Starter Heat Soak

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Spike Morelli

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Apr 12, 2015
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Location
Formerly Los Angeles, now Boise, Idaho
My Car
1971 Mustang Mach 1 ram air 351c H-code, fmx, ps,pb, medium yellow-gold, hubcaps and beauty rings.
I tow with my car, and in the past I've experienced excessive starter heat soak. I'd be way out on a highway a few hours out of town, when my wife asks me if we could stop at the next rest area to use the bathrooms. We pull in, shut the car off, use the facilities, maybe stretch our legs and.......no start. So I go and pull the freshly charged battery out of the dragboat and....no start. After waiting a while (an hour ), sure it starts right up again. This is with stock manifolds and headpipes. I should say "was". Some years ago, I bought an aluminized heat wrap from Summit Racing to wrap the starter with to prevent this ...and it's never happened again. I thought i'd post this tip to anyone out there who may have experienced this. Of course, mine is a severe example, but the fix is inexpensive and simple.

 
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We always switch to the newer style mini starters found on later Ford 5.0 engines.

You need to change the way your solenoid is wired but that part is simple.

The last swap we just did required a slight bit of grinding as the block had some extra slag that kept the starter from fully seating. Also not a big deal.



These PMGR style starters are available at any auto parts store and they never heat soak.

- Paul

 
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I tow with my car, and in the past I've experienced excessive starter heat soak. I'd be way out on a highway a few hours out of town, when my wife asks me if we could stop at the next rest area to use the bathrooms. We pull in, shut the car off, use the facilities, maybe stretch our legs and.......no start. So I go and pull the freshly charged battery out of the dragboat and....no start. After waiting a while (an hour ), sure it starts right up again. This is with stock manifolds and headpipes. I should say "was". Some years ago, I bought an aluminized heat wrap from Summit Racing to wrap the starter with to prevent this ...and it's never happened again. I thought i'd post this tip to anyone out there who may have experienced this. Of course, mine is a severe example, but the fix is inexpensive and simple.
Thanks for sharing, that's great information. When you say it wouldn't start, I take it the starter either dragged or didn't turn over?

I had a similar situation a couple of years ago where after driving it for a while it was hard to start until it cooled down. Mine cranked over fine so the issue wasn't the starter. Turns out it was a fuel vapor lock/percolation type problem; putting a heat shield over the stainless steel fuel line in the engine bay remedied it. The heat shield doesn't look as good as the bare fuel line but it does it's job in my case.

So two "potential" simple remedies for cars hard to start when hot.

Heathshield.jpg

 
Jim, In my particular situation it was starter heat soak. The starter didn't drag, it wouldn't turn over . The aluminized wrap was only $14 from Summit ( back then ). I think it may be around $24 now, but it was a quick and easy fix. I experienced the same problem with my Olds 442 that I used to have, and tow with. The fix for the Olds was the same, although GM makes a bolt on starter shield for their Chevy/GMC trucks that I used and solved the problem.

 
I went through several starters thinking they were the issue. I installed a big CCA Optima battery and have not had the problem since.

 
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