by Arkie » Thu Oct 08, 2015 9:54 am
Way out in the boonies and engine crank hung on compressio0n stroke and click, click click.
Been their on ATV's by myself (no cell phone or cell phone signal) and sure dread the thought of a long hike.
To get er going see if the engine has a compression release mechanism. If so activate the compression release and try to start. compression release will reduce the load on the electric start system.
If the rig has a manual rope crank they usually also have a MANUAL Compression release, activate the compression release pull the rope and hit the electric start at same time the engine is turning over. I've done this to get out of the woods.
Sometimes if you can't quite figure it out with voltmeter voltage tests, trying jumping to your eq with jumper cables carefully from a vehicle, when you testing the rig, just to see if the additional battery turns it over good. If so suspect a bad battery.
I've seen batteries just weak enough especially on ATV eq that the starter would appear bad and the jumper from a vec would make it go so as to determine if battery is little weak. (I've had guys bring me $150 starters from ATV's to bench test and I would not even bother doing such if the engine was cranking slow like yours, because too many lesser priced things are usually what's bad. I tell them to bring me the machine or at least replace the battery if they have not already done so especially if the bat is over year old. Also I advise them that several automotive parts places and even ole Harbor Freight sells battery testers that apply around 100 amp crank load to a battery so as to test the battery (good/Bad scale) under load that will ID a battery that is just a little bit weak, USUALLY. (these testers need to be connected directly to the battery terminals of the battery under test instead of the battery cables, unless you are using the load tester to test the cable connections. Also keep in mind that when jumping to a battery from another vec battery that you are bypassing the possibility of a bad battery cable connection in the suspect vec and also that a engine that is at operating temp (not cold) will take more crank amps to get thru the compression stroke.
Also sometimes when you are in the boonies or caught out without an electrical tester and crank is weak or no go you can carefully find a bad connection by carefully feeling of the terminal connections right after trying to crank. (using fingers to feel of connections) a bad connection will produce heat and sometimes hot enough to fry meat).
I'm a electrician and electronics tech and sometimes your crank/compression hang issue is one of the harder ones to pin down to only one thing being bad and even harder if its a combo of more than thing. (weak battery and valves out of adjustment for example)