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90' 4runner - New Battery - Needs Alternator or starter?
Hello , I have a 1990 toyota 4runner sr5 3.0. I put in a new battery and it seems I'm not getting a charge. It's cold now, purchased a cold start battery , but unless I jump it I'm not getting a clean start. I think I hear the alternator grinding? is that possible? I checked the fuzes and they are good, also could this be a starter issue? It seems to not have enough power to turn over unless I jump it. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, thank you in advance.
Did you check the terminals that go on the battery are clean and good, bare metal? It doesn't take a lot of corrosion to make the power too low to crank it, but when you jump it, you're applying a good connection from the external battery. The clamps clean the terminals to bare metal, so, good connection.
Same for charging the battery IN the truck. If the terminals are dirty/corroded, the alternator won't charge the battery well with the truck running.
Have you checked the fusible link between the alt and the battery? Make sure you pull both battery terminals before dong any ohming. It doesn't take but a little voltage to trash a multimeter in ohms mode. Ohm between the battery positive terminal, not the post ON the battery, the terminal that goes onto it, and the alternator B+ terminal, with the heavy, white wire bolted on it, and the rubber boot over it. If it's any higher than about 0.5 ohms on the meters lowest ohm scale, the FL is bad.
Is the heavy wire between the battery positive terminal and the starter in good shape? Clean, bare metal where it's attached to the terminal, and where it bolts onto the starter, again, with a rubber boot on it.
Have you verified ALL 4 of the primary grounds? Especially the heavy wire between the battery negative terminal and the engine block, and the one between the alternator and the power steering pump. Again, nice clean, bare metal on both ends, especially the terminal. Corrosion from battery acid can get into the insulation, and trash the wire inside the insulation with no external indication. A wiggle while ohming it out can tell the tale. Not only nice clean metal on both ends, but low to 0 ohms along them.
Just a few thoughts. I get so few any more...
Pat☺
Hello and thank you for the help. I went through these steps, I believe the ground cable connected to the starter may be the issue. I wiggled it and almost got it to turn over, I tapped the starter and same thing almost turned over, but then it goes back to just the click sounds. Battery is fully charged. How do I determine if it's the starter, any specifics for this?
Bypass the relay and ignition switch, remove the little wire from the starter and run a temporary wire up to the battery if this turns it over consistently you probably have the "usual" issue. Search for Rad4Runner's write up on the starter relay.
Wrong forum BUT... A problem well-stated is almost solved. Model-Year-Engine-TRANSMISSION-trim on signature, then put us at your truck. Describe exactly what you see, hear, feel (not to mention frustration - LOL). Exactly what clicks and where?
If hearing only clicking, most likely, you have an auto trans without starter relay or you have a starter relay wired WRONG AT THE FACTORY, or starter relay wired correctly but in WRONG LOCATION (should be electrically AND physically between battery and starter) here: https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116.../#post52422426
If you replaced the battery and truck starts acting up, its not your starter
keyword: clicknocrank
Last edited by RAD4Runner; 12-26-2020 at 08:51 AM.
I believe the ground cable connected to the starter
As far as I know, and i may be wrong, but there's no ground connected directly to the starter. It picks up it's ground by being bolted to the engine block. The main ground for the engine block goes directly from the battery negative terminal down to either the AC compressor mounting bracket, or, if no AC, the engine block where the compressor bracket would be if the AC existed.
If you wiggled that heavy wire, and suddenly things worked, or worked better, sounds like there's a problem with the wire someplace. It's not that difficult to pull the wire off completely to check it out. Clamp your ohm meter contacts, one to each end of the wire. First, though, check that the ring terminals on each end of the wire are crimped down good and tight. If the end that goes onto the battery doesn't use a ring terminal, it's probably crimped down onto the terminal that clamps onto the battery. Those connections get corrosion IN them from battery acid. Check it very carefully.
Anywho, ohm it while wiggling the wire, all along it's length. Look for jumps in the ohm reading. It's easier to see such things with an analog type meter. One with a needle. If you have any doubt about the wire, replace it. Most auto parts stores carry all the stuff you need. Make sure you get a heavy enough gauge wire. 1-0 or 2-0 AWG, pronounced 1-aught or 2-aught, will do well.
A side note: The terminals that actually clamp onto the battery terminals are best to be the "marine" terminals. The ones that clamp on the battery and have a screw post sticking up from them to screw the wires onto. Clamp ring terminals onto the wire ends that go onto the terminals with meltwall heat-shrink on them. That way, you can quickly and easily remove, and install, wires from the battery. Marine terminals also are much easier to clean, and the ring terminals on the wires are easy to clean as well. A wire brush will scrub off corrosion quickly and easily. The heat-shink prevents fluids, such as battery acid, from getting down inside the insulation.
All this applies to the heavy gauge wire down to the starter from the battery positive terminal, as well.
"Normal" battery terminals, the bare, stripped off, wire, is usually clamped down onto the terminal with a "strap" across it, bolted down to the terminal. This leaves the wire wide open for all kinds of fluids to get down into the wire, inside the insulation. Especially the battery acid that comes out of the battery. This corrodes the wire where you can't see it, and even small flexes with break the small strands of the wire. Like for example running the engine at idle, they tend to move around a bit. Doesn't take much. After enough break, it can't carry enough current to properly operate the starter, but the twire LOOKS fine on the outside.
Again, you can easily replace this wire with one you manufacture. It's a straight run from the battery to the starter of a heavy gauge wire. A lot of auto parts stores also carry "pre-made" cables for the starter and engine ground, but most of them come with regular battery terminals on them, so, away you go with the same problems again. I personally feel it's much better to make your own cables, and use Marine terminals on the battery.
The most expensive part to buy is a heavy gauge wire crimping tool, but, in the scheme of things, it's a good investment to make. You'll use it, never fear!
, ill film the second video I went to tighten the terminal and it snapped thank you autozone LOL. Going to order the original parts if available or higher quality marine setup cables that are all connected.
Marine terminals don't normally come with wires already attached. Easy to pull the wire off the terminal you bought, clamp a ring terminal. with heat-shrink, onto it, and use it on a marine terminal. Not a total loss, and saves you having to buy a whole other wire.
The terminal you show in picture #4 is a prime example of what you do NOT want. Notice that 1) where the wire is clamped to the terminal, the insulation is wide open to the environment. This allows acid from the battery, and they do spit out acid, especially when charging, like right after a start, to get inside the insulation and start it's dirty work. 2) If you want to add another wire, you either have to clamp the bare wire under the strap, again, wide open to the environment, or put a ring terminal on it, and use one of the two bolts that hold the strap on.
A Marine terminal just has a screw post sticking up from it, and comes with a wing-nut and washer. This allows you to clamp it on the battery, and leave it there, even if you need to take wires on or off of it. Presuming they have ring terminals on them, as shown in picture #5. BTW: It's good they have tape on the terminals to protect them from nastiness from getting inside the insulation, BUT, tape's adhesive will degrade fairly quickly. The tape will loosen up, and no longer protect the wire. Heat-shrink doesn't do that, especially "meltwall", or FIT-300 type heat-shrink. That has a glue sort of inner lining in it, and when you heat it to shrink it down, the glue melts, flows around whatever it's being shrunk to, and seals it from the environment permanently.
I know I harp on this stuff a lot, but I feel it's important to prevent problems down the road. BTW: The large wire you show clamped to the starter comes directly from the battery positive terminal. That's what provides the very high current to turn the starter when the solenoid gets energized by +12VDC applied from the key switch to the smaller wire on the spade terminal on the starter.There should be a wire, just as heavy gauge as the positive wire from the battery, going straight from the battery negative terminal to the AC compressor mount, or the engine block where the bracket would bolt on.
From the pictures you show, if it were me, and you're not me, but if it were, I would pull the heavy gauge wires from the battery terminals to the starter and engine block, make sure they're both good and clean, including where they clamp on at both ends, and put a little dielectric grease on when you reinstall them. It helps keep the environmental crud out of the connection. Reduces the amount of corrosion, and so on. And yes, oil will eventually work it's way under bolt on ring terminals, as well as spade terminals. Clean clean clean, that's the secret.
You should have two heavy gauge wires from the battery negative terminal. One down to the engine block as described above, and one to the body. There's an excellent place to bolt it down just in front of the battery, right behind the headlight. Again, though, a marine type terminal will make it easy to manufacture and attach the wires. You need to pull the battery negative leads to work on the truck, and you will, the wingnut on the marine terminal unscrews easily, and the two negative wires slide right up and off. When you're all done, they slide right back on, and screw down with the wing nut again.
The dies to form those "marine grade" crimps are kind of pricey and typically specific to the wire guage and connector brand line.
The biggest issue I see here is the lack of the body ground, that's the negative lead between battery - and the inner fender, which is mentioned above. Look around there between the battery and distribution block (fuse box) you're going to find an empty hole with a nut welded to the backside. There should be a wire about the same size as the one coming out of the fuse box attached here (again between battery negative and the inner fender at that hole). Don't fret to much over the exact size matching just grab a 12" (black!) Wire from the parts store battery section, and connect it to the battery terminal (ground side) with the single connection in the video.
For bonus points! Replace the other ground wire also while your there it's about 2-1/2 3 foot long and attaches somewhere around the lower front of the engine. Invest in some brass wire brushes and clean up that terminal end heading to the starter, it's very much not clean enough it should look like a brand new penny. Also move the ring terminals on the positive battery terminal to outside the "clamp" so they are touching the bolt head, in fact you don't need that clamp part these two ring terminals are different thicknesses which results in in uneven contact (less surface area touching).
Just to help a little:
These are the terminals and ring terminals, or lugs, I used on mine. Two marine terminals, one to each battery post, and enough lugs for me to make 3 new wires. 1/0 wire for both the main grounds off the battery, one to the body, one to the engine block as described above, and one from the battery positive direct to the starter. Believe it or not, while it's best to use the proper crimping tool for the size of the lug and the wire being crimped into it, you can pull a shade-tree mechanic's trick to crimp them down: Use the "wire cutter" part of a vice-grips type pliers. Turn them so it runs the long way along the lug's wire cup.
Just set them to not close all the way. Make sure you put the heat-shrink on before you start. Embarassing to have to cut off and throw away a perfectly good terminal because you need to get the heatshrink on, but forgot it. Not that *I* ever did that myself...ahem moving on...nothing to see here... Set the vice-grips to close 1/3 to 1/2 the width of the part of the lug the wire goes into (gozinta, as we e-techs call it ), or what's called the wire cup. That will get a perfectly serviceable crimp onto it. If you can give it a small tug, and it doesn't pull out, you did it right.
Then slide the heat-shrink down to where it starts to spread out into the ring part of the lug, and shrink it down.
I use a heat-gun, but a hair dryer, if it's hot enough, will do it. Alternatively, the trusty Zippo, or at worst Bic Butane lighter will do the job. I smoke, for the last 50 years, and I carry a Zippo. Works if you don't want to walk all the way back into the shop to get a heat-gun. Marine Terminals Marine Lugs
Issue resolved, once I took out the starter and we jumped it. The head came out but no spin, or it would be every other 5/6th time. Replaced starter, all new cables from starter to battery, new ground, sold connecting points. Fired right up.
I invested in this hydraulic crimper. Should be able to do most automotive crimping.
The dies are not labeled with AWG and I haven't figured out what they mean, yet. Die labeled 16 is used for 6AWG.
Perhaps metric system?
12-23-2020 | 01:54 AM
