...
 

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