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I’m running into some issues getting my 2004 4 Runner Limited, with 320000 kms, fired up. The issue has happened just out of the blue this morning as I was trying to go to work. When I got home in the evening, I made a quick video of what’s happening here:
I of course suspected a low battery, so hooked it up to my car and let it charge for a while. Verified the voltage across the leads was quite low (~9V) prior to charging. Had it up to 13+V and tried again, but the exact same occurred.
I even tried hooking my booster cables up to the leads themselves (skipping the battery), but the same result.
I’ve had plenty of dead batteries before and am familiar with the tell-tale click click click, but this seems different. I’ve begun the process of removing the starter, which hasn’t been much fun thus-far.
Am I going in the right direction or should I hold off?
Should I be concerned about flywheel damage?
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After trying in the morning, first reading we took showed 9.x volts after it sitting all day. Tried it a couple times after boosting with the jumper cables disconnected and didn’t see a huge drop in voltage, came down to 12.8ish as I recall. No indication on the starter cable of any arc (melted insulator or the like) and the connections appeared to be tight with little to no corrosion.
Considering your lights are going dark in sequence with the clicking..
I suspect a short to ground..
Either from the starter relay or solenoidThe Starter has two wires going to it. A heavy gauge wire off the battery that should have system voltage on it at all time. The other is a smaller wire and it goes into the solenoid. While attempting to crank the engine measure the voltage on this wire. You should have system voltage on this wire with the key in the crank position. Also the starter itself is grounded through the housing to the engine block. Also would want to verify good ground on starter housing. If those check out good. Then your starter is defective
No way would i be pulling the starter just yet. Need to test, not guess. The only advice i agree with is from ArmedsouthernER. If there was a short to ground you would blow a fuse and it would stop clicking at all. Lights are going dim due to voltage drop while attempting to crank engine – again most likely not due to a short to ground. (One thing I am not clear about is what you are saying battery voltage is after charging. Is it holding 12v or so while cranking after charging?. Or if voltage drops fast to 9v or lower you may simply have a battery issue. I’m assuming from here on out battery is good.)
First thing is to check all the easy/basic stuff. namely battery terminal connections and starter connections and ground connections. This usually finds the issue.
Like what ArmedsouthernER said, you can check for solenoid control voltage at starter to make sure it is getting power, but from sound of clicking in vid it is. If not, you need to trace down where open is in that control wire circuit. If control is ok, move to below steps.
You noted the battery was 9v in the morning so obviously something drained the battery overnight. That is A problem but may not be THE problem. If voltage is staying up across battery posts during cranking after charging then deal with parasitic draw later.
The way I like to test starter is check voltage between battery posts (and i mean DMM leads on posts, NOT terminals. Being on terminals i got wrong diagnosis once) while cranking. If voltage stays above around 10V, then repeat tests across starter. Red lead on main big power feed post (again NOT terminal but on post ) of starter, black lead to starter housing bolt (clear of paint, grease grime etc. need a good ground connection). crank engine. If voltage drop is the same reading as across battery (10v or above), then starter/solenoid is bad and needs to be replaced. (with only possible exceptions to this being a seized engine or seized accessory like an alternator that is preventing starter from turning engine. But again from sound of video these don’t at all sound likely)
If voltage drop is a lot lower across starter – say 6v, then you have a wiring problem. Move black lead you have on starter housing to battery negative post (not terminal) and repeat cranking. If voltage drop goes back to same reading as across battery ( >= 10v), you have a grounding wire problem between battery and starter. If voltage still drops low, problem is on power feed side. From here you trace the path from battery to power/ground connections taking voltage drop readings along the way to find where the unwanted drop is.
I hope this makes sense.
Realized I didn’t take the time to thank everyone for their input and update on the situation – turns out, I’m an idiot.
Being new to self-diagnosing issues, the test I performed bypassing my old battery lead me down a somewhat pricier path than I would have liked. Turns out that for some reason, when I unhooked the leads from my battery and connected jumper cables directly to the leads, I still wasn’t getting enough current to get the truck started.
This resulted in me replacing the starter and starter relay (with no effect, but a good learning experience). Out of frustration, I went and bought a new battery with the “ahh, screw it” mentality, and as soon as I installed it, she fired right up. Ahh well, live and learn!
Thanks all for your input!
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