My 49 F-1's starter turns over slowly when cold, almost too slow to start. Will barely turn over at all when hot. Which causes it not to start after I drive it places. Is this from poor grounding, bad starter button or bad starter. The truck is 6 volt positive ground, flathead V-8, original style wiring(but new). The battery is holding 6.35 volts but have no way to check cranking amps to see if the battery is good or bad.

 

My experiance with 6 volt systems was that the starters all turn over slow. What is the condition of the cables from the battery to the starter, does it get hot when cranking?

 

Saxton, if all your wiring is clean & tight at the connections, I'd say your starter is probably bad. Got an old Ford tractor 6volt +ground on the farm here that had that problem a few years back...took it to a good rebuild shop and now it cranks right up.
Norb

 

James, I agree, your starter is on the way out.

Barry

50 F-1

 

My 6 volt system turns right over. I use a 0 gauge wire from the starter to the battery (negative) and grounds between the battery (positive), the engine block, the frame, and the firewall.

Lead-acid batteries should have about 2.2 volts per cell, 6.6 volts for a 3 cell '6' volt battery.

I never use those 'emergency' battery clamps. They are temporary fixes for shot battery wires.

You can probably fix your starter with new brushes and bearings, but check the wiring first.

 

I bought brand new heavy guage as original cables for it in hopes that it would help but it never made any difference. I figured I had good grounding because lights are bright(considering it's 6 volt).

 

One last thing to check before having the starter rebuilt. Even if the cables are OK and you have bright lights, you could still have a starter grounding problem. The starter gets its ground through the mating surface between the starter face and the bell housing. You might want to invest a little time cleaning up this area.

1. Remove the starter.
2. Clean the starter and bell housing mounting faces with a wire brush or your favorite implement of destruction.
3. Clean up the starter mounting bolts.
4. Reinstall the starter ad see if it helps!

If it still turns out to be the starter, it's pretty cheap to rebuild.

 

Make sure your starter mounting screws are tight. I had one years ago that had come loose and the armeature was rubbing againist the field. Same problem, turned slow, almost not at all when hot.
I was given this perfectly good 53 2DR wagon and that was all that was wrong with it.

 

I actually had the starter rebuilt before installation but it never has turned over very fast. I know that is typical of 6V starters... but this has always been slower than usual but it will barely turn over now.

 

Bypass the starter selnoid and put the starter lead directly to the neg post. And make the ground is hooked to the engine when trying that. If it still drags I would take the starter back to the rebuild shop. If It turns ok and problem is solved at that point we can proceed from there.