rcarlisle Posted June 30, 2021 Share Posted June 30, 2021 I am beginning to not like my truck so much Lately sometimes when I go to start the truck the solenoid will clunk but no starter action! I can do this a few times and then the starter will kick in and motor will crank normal speed and start. When it does it I dont have the time to go digging into it to find out why. Also you may hit the key 1 time and clunk and the next it may turn over or you hit the key 5 or 6 times before it turns over. Because of this & time it happens its going to be hard to track it down. BUT what really bugs me is the AC! On the way to work at 1;30 am the AC stopped working then started again? Well whole different story when I got out at 3pm and it is hot as you know what! No AC. Everything looks good under the hood, no wet / oily areas like a loose fitting (again) or bad hose. I shook the wires thinking bad connection but no go. I cant throw gauges on it as I lent them out but will check for power to the PSI switch and if I dont have any power there I will need to dig deeper. So the truck will be parked other than the trash run on Saturday till its fixed again. Dave ---- Man these old trucks can sure frustrate a fella. Not as bad as yours but my tailgate quit working. Everything was good and it open-end and closed normally last time I used it. Now one side isn't working. As for your truck, that sounds like the starter. Whenever that's been the issue on my various junk over the years, it's turned out to be the starter. My dad's Toyota would never leave him stranded, but let me borrow it...I eventually just changed the dang starter myself. I'm no good on AC, but sounds like you have good idea where to start? Is the PSI switch the one at the control or at the compressor? Good luck with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Lewis Posted June 30, 2021 Share Posted June 30, 2021 I am beginning to not like my truck so much Lately sometimes when I go to start the truck the solenoid will clunk but no starter action! I can do this a few times and then the starter will kick in and motor will crank normal speed and start. When it does it I dont have the time to go digging into it to find out why. Also you may hit the key 1 time and clunk and the next it may turn over or you hit the key 5 or 6 times before it turns over. Because of this & time it happens its going to be hard to track it down. BUT what really bugs me is the AC! On the way to work at 1;30 am the AC stopped working then started again? Well whole different story when I got out at 3pm and it is hot as you know what! No AC. Everything looks good under the hood, no wet / oily areas like a loose fitting (again) or bad hose. I shook the wires thinking bad connection but no go. I cant throw gauges on it as I lent them out but will check for power to the PSI switch and if I dont have any power there I will need to dig deeper. So the truck will be parked other than the trash run on Saturday till its fixed again. Dave ---- Sounds like you either have a bad solenoid/starter relay or a bad connection from it to the starter. Probably the relay. On the A/C, if you have a leak the pressure may be right at the cutoff point such that at some temps it'll work and others it won't. Anyway, I know the feeling. There are times when I wonder if I ought to sell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuzzFace2 Posted June 30, 2021 Author Share Posted June 30, 2021 Man these old trucks can sure frustrate a fella. Not as bad as yours but my tailgate quit working. Everything was good and it open-end and closed normally last time I used it. Now one side isn't working. As for your truck, that sounds like the starter. Whenever that's been the issue on my various junk over the years, it's turned out to be the starter. My dad's Toyota would never leave him stranded, but let me borrow it...I eventually just changed the dang starter myself. I'm no good on AC, but sounds like you have good idea where to start? Is the PSI switch the one at the control or at the compressor? Good luck with it. I want to go over all the cable connections to make sure they are good, cable were new as part of the build. It has crossed my mind its the starter but it will then catch and crank normally. If it was a dead spot on the starter I would think it would not turn? As for the psi switch it is on the AC dryer. IIRC the power comes from the HVAC control to the psi switch and if closed it sends power to the AC compressor. Sounds like you either have a bad solenoid/starter relay or a bad connection from it to the starter. Probably the relay. On the A/C, if you have a leak the pressure may be right at the cutoff point such that at some temps it'll work and others it won't. Anyway, I know the feeling. There are times when I wonder if I ought to sell. If it is the solenoid/starter relay do you think it would send any power to the starter and if it dose it may just not be enough? I ask because if I use a test light do you think it would light but not crank the motor? How would you go about checking / testing the solenoid/starter relay before replacing it? And that brings up the next issue, who would you go through to get a good one as I hear most are junk out of the box. I think over the holiday weekend I will check into both issues to see if I find something. Thanks guys Dave ---- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Lewis Posted June 30, 2021 Share Posted June 30, 2021 Man these old trucks can sure frustrate a fella. Not as bad as yours but my tailgate quit working. Everything was good and it open-end and closed normally last time I used it. Now one side isn't working. As for your truck, that sounds like the starter. Whenever that's been the issue on my various junk over the years, it's turned out to be the starter. My dad's Toyota would never leave him stranded, but let me borrow it...I eventually just changed the dang starter myself. I'm no good on AC, but sounds like you have good idea where to start? Is the PSI switch the one at the control or at the compressor? Good luck with it. I want to go over all the cable connections to make sure they are good, cable were new as part of the build. It has crossed my mind its the starter but it will then catch and crank normally. If it was a dead spot on the starter I would think it would not turn? As for the psi switch it is on the AC dryer. IIRC the power comes from the HVAC control to the psi switch and if closed it sends power to the AC compressor. Sounds like you either have a bad solenoid/starter relay or a bad connection from it to the starter. Probably the relay. On the A/C, if you have a leak the pressure may be right at the cutoff point such that at some temps it'll work and others it won't. Anyway, I know the feeling. There are times when I wonder if I ought to sell. If it is the solenoid/starter relay do you think it would send any power to the starter and if it dose it may just not be enough? I ask because if I use a test light do you think it would light but not crank the motor? How would you go about checking / testing the solenoid/starter relay before replacing it? And that brings up the next issue, who would you go through to get a good one as I hear most are junk out of the box. I think over the holiday weekend I will check into both issues to see if I find something. Thanks guys Dave ---- If the starter and cable connections are good then a test light won't come on if the starter doesn't crank. There might be a bit of power there with a bad relay, but it shouldn't be enough to light the light and all the while the relay is probably frying. I would test by having someone else turn the key and if it doesn't crank I'd short across the battery and starter posts on the relay with a screwdriver or a pair of pliers - that I don't particularly like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcarlisle Posted June 30, 2021 Share Posted June 30, 2021 Man these old trucks can sure frustrate a fella. Not as bad as yours but my tailgate quit working. Everything was good and it open-end and closed normally last time I used it. Now one side isn't working. As for your truck, that sounds like the starter. Whenever that's been the issue on my various junk over the years, it's turned out to be the starter. My dad's Toyota would never leave him stranded, but let me borrow it...I eventually just changed the dang starter myself. I'm no good on AC, but sounds like you have good idea where to start? Is the PSI switch the one at the control or at the compressor? Good luck with it. I want to go over all the cable connections to make sure they are good, cable were new as part of the build. It has crossed my mind its the starter but it will then catch and crank normally. If it was a dead spot on the starter I would think it would not turn? As for the psi switch it is on the AC dryer. IIRC the power comes from the HVAC control to the psi switch and if closed it sends power to the AC compressor. Sounds like you either have a bad solenoid/starter relay or a bad connection from it to the starter. Probably the relay. On the A/C, if you have a leak the pressure may be right at the cutoff point such that at some temps it'll work and others it won't. Anyway, I know the feeling. There are times when I wonder if I ought to sell. If it is the solenoid/starter relay do you think it would send any power to the starter and if it dose it may just not be enough? I ask because if I use a test light do you think it would light but not crank the motor? How would you go about checking / testing the solenoid/starter relay before replacing it? And that brings up the next issue, who would you go through to get a good one as I hear most are junk out of the box. I think over the holiday weekend I will check into both issues to see if I find something. Thanks guys Dave ---- My dad's Toyota would start sometimes on first try. Sometimes 5 or 6. Sometimes it works take 10 minutes to finally work. New starter fixed it. Guy that worked on my AC said there is some sort of switch on bottom off control slider. Just things to consider. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuzzFace2 Posted July 1, 2021 Author Share Posted July 1, 2021 My dad's Toyota would start sometimes on first try. Sometimes 5 or 6. Sometimes it works take 10 minutes to finally work. New starter fixed it. Guy that worked on my AC said there is some sort of switch on bottom off control slider. Just things to consider. I was just looking that up for when I get into to checking this out and was thinking "what if I had no power to the psi switch where is it coming from? I looked up pictures of the ones I have before install to see where the compressor gets its signal from. It has been a bit since I messed with this and the wires plug into the end of the HVAC control. It is to be cooler this weekend and think I will look into this as far as I can without gauges at this time. The easy part is to see how far the power goes getting to the compressor. The other thing I found strange is if I have the control on "MAX AC" and I am under power the vents change to defrost like loosing vacuum. I do have a new check valve but so is the one in place now and dose not seam to be working? Any way if I have the control on "Normal AC" the vents do not seam to change to defrost? Guess I got a new onion to peel Dave ---- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Lewis Posted July 1, 2021 Share Posted July 1, 2021 My dad's Toyota would start sometimes on first try. Sometimes 5 or 6. Sometimes it works take 10 minutes to finally work. New starter fixed it. Guy that worked on my AC said there is some sort of switch on bottom off control slider. Just things to consider. I was just looking that up for when I get into to checking this out and was thinking "what if I had no power to the psi switch where is it coming from? I looked up pictures of the ones I have before install to see where the compressor gets its signal from. It has been a bit since I messed with this and the wires plug into the end of the HVAC control. It is to be cooler this weekend and think I will look into this as far as I can without gauges at this time. The easy part is to see how far the power goes getting to the compressor. The other thing I found strange is if I have the control on "MAX AC" and I am under power the vents change to defrost like loosing vacuum. I do have a new check valve but so is the one in place now and dose not seam to be working? Any way if I have the control on "Normal AC" the vents do not seam to change to defrost? Guess I got a new onion to peel Dave ---- If your air flow goes to Defrost when you go to Max A/C then I'm betting that you have a vacuum leak in the recirculate line. That would drop the vacuum in the system when in Max A/C but not in A/C, which might explain the difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grumpin Posted July 1, 2021 Share Posted July 1, 2021 If your air flow goes to Defrost when you go to Max A/C then I'm betting that you have a vacuum leak in the recirculate line. That would drop the vacuum in the system when in Max A/C but not in A/C, which might explain the difference. My Bronco did that a couple years ago. It was a small leak and it took awhile to find it. It was on the Max A/C vacuum line. Mine did it under heavy acceleration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuzzFace2 Posted July 1, 2021 Author Share Posted July 1, 2021 If your air flow goes to Defrost when you go to Max A/C then I'm betting that you have a vacuum leak in the recirculate line. That would drop the vacuum in the system when in Max A/C but not in A/C, which might explain the difference. It only happens when under power like pulling out into traffic or pulling a long hill. Maybe I need a bigger or a 2nd juice can for vacuum, other wise it works normal. I also have to re-look at the heater core close off valve as it works by vacuum but cant remember where I tied it into. IIRC my HVAC control is not for a 81 truck, want to say 84 but maybe not? Dave ---- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Lewis Posted July 1, 2021 Share Posted July 1, 2021 If your air flow goes to Defrost when you go to Max A/C then I'm betting that you have a vacuum leak in the recirculate line. That would drop the vacuum in the system when in Max A/C but not in A/C, which might explain the difference. It only happens when under power like pulling out into traffic or pulling a long hill. Maybe I need a bigger or a 2nd juice can for vacuum, other wise it works normal. I also have to re-look at the heater core close off valve as it works by vacuum but cant remember where I tied it into. IIRC my HVAC control is not for a 81 truck, want to say 84 but maybe not? Dave ---- I would check the line from the control out to the recirc motor. I suspect you have a crack in it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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