I have a '79 RX7 that I have been tinkering with. It ran last summer and I am trying to get it to run again. Over the winter, I tried starting it up and it would never fire. I thought it was a dead battery.

So tonight, I pulled my daily driver up to it and tried jumping it. All that happened is the engine turned over once. I could tell it was trying to turn over again, but it just couldn't. It will always turn over once, but nothing more.

Any ideas on what the problem could be? Is it the starter (in which case, I could swap the one off my '81) or is it something deeper?

 

try hooking up your battery with the running car, NOT running, and just hook up the battery cables in parallel. red - pos to pos and black - neg to neg. THEN start and realize that your battery is junk. or just put the good battery in the rx if you like.

 

Thanks for the tip. I'll go out and try that out in a little bit.

Just out of curiosity though, why would it make a difference if the car with the good battery was running or not? I thought that having it running would generate more voltage.

 

Bringing this thread back from the dead. Nothing has worked so far. Anyone have any ideas why my car is cranking super-slow?

 

sounsd like you've got a drain somewhere. do all of the other electrical components work?

 

Check and/or clean
battery (12v or more when charged)
cable to battery connections
cable to body ground (inside left shock tower)
cable to engine ground (on long starter bolt)
Cable to starter connection (under car on starter)
the starter
and last but not least the battery cables themselves can corrode internally.

Most parts stores will test batteries, starters and alternators for free if you remove them from the car and bring them in.

 

i replaced my cables.. that greatly helped with everything. and its pretty cheap...