I have a 1988 740 wagon with the 8 valve non turbo. It hasn't been starting. It seems to almost start sometimes, but then stops immediately. It has been a week like this, and I had killed the battery so today I had it jumped from another car and was out there fooling with some things and cranking, then fooling some more trying to narrow down why it won't start.

I'm not going to ask for help with that problem now because something happened that frightened me into stopping for now.

I was cranking and then I heard an extra noise so I stopped, but the noise continued. I pulled the jumper cables and the noise changed, but kept going. Sounded like a fan or something. I was getting ready to pull the wires off my battery when it stopped. I felt the starter and it was quite hot.
The noise was coming from the starter side of the engine and I was already thinking that was where it was coming from.

Has anyone had this happen? Now I wonder if the starter was the problem somehow all along. Could one crank the engine, but then stop the engine from running? How could a starter keep turning when the key was not only off, but out?

Thanks in advance.
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Andy in St. Paul, '91 745 Regina 198K mi, '89 244 142K, '87 245 RIP