Electrical Gremlin

[Guy Mayers]

Before I contemplate pulling the car apart three days before Race Retro I thought I'd throw this one out there for consideration!

The battery is 2015 vintage, been sitting for 3 months. I jump in the car, put the kill switch key in, turn the ignition on, press the start button and it fires up just fine. Take the car out for a drive 6 miles or longer and get it warm and turn it off. It won't restart, pressing the start button merely results in the voltmeter showing a big deflection down. Wait an hour or two and it cools down. Press start and off we go again.

I think the battery is fine, beginning to suspect the starter motor.

Any thoughts peeps?

Cheers
Guy

[ah_sprite]

Bad battery or engine earth?

[Normb666]

Think I'd be looking st the starter motor, as you suspect. Could be something in the windings breaking down and shorting as it gets hot. Can't see it being the battery itself s it's still got charge when the motor's cooled down. That's assuming you've looked at the simple stuff - battery connections, engine earth, starter connection, etc.

[Guy Mayers]

I think the battery is fine, it was sat from the end of October to the end of January and started on the key. If earths or the battery were suspect I doubt it would have started. But it’ll get looked at! Any more ideas welcomed!
Guy

[Griff]

Guy, it could possibly be a dry connection in the kill switch, if it is it will get really warm, really quickly.
So it'll start when cold initially, electrical resistance (and heat) build up whist driving, and then it will not start until the temperature (and resistance) has fallen again
Worth checking next time its a bit 'reluctant'

Griff

[Lancialulu]

Where is the voltmeter reading the volts from? As Griff says the kill switch may be the weak piont. Otherwise Starter. I once had this on another Lancia when I drove out of the garaage like you starting from a few months standing and it just died in the middle of the road. Suspecting the worse I pushed it to the kerb and got the multimeter out. Turned out to be the battery isolating switch (those things with green knobs you see at all the shows for £5). Well I had tightened it up intially and started the car but then it went high resistance.... Got it really tight and the car fired up again.... It was the only car I have fitted with this - sods law..

[Two-Eight-Six]

Those FIA battery switches seem to have a life - I've had this on a rally car, where replacing the FIA 'kill' switch solved it straightaway.
Just a thought, and it's an easy swap, so worth a try?

[Griff]

Come on Guy, put us out of our misery, did you sort it? what was it?

[ProtoTipo]

I saw Guy's car yesterday at Stoneleigh.

[Guy Mayers]

Gremlin is still hiding....

[hollytree]

I had a similar problem with mine. 1st time it happened was at IVA. Drove there, drove in, turned off. They did all the other tests and then it would not start even with their big bumper battery. IVA fail! Pushed it out, called AA. Whilst waiting i thought one more try and all OK.

Was fine a long time and then occasionally happened so I have a 6" piece of wire with a female spade connector on the end. If it wont start, I turn the ignition on, slip the starter solenoid cable off the solenoid, slip the spade on and then touch the bare other end to the battery connection on the starter motor and away we go!.

After about 12 months I did change the ignition switch as something was clearly wrong in there. The contacts had gone and were not closing to the starter solenoid. That was £75 from Wayne Ellet.

[Stableblock]

Guy
measure the voltage either sid eof the kill switch when you try and start it. If there is a significant difference then it points to the kill switch. Otherwise as your voltmeter shows a big depression if its not the kill switch its either a short somewhere (unlikely without some smoke) or a jammed starter. Had a jammed starter once cause by a leaking exhaust manifold gasket hot gasses caused the problem - all fine when cooled down.

Peter

[Martin Crikey]

Hi Guy. My car is bad to start when it's warm , slow to turn over. I think my issue is with the cable size to the starter motor and the battery at the front, one day I will try a heavier cable and see if this helps. Bob has also given another starter to try which I have fitted along with a new homemade exhaust system but haven't any tax on the car so can't test it yet.

[Guy Mayers]

I had hoped to have a go at fixing it before Race Retro but ran out of time. The car got me there and back albeit stalling at the door into the show (pushed in) and wouldn't restart when it was in the garage at home on Sunday. What I could hear was the starter solenoid clicking away though. It'll be a couple of weeks before I can get back to it but first call is going to be the earth strap, drive it until warm and if that's not it, swap out the starter and try again.
Also found out the dash lights are out (rheostat probably) so that needs sorting before the MOT. Good job the interior light worked or I'd have struggled seeing the speedo and temperature gauges on the way home!
Thanks for the suggestions - I'm sure there will be news soon!
Guy

[Guy Mayers]

Well it was a nice weekend and not working for a change (still pretty knackered though) so I decided to sort out the gremlin. Staring with the lack of dash lights.. The rheostat is buried bottom left and so I slackened off the mounting screws to give me a little more access but nothing doing so I decided sod it, I'll jump it from the clock rheostat instead. Managed that only to find that half the electrics had died... End result, as you can see was dropping the steering column and then dropping the dash to trace the errant connection, or lack thereof. At the same time fix the right rheostat and put it back together. When another issue raised it's head.

Guy

[Guy Mayers]

Having got the dash out I noticed that the speedo was showing a daft mileage, way way over what I know I've done in the last year and, rather than open up the scratch built, calibrated and accurate speedo I thought I'd do the simple thing and add a second one driven off the Halda T piece, or more accurately, just the odometer in a 60mm case. Needless to say that turned out to take a lot longer than I thought it would but after mucking about with a couple of Halda gearboxes to get an inline 1:1 ratio set up and cobble together another that screws on the tail of a Veglia head it's all installed and appears to be working nicely! Plus it's easy to see (pull the top cover off the dash) so the MOT man will be happy!

[Guy Mayers]

So as I'm putting all that back together there's a funny hissing noise from the engine bay.... looks like I'd inadvertently armed the fire extinguisher and managed to pull off one of the connections to the button next to the speedometer..... and it touched the other connector and fired the system. Oh well, at least I know that's wired right and the nozzles point in the right direction. Refill needed...

Guy

[Guy Mayers]

In chasing the non start gremlin I've swapped out the battery master switch but the old one looked just fine. I'll take the car for a run in the next week and see if the hot start issue persists and swap the starter motor next weekend if it does.
Guy

[john]

Sort of a one step forward one step back etc etc shuffle Guy!

[Guy Mayers]

Another step forward! The office is back to full staffing at last so, apart from having to do a stocktake on Sunday afternoon after a day out walking in Yorkshire (Malham Cove & Gordale Scar) I got a few hours to work on the car on Sunday morning. Rear clip removed, rear exhaust manifold off (the new system can be dropped off easier than the Stradale one!) and whip out the starter motor. Stores dug through and found the brand new one and slapped it on and everything back together in 90 minutes.

And tonight I got to take if for a drive. More jobs. Need to put the steering wheel back on straight and have another go at the speedo which has a little rattle - it's the union on too tight, had this before. Put it back in the garage, turned it off. Started it again.

Hopefully that's the end of that one, looks like it was a failing starter motor.

Guy