2005 BT Cruiser won’t crank after mud n tail pipe

[pkdoss2024]

Drove our 2005 BT Cruiser to daughters and it had been snowing. When I backed onto the pad wet clay was pushed into the tail pipe. I cranked RV in hopes of warming the tail pipe to help get the frozen clay out. The co2 alarm went off almost immediately and I turned the engine off. I then Heated the tail pipe from below and got all of the frozen muck out of tail pipe. It now won’t crank. Any suggestions?

 

[THenne1713]

Suspect you mean CRANKS NO START? = likely flooded?

 

[pkdoss2024]

No. No noise when key is turned.

 

[Gulf Santa]

Is the check engine light on? If so buy and inexpensive code reader. Read the codes and goggle the codes for possible issues. Good luck!

 

[THenne1713]

No. No noise when key is turned.

Start w/ chassis battery voltage check? Tight, clean battery connections?

 

[THenne1713]

Grab them and try to move them to check tightness?

 

[THenne1713]

Tried your BOOST/ EMERGENCY START switch?

 

[proost]

Drove our 2005 BT Cruiser to daughters and it had been snowing. When I backed onto the pad wet clay was pushed into the tail pipe. I cranked RV in hopes of warming the tail pipe to help get the frozen clay out. The co2 alarm went off almost immediately and I turned the engine off. I then Heated the tail pipe from below and got all of the frozen muck out of tail pipe. It now won’t crank. Any suggestions?

So, thinking this through...if it ran but then you had a huge CO (vs CO2) alarm...that sounds like you might have created a sufficient amount of backpressure to prevent you from starting but not cranking. Since the engine is essentially a huge air pump, it's conceivable you could not be able to crank the engine through excessive backpressure but that doesn't often happen. You would at least hear the bendix throw on the starter to try and crank.

If you hear zero clicking or noise from the starter, yep, double check your battery and double check the starter. If you don't hear anything from the starter but the battery is good, you could definitely have had a coincidental starter failure made more plausible if you recently have had to do a bunch of cranking. I suppose you might have killed the starter if there was already a lot of backpressure buildup and your starter was already weak. Let us know what you find out. Super interesting.

 

[pkdoss2024]

Thank you for your responses. We will try this next.