[Litegreenmarine]

I have a 68' Camaro. The problem is that after driving it has a difficulty starting back up. When trying to start back up it is like the battery is weak. After sitting for a few minutes it will start back up with no problems. Also the other day after driving for awhile the engine just died on me while going. It would not start back up, like a dead battery. After about 20 minutes I returned and it fired right up and I drove it home. I had the alternator tested and it was good. I bought a new battery but still have the same problems. I have also noticed that it is very hot under the hood. Everything is very hot to the touch. I don't get a high temp light but it just seems to hot. I have changed out the thermostat (195 F) and It also has a new radiator. 21" 4 core. I think the temp of everything has something to do with it not starting. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Steptoe]

If all connections are clean and good condition, new battery etc...
Check battery cells with a hydrometer any way, it is not unknown that a battery to be faulty from new.
Otherwise.
The solder connections on the armiture in the starter motor are breaking down.
Caused by a combination of age, slow to fire, and heat from headers/pipes.
Even a rebuilt starter motor could had such a problem. They test the armatures , but they have to be hot when checking these conections.
Soln:
new starter motor or very carefully clean off old solder clean surfaces and re solder..the latter is very time consuming.

[Litegreenmarine]

O.K. thanks for the info. I will check it out.

[19694speed]

They sell heat shields for the starter that may fix your problem if the starter is getting too hot especially if your running headers. It can also be that your timing is a little too far advanced,this will also make the motor crank slow when hot.Hope this helps.
Russ

[JimM]

What Russ said.
Most common problem for hard cranking hot is too much initial advance.
The load will eventually break down the starter motr as steptoe said.
Another possibility is bad battery cables.

[Litegreenmarine]

O.K. thanks guys. I ordered a starter heat wrap and I am going to wrap the manifold also. But the main thing is that I will probably get the timing checked. Hopefully this will take care of the problem. Thanks again for the input, I appreciate it.

[Steptoe]

I ran into the problem around 15 yrs ago....
At that piont I had the orginal starter motor and the car had done around 150.000 miles. Intial timing then was only around 12 to 14 deg
My bother in law is a very taliented Auto/industrial sparky. He could noy diagone the problem and that in its self got right up hid nose, espec after having the S/motor in and out/dismantled several times.
He then came up with an idea...lay out all the tools, hoist etc...I wuold drive the car to his workshop, and real fast pull the motor, dismantle and check.
It was a real Ginious Book of records time.
It was then he found the several dry joints on the armature. Didnt have time to do all the joints
These he fixed, but some time later the others started to break down. It was then he heated the armature and found more dry joints.
At this piont, instread of fixing I simply replaced the starter motor.
15 yrs on, another 100,000 miles or so, never had a repeat of the problem, nor have I sheilded.
If there are only a couple of dry joints and the advance is too high, these dry joints will heat very quickly and then show symtoms.
knocking back advance only hides the problem on a temp basis
Sheilding also will only hide the problem, as eventually more dry joints will happen.

Another issue is short runs...As mentioned before our Camaro is used almost daily, around town, runs of only 2 to 5 miles, for weeks on end. Under these conditions the battery doesnt get a full charge, then another huge current draw...the ampmeter shows charge, but it is not accurate to show the last little bit of charging. Therefore about every 20 days I put the battery on charge over night..fixes the issue...no there is nothing drawing current when closed down to cause this.