Wow, you really can fix things with a hammer

"Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)" (6speedhaven)
07/23/2015 at 10:27 • Filed to: None

My dad was visiting his dad and brother in India for the past month. I needed to fire up the Windstar once every few days to keep her from dying via the battery, but then one week into my dad’s trip to India the Windstar didn’t want to start.

Oddly enough, the battery hadn’t died. I knew something was wrong with the starter when I tried to turn the ignition over. But since it was Ramadan, I wasn’t even going to bother in the combination of 100 degree heat. Plus, my dad knows the car better than I do.

So I picked him up from the airport yesterday and just now he took a look at it. He tells me to get him a hammer. A few minutes of whacking and clinging and no-starts later, the Windstar chokes back to life.

Hammers really do fix things.

DISCUSSION (11)

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
07/23/2015 at 10:28

Bad starter. You can usually get a few extra starts out of it by banging it.

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
07/23/2015 at 10:35

You know what’s better than a hammer?

A torch. :)

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
07/23/2015 at 10:39

You can fix things by doing nothing at all, apparently.

I had an issue where none of my passenger power windows worked from their switches, but they all worked from the drivers door. This was intermittent, sometimes they would all work fine, and sometimes they would work slowly. I did notice (eventually) that they seemed to alternate between broken/fixed every time the front passenger door was opened and closed. I figured it was a pinched wire between the door and the body causing the problem, and my observations before I removed the door panel seemed to confirm it. I would run the window up and down while slowly opening and closing the door, and when the door reached a certain point the window would stop. I then pulled the door panel off, and from that point I couldn’t replicate the issue again. I couldn’t find any visibly damaged wires, and no matter how much pulling at concealed ones I did to locate the suspected break, nothing malfunctioned. Eventually I gave up and put the door panel back on. I haven’t had a problem since.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > K-Roll-PorscheTamer
07/23/2015 at 10:58

I really need to rewrite this appropriately.

Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie
07/23/2015 at 11:03

Did not know about the extra banging part.

Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer
07/23/2015 at 11:04

You fixed it! It was the door panel. :P

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
07/23/2015 at 11:07

Apparently.

Aaron M - MasoFiST > Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
07/23/2015 at 11:18

I “fixed” the starter in my Bonneville by jumping up and down on the front bumper until it unstuck. Now the blower motor, *that* is what needed the whacks from the hammer.

Tohru > Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
07/23/2015 at 11:32

On my red escort it sometimes wouldn’t start unless I tapped the positive battery terminal with a hammer. Then one day I was frustrated and tapped too hard. Broke the terminal off the battery :(

boxrocket > Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
07/23/2015 at 16:48

A solar-powered battery tender might be a good investment. I had one (still do, but don’t need it so much) for my Volvo when I worked from home.

William T > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie
07/28/2015 at 22:16

This is only true of starters without permanent magnets. Newer permanent magnet/gear reduction type starters can easily be rendered unrepairable with this technique.