Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Poor starting Ford 1600 Crossflow

If you have a set of jump leads Mark, connect one from the battery negative to somewhere around the bellhousing or engine mounts. If the problem goes away you have a poor earth connection somewhere.
If it doesn't then you have a failing starter relay / solenoid / starter.
If starter or solenoid it may be worth investing in one of the Hi-torque geared starters.

All good stuff. Ford Kents are pretty good starters, but attention to the earth usually helps. On Woodstock I added an extra earth lead on one of the engine/bell-housing bolts and because I was running a much bored out and loony compression engine, added a geared starter motor.

My money is on the earth not being good enough, although I did have a starter solenoid burn up and die!

You could also check that the starter dog has the right number of teeth to match the fly wheel ring. PS There will be a separate ford solenoid somewhere in the system.

No point, car would never start if the starter bendix didn't match the ring gear. As the crossflow is a really common engine I'd not expect this error with this engine.

The solenoid on that car should be on the bulkhead on the same side as the starter so pretty easy to find.

Ray don't start bringing Dogs into your posts, we have enough trouble coping with the fish

Dogfish anyone?

All of you who called an earth fault were right, based on the test suggested by Graham. Thanks.

That's not to say that the solenoid isn't about to give up, or that I shouldn't upgrade the starter but for now I think a new set of earth cables is a good investment.

The current set up is a single Earth cable from the battery to a nut on the bulkhead from which one cable goes to the bell housing and another to the bottom of the bulkhead on the offside. Is there a better way of doing it?

Mark

They're may also be another from the starter motor to the chassis?

...good to hear you are getting close to a fix.

Good, that's the easy bit. When you replace the lead from the battery, get a heavy duty one and take it to the bell housing. You can then run a lighter lead (such as size already fitted) back to the bulkhead (earth return for lights, clocks etc.) Clean all the connections, apply Vaseline or battery terminal grease to the battery terminals after you fit the new connector.
From your configuration I'm assuming a 4 seater?
On my old 2 seater, the battery was by the rear axle with the battery earth connected to the chassis where one of the old type dampers was mounted. An earth then ran from the gearbox to the chassis in the engine bay. Many found that long run (and the rather weedy battery earth lead) led to exactly the problems you have had and a good number of cars have an additional earth lead run the length of the car to connect the battery earth direct to the vicinity of the bellhousing/engine block.