Happy turkey to me, just pushed my 280SEL home [Question]

[BoneStock]

The long of the short is, I drove the car about 20 miles yesterady wiht no problems what so ever. I then go back out to go to the store at about 1am [36 degrees Brrrrr] and all I heard was a click. Today I tighten the bat cables, and disconect/plug door lock hose [unrelated] in case I'm geting a vacume leak. This was per a previous post on the board, figure I'd do that since I was under there.

Anyway, starts up fine and I take it for a test drive to see if the vacume plug helped anytyhing. It did and I was pleased, the car seemed to run smother. In any case I take a right han turn on to a bussy street and no more then 2 seconds later the car dies compleetly. I manuver to the side and wait a few seconds. I then try to restart the car but the odest thing happens. The engine just cranks and cranks and when I click the key back off the engine is STILL cranking. after fussing wtih the key back and forth I realise the problem can't be in the ignition switch so I huredly open the hood and disconect the batery. Now when I connected the batery and tried to start it all I heard was a click. Got a friend over to jump start me even though I put in a brand new deep cycle batery a few days ago, hoping the excesive cranking drained the batery. No luck still just clicks.



So, bad starter?

Why did it still crank the first time I tried to restart it even without the key in ?!?!?

And WHYYY did this have to happen today, I get no turkey dinner



Is the starter easy to replace? Could it be a relay?

The car has 98k verified miles BTW and is in good shape other then this problem.

[BoneStock]

After drinking a beer and catching my breath from pushing the sled, I figured I'd try to collect some evidence of the symptoms.



Video from the dash

Video from engine compartment

[Tomguy]

I'm on 56K so those videos are most likely way too big for me to DL before bedtime

It SOUNDS like you're describing a stuck solenoid. The solenoid is actually mounted on top of the starter. Mine I had to whack with a hammer to get it to engage every now and then (Just got a "click"). I'd replace the starter if I were you.

But the fact that it stalled, and then didn't start back up when cranked, sounds like some other electrical problem. Are you getting a spark at all?

[psfred]

Definitely sounds like a bad solenoid -- it's not engaging the starter motor like is should when you try to start (the click) and refusing to stop cranking when you let go of the key is the giveaway -- it stays on when not energized, too!

Could just be the solenoid, may be a sticking drive assembly, too.

Peter