Out driving. Shut off car. Dead. What is this?

[Mr70]

I had a 1972 Chevelle that did this.I found out it was the Ignition switch rod out of Alignment with the igntion switch itself, on the Steering shaft.
I dropped the steering column in the interior,& saw the rod not engaging into the switch properly.
I had to tighten the two little 11/16 inch screws,and it stayed true and worked proper after that.It couldn't have been more then 1/4 inch out of alignment.

[SS4Real]

I also had the same problem as you described on 2 original LS-5 454's. If the car starts with no problem in about an hour, you may have the infamous heat-soak starter problem common to older or worn starters. As quoted in many technical articles on this subject, for some reason Chevrolet engineers located the starter and solenoid right next to the exhaust manifolds. Ford did a better job and moved it away from the heat robbing culprit. I tried thicker cables, heat shields, etc but did not have very good luck. I ended up simply putting in a new starter and solenoid combo and it fixed my problem. In addition, if you're running high compression, that seems to amplify the problem even more.

[Keith Tedford]

HOw many of you have this problem with 4 speed cars? Over the years I've had 4 big block Chevelles, 3 with 4 speeds and one automatic. Only the automatic car had this problem. Although there can be many reasons for the trouble, the 16 gauge wires feeding the neutral safety switch in the console may just be the problem most of the time. 12 gauge wire could be the cure for most people.

[69ssrag]

Sounds like a new starter and solenoid will do the trick.
Also check your pos and neg batt cables and connections

[Fhakya]

That's an interesting point Keith. Did these cars have headers by chance? I've had more than a few chev's with similar problems (somewhat amplified w/ header heat...and some with sheilds).
thanks,
-Mark

[Keith Tedford]

The automatic car was the only one without headers. With the headers, the solenoid baked after about 3-4 years. Our present car has about 21K miles on it with no problems. Last year the starter needed brushes but we installed a mini starter instead. That rolls the engine over as if there were no spark plugs in it.

[Nova67ss]

Have also had that probl and the starter kontaktpoints at the electrical linnings, they was too short after starting engines for 25 years..

Brushes is the "short" name... [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] not easy to remember for mee. Thanks Keith...