Hard to start when hot?

A buddy of mine has a 96 and it's hard to start once its warmed up? Anyone have any ideas?

Just went through this. It was my shut down solenoid getting weak. Have somebody crank when hot while you watch the solenoids movement.

gman99 said:

Just went through this. It was my shut down solenoid getting weak. Have somebody crank when hot while you watch the solenoids movement.

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How do you know if it's bad by watching it?

It won't pull up fully or will be very slow. It should snap up fully as soon as he starts cranking


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If you look on the side of the Ppump (attached to the AFC), you can see the back side of the solenoid. If you tilt your head over, you can watch the plunger. There's actually two solenoids in one. There's one that gets power when you turn the key on and it only has enough power to hold the plunger up, then there's the big one that only goes when you bump the starter. That is the one that actually picks up the plunger. That way the big one is only energized during stating, and less current is used to keep it up during driving.

They get old, they get lazy. That's just something that happens. Larry B sells a bigger one that's not supposed to get as hot. I personally just took mine apart when I started having issues, I cleaned it, greased it, checked the bore, and hooked it back up. I've been trouble free ever since. I think mine started acting up around 260000 miles. I'm at ~290000 now. I've also been without a boot since my rebuild and I've had no rust issues since I greased it up before install.


Good luck!


EDIT: Be careful with touching it when the engine's warm. When they start dying, they eat more current and get kind of hot.

I installed Larry B's larger unit. It is easily double the size of the stocker. My engine cranks so much better now. Apparently mine had been on its way out for awhile I just didn't know it.

X2 Larry B's is huge