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Went to start the wagon yesterday morning and all that I could hear was what I think was the clicking of the starter solenoid.
The battery is new so I rolled it off to the side of the driveway and went to work in the Suzuki Grand Vitara (daily driver).
In the arvo I hopped into the wagon and if fired straight up.
I recall from other posts that with age contacts become an issue in the ignition switch but if I am correct this seemed to be OK as the solenoid seemed to be operating.
My next action will be to check the main power supply from the + line of the battery to the starter, the battery terminals, the - lines from the battery to earth and maybe swap out to my spare starter while I am at it.
This is a pain as it looks to be an intermittent issue.
Any other suggestions where to look and what to look for ?

The starter in my ute does that, intermittently as well. I could be completely wrong but I put it down to the starter getting jammed in a certain position and not engaging the flywheel. If I move the gear shift around without the clutch pushed in it seems to move something and the starter works again. I've swapped the starter in this car once before, the last one did the same thing and it turned out the white metal bearings for the pinion shaft were worn (actually, missing) and the shaft would flop around and get jammed.

If yours is the original starter and the electrics all check out, have a look at swapping another one in or even just take the old one out and inspect the bearing.

Dry grease in the solenoid?

Sounds like it could be cold related if it only happens in the morning.

Cheers

Bennie

A while ago I bought this of ebay.


I fitted it to the wagon soon after I bought it but had issues like what I have described within this thread.
I thought it was the battery so replaced the battery.
At the time I also went back to the original Alternator and till recently had forgotten all about the ebay alternator till putting it back on a couple of day ago where all the issues started up again.
I tried starting the car again today and the battery was way down in voltage compared to a day or so ago.
Remembering the symptoms from before I have now taken the ebay alternator out and again refitted the original alternator.
I can only think that the ebay alternator is somehow draining the battery and sending me towards the issues I am having.
If the car starts tomorrow morning I will take it to work which is 90% 100k/hr driving for about 22ks so this will tell me how thing are going with the battery charging or being forced to discharge.
The ebay alternator was supposed to be suitable for the Subaru but looks to be mainly designed for a Nissan.
See how thing go.

Car started fine this morning and this afternoon.
The only change ?
Swapping the new alternator out to the old one.
Still don't know why the alternator would drain the battery but it appears that is what is happening.

The Ebay alternator may used switched power instead of permanent power like the EJ model alternators.

You may find you need to run the nissan alternator off 12 volts that is only on with the ignition, so that when the engine isn't running the module in the alternator isn't drawing power from the batery.

TOONGA

TOONGA wrote:The Ebay alternator may used switched power instead of permanent power like the EJ model alternators.

You may find you need to run the nissan alternator off 12 volts that is only on with the ignition, so that when the engine isn't running the module in the alternator isn't drawing power from the batery.

TOONGA

Sounds logical.
I have no patience with this Nissan alternator right now (or maybe in the future).
Too much other stuff going on at the moment.