Forum Discussion

angler's avatar
angler
Explorer
Apr 22, 2018

8.1 No start Workhorse

Went to start my motorhome. Cranked really slow and then stopped. Thought the battery may be bad since it was unplugged by mistake. I charged the batteries and load tested. Tried to start it and a thunk again. Jumped started it and just a thunk. I'm guessing the noise is the solenoid may be trying to engage the starter, not sure. Going to check all the connections to making sure they are ok.
Any other things it could be? Relays other things I'm not aware of.
Any one ever have to replace a starter on the 8.1 workhorse and can tell me the symptoms they encountered?
Are starters a known problem with them? How hard to replace?
Thank you in advance
Class A
  • rgatijnet1's avatar
    rgatijnet1
    Explorer III
    Apr 22, 2018
    Any starter can go bad but I don't remember them being an issue. I had 80K on my 8.1L with no starter issues. The starter is not that difficult to change but it sort of sounds like you have a cable/connection issue. When you jump started the battery, if you just put the jumper cables over the old battery cables, then you could still have a bad connection or have the old battery drawing down the jumper battery because it had a shorted cell. You may want to try a jump start with one of the cables off of the old battery, just to eliminate the old battery as a cause of the problem.

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