One or two... setbacks...
 

So I blew the coolant line going from the rear housing to the TB last weekend. No big deal, got more hose and yesterday I replaced it (managed to do it w/o pulling the tranny or intake assembly). I even had this british chick I'm starting to date come along and help (little hands got in there much better than mine!).

So I got that taken care of, refilled the radiator, burped the system and swapped out my DP for one with an extra bung and head wrapping. Not a problem.

Now I know my Alternator is on the way out, voltage on the Commander is not steady and will read anywhere from 11.8-13.5 while I am driving. I've ordered a new (reman) from Ray Crowe.

The problem comes in that my car started up fine while it was on the lift, drove it off the lift, still peachy. I turned the car off after she was outside of the shop to swap out of my boots I had been working in before driving home... and the 7 wouldn't start again.. volts dropped into the 8 range while I was trying to get it to crank up. At first it was turning over, but not starting, then just clicking, then nothing.

What would you say? Is this just a case of the Alternator going to shit? or is there something more I need to be worrying about? I *did* have an unsteady idle while the car was coming off the lift, she was bouncing about 1k up and down in a regular pulse...

The cranking and not starting at first may be a sign that you flooded it - how long was it running before you shut it off? If it was only a minute or two, it's probably flooded.

The low cranking voltage and the clicking after cranking for a while is a probably a sign of low battery charge/capacity. The battery could be shot due to old age, etc., or the bad alternator - hard to tell from here.

Good call on the flooding. I had the engine running long enough to have the coolant putting off some steam while I was burping the system. When I brought her off the ramp it was only on for a minute or so..

I ran a check a little while back on both the alternator and the Battery, the alternator was putting out less voltage than it was receiving. The battery checked out as good (battery was my initial thought).

I've never flooded the engine out before.. you think it could have flooded also in part to not having enough energy in the system to get a good spark to ignite and start up?

Time to search on how to fix a flooded engine (or will sitting for a week just make it right itself?)

Check your battery connections and change out the battery if needed.

Later

Check the wiring going to your starter. My oem clip on the ground had broken and was making an intermittent connection, and I had similar symptoms.

Slow cranking makes it harder to start a (partially) flooded or otherwise compromised engine, so that is a possibility.

There are a lot of threads involving shutting off the fuel pump, etc., on fixing flooding problems, but an easy one that I've recently seen that several people used successfully is the alternating 5-second crank periods - floored (cuts off fuel flow), then off throttle, then repeat until it starts. This was reported to work after a couple of repeats.

Dave

The battery is fine. The alternator is crap (battery was drained due to sitting for a bit and not having the alternator up to snuff to recharge it), I have an alternator inc from Ray Crowe.

So I'm gunna show my newb side here.. where in the engine bay is the starter (pic?) I'm not horribly familiar with what (generally) it would look like since I have never had trouble with one before (I learn as shit breaks and I fix it), so picking it apart from everything else won't be as easy for me as a more experienced tinkerer...

I take it you mean having the gas pedal floored? (I wasn't aware that would cut fuel flow) the theory seems good to me.

Thanks guys!

+1 on where the starter is located

Yup. That's what I mean.

Dave

Hrm, well... I drove out there tonight and hooked up my other car to the 7 as if she needed a jump (in case it was just a lack of power).

She fired right up, so either the flooding fixed itself in a day, or that wasn't the problem to begin with.

Also held a steady 14.1 volts after I took the jumper cables off (odd, would think that at the least it would drop down to where it was before I blew the coolant line)

I did, however still have a lack of coolant. The light was on and went to throw some distilled water in there to top off the radiator, no big deal. It drank an entire gallon, big deal.

I looked under the car and found a slow drip, further investigation showed that I had a nice puddle of dried antifreeze on the ground. Think something fucked up while we were putting the screw back in the radiator and it is leaking out the drain .. hope it's alright

I gave my keys to a buddy of mine (Mustang owner, we are putting a 5.4 liter in his GT as a winter/early spring project.. gunna be nasty when done) who volunteers at the hobby shop. He's gunna get her on the lift tomorrow while I'm at work and let me know how that is... crossing my fingers that it's just an easy fix!

I hate leaks

What gets me is there was no leak while we were burping the system, and I didn't have it running long enough to build a lot of pressure getting it off the lift after the burp was done. It wasn't until I went back today that I noticed the lack of coolant. And the idle was perfectly steady while I had it on today (granted it wasn't on long cause of the coolant, or lack thereof).