Starter problem?

c0reyl wrote:

So I went this morning without my migraine to try and start it and noticed my fuel pump is sounding really weird. It sounds more like a weird car idling sound than a fuel pump. Guess I need to swap that over too. Seriously is my entire car trying to break on me? Every time I fix something, something else breaks. If I wasn't doing everything myself and have this parts buick then I'd be paying thousands out the ass to keep my car and it would be a money pit and I'd have been retarded to keep it.

And I still ask myself it it's actually worth having at this point, but my dumbass is too curious to get rid of it and wants it as a guinea pig to learn, plus I really like this car, so I'm a dumbass for investing this much effort in a crappy $700 car with everything but the actual engine breaking on me. I swear everything will fall out of this car, but the engine would probably still run fine just to make fun of me

I dunno maybe I'm just losing some hope after spending over a month on and off restoring my interior, having random electrical problems everywhere and now all this shit, and being financially poor doesn't help either. If I didn't have Parts Buick then I'd have had to have this car either sit in a shed for years or get rid of it.

You might want to chill a little - the Riv's engineered for a certain lifetime and pretty much all our cars are well beyond that. Sometimes stuff will wear out all at once if it is engineered for a target lifetime. Again - your car is not posessed, it is engineered. And it is not engineered to last for ever. Most likely the reason the car was only $700 to you in the first place had something to do with a chorus of failures as various parts simultaneously reached their engineered lifetimes.

As for the fuel pressure I don't know the spec but IIRC it's above 35 psi at the fuel rail schraeder valve after the system is fully pressurized during startup. Hopefully someone else will post the actual number. As for the fuel pump noise, thing to do is pull the fuel pump access cover in the trunk and take a look. Maybe the lock ring rusted thru and the pump is loose in the tank (this is NOT at all likely, if it was you'd be complaining about a gasoline smell. But you should look). Some fuel pumps are kinda loud even though they are still working good serviceable. None of them are silent, except if they are dead then they go silent. As for "dying" sound it is hard to tell - but a hint that it is dying is that it takes more than a few seconds to get the fuel pressure up to where it will start the car. During the start sequence the FP comes on after the car's systems pass the PCM's preliminary electrical check. This all happens darn near as soon as you turn the key - actually, the starter motor noise masks the sound of the fuel pump in a normal startup.

As for the trouble shooting - this is just an aside - it would be mad easier if you could borrow a GM Tech II scanner for a week or 2 - you can command the fuel pump on and read a whole lot of sensor data with that thing. It would cut hours off your diagnosis.

What you need to do now, though is since you know the FP is coming on, you need to find out if it is getting up to pressure. Unilt you do that I don't have anything else for you. You now need the number for the pressure that you read with a gage at the fuel rail at the KO (key on) part of the start sequence.

You do not need to know about the fuel filter at this time.

You do not need to know about a push to start system.

You do not need to know about anything else that broke in the past.

You need to be aware that it's an older car and stuff will continue breaking in the future, for a while, until you work through replacing the things that wore out.

You wrote above that you wanted to have the car as a guinea pig? Good. Then let's work together to learn how to focus on and achieve systematic troubleshooting. Which if you are using the car as a guinea pig, is exactly what you wanted. Clear enough?

Now do what it takes to find out what the fuel pressure is, at the rail.

Albertj

Hah, I feel kind of stupid for thinking the noise was the fuel pump. It turns out the rear air suspension assist motor was acting up because the front of the car was still on the jack stand. Swapping the fuel pump relay fixed the start up problem completely. I'm hoping the bad relay was the reason I had throttle response problems too. It turns out as my step dad tells me, the smaller starter from supercharged 95 parts buick is a high torque starter. It was a pain in the ass to swap mostly because I literally couldn't move at all under the car, but well worth it. The car starts up instantly, more responsive than Iv'e ever seen it. The starter motor itself is MUCH more smooth than the old one has ever been. I really like the fact that when it was cranking earlier, even after the starter had no power, it would still crank over a couple turns from it's own momentum. That makes me really happy because my old one would just cut off and it would stop instantly.

Anyway next thing to focus on is electrical. I'm going to get my alternator tested at Advance Auto today and try and see if they can tell me how many amps its pushing out but I don't know if they can do that while it's in the vehicle. if I can't get a good answer then I'll just try and swap it anyway because I know for a fact the other one passed good.

The car was bought actually for $750 with no issues at all other than some minor problem that cost $400 at the time, and it was bought 10 years ago. I grew up in this car part of my life actually and nothing ever started breaking on it until I got it, and they started before I ever modified anything.

I say the car is a guinea pig because it's taught me more than it's actual value ever was worth just by putting up with it and trying to fix it myself. I love the car but sometimes I get really mad at her when I can't drive her around for months or if the ABS randomly locks up on me nearly killing me and such

Anyway hopefully she will behave better now and I think I'm going to take a long break from going apeshit trying to modify things for a while after she gets reliable again. it would be amazing to try and get that 75mm throttle body off the S/C Series I motor to somehow work on my car and whatnot but I need a daily driver, so I might fix my 93 Eclipse GS and do a 4G63T six bolt swap into the F5M22 shorter geared tranny as a working car for if I wanna go apeshit modifying things. Having only 200 horsepower sucks but oh well.

c0reyl wrote:

Hah, I feel kind of stupid for thinking the noise was the fuel pump. It turns out the rear air suspension assist motor was acting up because the front of the car was still on the jack stand. Swapping the fuel pump relay fixed the start up problem completely. I'm hoping the bad relay was the reason I had throttle response problems too. It turns out as my step dad tells me, the smaller starter from supercharged 95 parts buick is a high torque starter. It was a pain in the ass to swap mostly because I literally couldn't move at all under the car, but well worth it. The car starts up instantly, more responsive than Iv'e ever seen it. The starter motor itself is MUCH more smooth than the old one has ever been. I really like the fact that when it was cranking earlier, even after the starter had no power, it would still crank over a couple turns from it's own momentum. That makes me really happy because my old one would just cut off and it would stop instantly.

Anyway next thing to focus on is electrical. I'm going to get my alternator tested at Advance Auto today and try and see if they can tell me how many amps its pushing out but I don't know if they can do that while it's in the vehicle. if I can't get a good answer then I'll just try and swap it anyway because I know for a fact the other one passed good.

The car was bought actually for $750 with no issues at all other than some minor problem that cost $400 at the time, and it was bought 10 years ago. I grew up in this car part of my life actually and nothing ever started breaking on it until I got it, and they started before I ever modified anything.

I say the car is a guinea pig because it's taught me more than it's actual value ever was worth just by putting up with it and trying to fix it myself. I love the car but sometimes I get really mad at her when I can't drive her around for months or if the ABS randomly locks up on me nearly killing me and such

Anyway hopefully she will behave better now and I think I'm going to take a long break from going apeshit trying to modify things for a while after she gets reliable again. it would be amazing to try and get that 75mm throttle body off the S/C Series I motor to somehow work on my car and whatnot but I need a daily driver, so I might fix my 93 Eclipse GS and do a 4G63T six bolt swap into the F5M22 shorter geared tranny as a working car for if I wanna go apeshit modifying things. Having only 200 horsepower sucks but oh well.

I get it, i think.

Pat yourself on teh back for finding that relay.

IIRC you will have to remove the alternator for testing. If it is a mild day you can R&R it in the Advance parking lot... I would not, but the point is there's not really anything in the way.

By the way, it's a good idea to disconnect the battery before working on the car's electricals -- even if it is someting benign like taking out the alternator. The (+) terminal under the hood is a good enough disconnect for the Riv.

And as always this advice is only worth what you paid for it.

Albertj

albertj wrote:

c0reyl wrote:

Hah, I feel kind of stupid for thinking the noise was the fuel pump. It turns out the rear air suspension assist motor was acting up because the front of the car was still on the jack stand. Swapping the fuel pump relay fixed the start up problem completely. I'm hoping the bad relay was the reason I had throttle response problems too. It turns out as my step dad tells me, the smaller starter from supercharged 95 parts buick is a high torque starter. It was a pain in the ass to swap mostly because I literally couldn't move at all under the car, but well worth it. The car starts up instantly, more responsive than Iv'e ever seen it. The starter motor itself is MUCH more smooth than the old one has ever been. I really like the fact that when it was cranking earlier, even after the starter had no power, it would still crank over a couple turns from it's own momentum. That makes me really happy because my old one would just cut off and it would stop instantly.

Anyway next thing to focus on is electrical. I'm going to get my alternator tested at Advance Auto today and try and see if they can tell me how many amps its pushing out but I don't know if they can do that while it's in the vehicle. if I can't get a good answer then I'll just try and swap it anyway because I know for a fact the other one passed good.

The car was bought actually for $750 with no issues at all other than some minor problem that cost $400 at the time, and it was bought 10 years ago. I grew up in this car part of my life actually and nothing ever started breaking on it until I got it, and they started before I ever modified anything.

I say the car is a guinea pig because it's taught me more than it's actual value ever was worth just by putting up with it and trying to fix it myself. I love the car but sometimes I get really mad at her when I can't drive her around for months or if the ABS randomly locks up on me nearly killing me and such

Anyway hopefully she will behave better now and I think I'm going to take a long break from going apeshit trying to modify things for a while after she gets reliable again. it would be amazing to try and get that 75mm throttle body off the S/C Series I motor to somehow work on my car and whatnot but I need a daily driver, so I might fix my 93 Eclipse GS and do a 4G63T six bolt swap into the F5M22 shorter geared tranny as a working car for if I wanna go apeshit modifying things. Having only 200 horsepower sucks but oh well.

I get it, i think.

Pat yourself on teh back for finding that relay.

IIRC you will have to remove the alternator for testing. If it is a mild day you can R&R it in the Advance parking lot... I would not, but the point is there's not really anything in the way.

By the way, it's a good idea to disconnect the battery before working on the car's electricals -- even if it is someting benign like taking out the alternator. The (+) terminal under the hood is a good enough disconnect for the Riv.

And as always this advice is only worth what you paid for it.

Albertj

Thanks

I'm just glad the problem was relatively simple, and the fact I have an entire extra buick to scavenge parts off of. Got a whole new more attractive dark blue interior out of her, starter, alternator will probably be dropped in soon just to see if it fixes my speaker wine and charging battery problems, it's got a whole set of great free tires to scavenge, relay swap, that throttle body alone costs more than the car was bought for, lol. I really want a 75mm throttle body

Anyway, electrical is going to suck. I noticed my damn blower motor no longer works for some reason. Time to check fuses, then the blower blend door motors I just replaced, then see if I have a plague in my car somewhere trying to find this damn short circuit. What I dont get is I left the battery connected for about a week and the short didn't even drain it enough to prevent me starting. Its drawing almost no power at all, but then why would my gauge backlights, seat motors and AC stop working when they all together use a huge amount of power? I had the car tested today at Advance auto and with my sound system on pause, the system was only pulling like 17 and a half amps. seems incredibly low to me.

Your speaker whine is probably due to a combination of RFI and at least one bad ground. There are probably some places you should have used shielded wire but did not. Depending on your amplifier strategy it may even have made sense to use shielded wire for the speaker connections. If the whine runs up and down with engine RPM the ground to the alternator's internal voltage regulator probably could use cleaning. In "the old days" it could also be a bad suppression capacitor on the ignition point pack. How your sound system is wired in will make all the difference in this case. You may have to install a power filter and rewire the system through that. If I were you I'd just work on finding the power drains.

The reason your short did not kill your new battery is probably that the Riv has "retained accessory power" meaning that it keeps the accessories on for a while after you turn off the key and turns them all off after wither you exit the car or about 10 minutes have passed. If you turn on the accessories via the key it will run them for about 1/2 hour I think, the car then shuts the power off.

Point being - your short is on a circuit protected by the accessory power management feature. The car turns itself off after a while except for the remote receiver and the power seats.

My guess is you have a very hot thermal breaker under the rear seat. You should consider flipping up the rear seat and checking them, they are little chrome plated things, the size of maxifuses, in the fuse panels on the drivers side under the rear seat. if one is hot it can give you 1st degree burns (or poach a very small egg) so be careful.

Thinking about it more it could be as simple as part of your sound system is on when it should not be. This could happen if you wired it to something that thinks it is on most of the time like the cigarette lighter or instrument lighting circuit. With no sound input from source material, a radio receiver or whatever it will happily sit there and suck power and you won't hear a thing.

Albert

I know for a fact that the sound system is wired right. The ground is chassis ground. Head unit amplification doesn't have the whine. Chassis ground cable from battery terminal is sanded to brand new copper, chassis is sanded to brand new chassis brush finish. Bolt is sanded too. The couple retaining rings on my battery terminals are sanded. No need to "the big three" for my sound system because the riv has huge wires of high quality. Battery is about a week old. Auto craft gold 840CCA, and 1000 cranking amps at 32 degrees. I have decent enough quality Alpine amps. A mono 400 watt mono block class D and a 400 watt class AB component amp both well under 1%THD. Wires are all wired so no two wires of a different category touch each other. Eg: the power won't touch the speaker wire which won't touch the remote ore amp power input. It's wired right, soldered, liquid taped and then electrical tape over that to the Instrument panel wire harness. For radio controls and such.

You're probably right about the auto shutoff feature didn't even think of that. I'll check thermal fuses next time I drive to the store, but lick my finger and tap to see if it sizzles works on a 400 degree frying pan lol

Your whine is probably a classic ground loop issue. It's what happens when one of your grounds is "better" than the others. Google it. Most likely your head unit isn't well-grounded. Try grounding the head unit chassis to the RCA ground - this has worked for some. In my case, I ran all my grounds to a distribution block and then to the (-) battery terminal through a cable. Worked (all grounds identical).

But... fix the starting issue first. A ground loop is the last thing to be worried about right now.

Corey, based on what you wrote I don't think your system is wired right (hear me out, then complain).

If your head and your amps are grounded at different points on the chassis, especially in high amplification audio equipment you will have an issue. The wiring approach you oultined works for light bulbs (usually) but not for amplified audio.

Without going into nauseating detail, there are a few things that happen. One is that sometimes the grounding **internal** to the components is not what it should be. That can lead to problems. Another thing is that sometimes you pick up an AC or RF signal on a ground line. That is, if you are measuring the DC there's no voltage it shows ground. But because of other electronics (to your head unit, the amps look like other electronics) there is an AC signal picked up by the system because they are grounded at different points. Ground loops are what picks up these spurious signals. They are, as a rule, established EVERY time you wire up an audio ground at more than one location. Two or more ground points = ground loop. Every stinking time. Period. Third, if you are not using shielded cable for all your audio runs, well, you might need to just to drain the noise so that it does not go as feedback to your final amps (or input from the head to the boosters) and thereby get amplified so you can hear it. So you might need to look into shielded cables for all the audio runs.

You may find these sites interesting for more detail:

http://www.caraudio.com/forums/wiring-electrical-installation-help/198477-engine-whine-ground-loop-fixes-take-two.html

http://www.termpro.com/asp/pubs.asp?ID=121

If changing your wiring does not work, here are some items you can buy that may help:

http://www.sonicelectronix.com/cat_i469_noise-filters.html


Now that you've read what I have to say, if you wanna complain then let me have it, complain away.

All that said, I hope it clears things. up. Your fix could be as simple as tying all those components together at one grounding block and then grounding them all right to the battery. We'll see.

Albertj

PS - routing the grounds to a block just happened to work for me. It's not the accepted norm I'm sure. There are plenty of audio gurus out there who wouldn't do it that way. I've seen many good installs that grounded to different points on the chassis. The audio equipment you use and its condition can also make the difference. For example, if any of the grounds inside your amps or head has come loose (broken solder lead), you will have an unsolvable chronic noise problem.

To hunt down noise, I like to isolate each component and listen to its output with headphones. Adjust your gains carefully, and if you value your ears/phones, don't plug directly into an amp's output stage unless you know what you're doing.

The overarching problem is that a vehicle's ground is not really a ground - it "floats" and is insulated from true ground (earth) by the vehicle tires. So the ground it generally taken to mean the parts of the car with the same voltage potential as the (-) terminal on the battery... it's all a misnomer really if only because the (-) terminal is where all the electrons, having (-) charges, flow *from* heh heh.

So in a vehicle there are often lots of problems with various audio frequency or RF signals that are imposed on the ground.

Albertj

Hmm I didn't know that at all. So if I were to ground my front stage at the same exact location as the grounding of the head unit, it would solve the whine possibly?

I'm doing some sound rewiring today anyway so I could easily do that while I'm at it. after I get my old subwoofer setup back in, I'm going to try and isolate this short circuit to a certain fuse and see if I can find the culprit

No offense but if that's all you surmised, you need to reread the relevant posts.