jdjl1987

It started up in October with limited effort, the battery has a problem of constantly wearing out. I charged the battery at 2amps and got it nice and full, but she still isn't turning over. It cranks at a relatively constant state every so often firing once or twice but never getting above 1000rpm and stopping. I checked by battery leads and found my positive wire to be hot to the touch. Anybody have any suggestions?

mar3

iTrader: (8)

What car? Manual or auto? What battery group? Outside temps so low the battery doesn't have a chance, maybe? What oil? We need more info, but I'm thinking that you need to check grounds.

Mario III

mortiky

do you have solid compression?

jdjl1987

It's a bone stock 82' GS with the 12A. manual. Battery is standard motomaster. It's about zero degrees outside. I havent touched the electrical since the last time it started, and it says I have 12-13 volts at key turn.


I boosted the voltage to no avail, It's cranking fine and fires once or twice still. My fuel pump is making a noise that i have not noticed before.

mar3

iTrader: (8)

Well, now...this is something I can speak directly to...I just answered this question about a month ago, so here's the C&P of that reply...works for me every time.


My favorite routine when you've hopelessly flooded the engine is to :

• Pull the spark plugs, clean them with carb cleaner and let them dry,
• Put rags on the frame rails to catch the junk about to come out when,
• You crank the engine w/o any spark plugs installed to clear the chambers of the nasty gas/oil mix that's in there, then let that dry a bit while you clean up the mess,
• Add anti-seize to the threads of the cleaned spark plugs (or new spark plugs if they even look a bit like they're old...) and then thread them in,
• Hook up the plug wires and then get a friend,
• Open the secondaries with your finger and put a long screwdriver in one barrel, taking care not to nick the butterflies,
• Spray Gumout Carb Cleaner down there and in the primaries LIBERALLY and then the tricky part.
• You or your friend will sit in the driver's seat, NO CHOKE, no step on the gas and turn the key while,
• the person who isn't in the car is hanging the can of Gumout Carb Cleaner over the carburetor and spraying a mist down the secondaries...

Once it catches in the slightest, the person in the car has to work the gas pedal to get the revs up (no more than 3000 at first while cold) and the person OUTSIDE has got to yank that screwdriver because the engine is going to want to hit 7600 rpm in rapid fashion...while it's in this "starting" condition, the amount of white/grey smoke coming from the tailpipe is going to be downright scary....DON'T LET THE ENGINE DIE. The person in the car needs to keep those revs up and the person outside has to help with judicious spraying of carb cleaner down the primary throats now until you've passed the 5 minute window of doing this dance.

After that point, you can start playing with the choke to see if the engine will stay running on just the gas from the tank.

Hope that helps...

jdjl1987

Right! so, frikin' eh! When I pulled the plugs they were drenched in a black oily gas mixture, it was pretty gross. I cleaned em', craked the engine for a while, blasted the carb with a healthy dose of carb cleaner (there was a puddle on top of the valves) and let it dry overnight. Next day, put them back in and bom, she stats up like a dream. You weren't kidding about the smoke, it completely enveloped my dad's car parked behind. The mailman walking by gave me a wtf look, it was classic. Thanks for the help!

BAMBAM11336

take fuel inlet hose of and attache about a 2' long piece of fuel line hose to inlet,take carb and choke cleaner and fill up 2' hose with carb and choke cleaner and with a low power air compressor (like a small cigarette lighter plug in one) put compressor at end of hose and turn on compressor this will force cleaner through entire carb breaking up build up,then with same 2' hose attached to inlet pour some seafoam into it till hose is full once again force it through with low pressure then try to crank for a few minutes on and off.till it tries to turn.take 2' hose off of inlet and attach fuel line again.pull your plugs out clean them and dry them off,put back in.pour a entire can of sea foam into 1/4 tank of gas to have a strong seafoam mixture,ok now turn ignition on youll here fuel pump,let it build up fuel pressure for a few seconds then with choke all the way out mash gas pedal to the floor while cranking it,it should start up for you,once started keep the rpms above 4000 - 6000 keep revving to break up carbon build up,if it pops and sputters its normal.keep revving till it runs smoothly(this is how i got my nikki going after sitting for 3 yrs or better.) also try the atf and seafoam in the carb,i also done this to free up apex seals.now my 1985 starts right up the first crank.good luck.

jdjl1987

as you can probably see, I already got it running fine. The issue here was the gas and oil mix sitting in the engine getting all gross, leading to flooding. All I had to do was flush the carb from the intakes, clean out the plugs and crank the engine for a few minutes without the plugs in. It started without me touching the gas pedal, it has under 50,000km, so it got a lot of life left.
On the topic of rpms and sea foam, it's my understanding that keeping a rotary engine between 4-6k while it's cold and not running smooth is unwise. I'm pretty sure when your using seafoam a constant 3k rpm ('a high idle') is ideal. I feel revving is a bad idea, as you don't want your engine to bone itself on any lose bits that are now flying around; you want the engine to flush and not scrape out the gunk.

mar3

iTrader: (8)

Keeping ANY engine at high RPM when it's cold is unwise...with dissimilar metals and rubber used throughout an engine, the designing engineers specified clearances for all of that to work together but at operating temperatures. When it's cold, you're taking significant chunks out of the engine's total life expectancy.

Def no-no...

Timmerg

My daughter just bought a '79. We were able to get it running once when cold through a combination of pouring gas and starter fluid in the carb. Now without choke or throttle it cranks and catches and is trying to fully start but then dies. It seems to flood terribly as the plugs are full of fuel when I pull them out.

jdjl1987

I'm still having a constant battle with mine, to the point where we 'are nolonger talking' aka, I'm not bothering with getting the engine running in the car untill It's rebuilt/swapped fro a 13b-rew sometime in the next year or two.

Here's how I dealt with the flooding issue that might help your situation.
1. Take out all the plugs and pull the fuel pump fuse, crank the engine untill it gets that whoosing noise signaling all the gas as been blown out of the engine (rotarys trap fuel in 2 of the 3 rotor sides if you just try to 'air them out' like with v8's)
2. Blast your carb with carb cleaner. Fill that sucker up. Use a whole can. Then repeat step 1.
2. Check your plugs. If it's a trailing plug, you won't really notic except you get no power and it will flood randomly or all the time. If it's a leading plug the catolitic converter will turn red like the sun untill it melts off. Ask me how I know! Basically, swap all 4 plugs. There cheep anyway right?
3. Check your fuel, is it slightly nasty? Drain it, chainge your fuel filter, get the best octane you can find (avoid using additive octane boosters though, fake octane is bad news)
4. Check your ground cables, you can always have more grounding.
5. Pull the choke fully and crank it, if it's having trouble catching open the throttle ONCE (if you pump it it WILL flood and die). If it catches strong then let go of the trottle but hang on to the choke untill it's warmed up a little and can keep an idle. If it dies when it's not warmed up it WILL FLOOD EVERY TIME. Repeat step 1 evertime that happens.

Through this mine had begun starting fine, but it randomly lost all engine power while crusing, and began stalling iregularly. My carburetor was nasty, so i pulled it off and attempted a rebuild. When that was finally done it began idling at 5krpm so i figured I have some huge error somewhere, the grounding wire is all coroded so when it stopped satring for my diagnostics I said 'Well if your not going to work with me, then you can sit for a while' That was 2 or 3 months ago. I have so many other progects that it can wait. Let me know if your daughter's starts! I'll get down to diagnosing mine's problems as soon as there's room in the geradge.

Good Luck! Also, tell your daughter from me "You have a first gen 7. It makes you the coolest person on the road, but unfortunatly you will spend more time in the shop than anything else."

mar3

iTrader: (8)

"You have a first gen 7. It makes you the coolest person on the road, but unfortunatly you will spend more time in the shop than anything else."

Now, now....that has NOT been my experience...try learning from this website and you'll get to the point where you see that isn't true. You're just having a bit of bad luck but you're also changing too many variables at once to know what your true problem is. The art of the ACCURATE diagnosis takes a while to master...

Timmerg

After reading all the post I can find on this subject I've pretty much resigned myself to rebuilding the carb. But I keep seeing references to spraying it with carb cleaner. Are you spraying it down the barrels? Does that do anything? It seems that that wouldn't do anything to the clogged ports and jets where I imagine the real trouble is.

Further investigation shows that the front float window is level across the center while the rear is either totally full or totally empty, can't view it well enough to tell yet.

jdjl1987

my point really was more that rotary engines are picky little bastards, and that if you have a problem trying to find someone who knows what they are talking about is rare. (plenty of bad info out there, even on here) I've been selective and though I throw a bunch of steps together I'm not crazy enough to be doing them together. I know how diagnostics work. My car has also sat in a broken down old garage for 10 years, so it's not like I'm expecting it to work. My current issue is a catastrophic vacuum problem+bad electrical.

So if you're car has been sitting and is in 'beater' condition, it's probably going to need a lot of time and manuals to get it running reliably.

If you're going to use carb cleaner, spray it everywhere on everything on the carb. It will air dry into nothing so no need to worry about clogging.

It's also usually NEVER a float level problem. Don't mess with them!

Go to http://www.sterlingmetalworks.com/ for he is the master of the nikki. You can even order from a range of rebuilt carbs at very fair prices. Sterling has pointed me in the right direction several times.

2J-Z

If your a DIY kinda guy, rebuild the carb yourself and save the money, since everyone is say its the carb.

Also a Bad coolant sensor, can affect the cold start values, affecting starting at any temperature. Good Luck