Geetings.
Vehicle in question -
2004 Dodge/Ram 1500 5.7L Hemi. Automatic transmission.
Problem -
Battery fully charged, but get a BRPRPRPRPRPRP. Noise at starter motor. Loud. Get same when trying to jump start it.
I think that the starter is trying to engage the fly wheel, it’s just off a tiny bit. And the gears won’t mesh.
I’ve tried to turn the engine by hand (on the pulleys and anything I can grab) to move the flywheel, but it won’t budge. I’m a big guy, and I’m not getting nothing.
It started a month ago, no prob. I think, perhaps I have a dead spot between the starter gear engaging the flywheel, and just happened across it the last time I shut it down.
It is an automatic, so rolling it a bit won’t move the engine. I could try harder to roll the engine a bit by hand, but it’s gonna be a bitch.
Thoughts?
Sounds like your starter is shot (bad star gear), or you have broken teeth on your flywheel.
You should be able to turn the engine with a socket and a breaker bar on the the crank pulley nut.
yeah… sort of afraid of that. Gonna be interesting to even get to the crank pulley nut. It’s very busy under there. The truck has a plow on the front, and a winch on the back and sitting on muddy goop/gravel from our 26 feet of snow this year.
We are pretty much done with serious snow for this year, so I will pull the plow off with the tractor tomorrow. Get a little bit better access.
Or give things a few months for things to dry out. Don’t need the truck in the foreseeable future.
You’ll probably want to pull the spark plugs before trying this, otherwise you’ll be fighting the compression of the engine. If you can’t spin the crankshaft even with the plugs out then the engine is seized.
Eh. Compression is not going to be a problem for a few degrees to turn the crank. I would be stunned it the engine is seized. Running great last time I used it. I suspect a bad spot on the flywheel and that makes me quite unhappy. Had a similar thing happen with my previous '76 Chevy plow truck (warped flywheel). If it is the flywheel it would work fine until it hits a ‘dead’ spot. Missing teeth, or warped.
If I can move the engine, and it starts, I suspect that is the fly wheel. Good news would be that I could drive it to get fixed. The bad news would be $$$$ to fix it.
Gah. I hope I don’t have to have it towed. THAT’s interesting with where I live.