[T3] Re? Car Won't Start.

[J. Jonik]

The Latest is that....today I took old starter for a free check up.  It had very wiggly ring, the biggest one at the active gear-pinion end.  Looking at it, it's not even seated in dead center.
So..."new" starter, from a former Automatic (but usable anyway) is in the car. Still car didn't start...same symptoms. No starter try to do anything.
So, on advice of a friend mechanic, I took battery in for a test, including a "Load Test" after trying again, in vain, to start the car.     Battery passed with flying colors.  Brought it home and put it in the car...and the car STARTED!!!    I thought I could feel the extra torque from that larger starter. How just testing the battery could make things work is a mystery.  They said charge was ok and all...and the Load Test found it up to spec, and the clamps and terminals have been very wire-brushed clean all along.

BUT...the Gen Light Stayed on.    When trying earlier to solve things, I put in some longer, less worn generator brushes. Didn't help with starting though.    How that could cause the Gen light to stay on, I don't know.I THOUGHT I lost a small screw, the one for the brushes, inside the generator....but taking out generator, tapping, tilting, shaking etc produced no little screw.   Unless there's some magnet in there, the screw is on the street.
I'll try some other brushes in my generator collection....And I'll read the book on "what to do when Gen Light Goes On" for a refresher.
Old Cars seem to just Get Symptoms and things that aren't covered in books.  Or is it more about old car owners?


Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 13:30:05 -0500
From: "Jim Adney" <jadney at vwtype3.org>
To: type3 at vwtype3.org
Subject: Re: [T3] Car Won't Start
Message-ID: <544A9AAD.31572.1343F22 at jadney.vwtype3.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

On 21 Oct 2014 at 2:03, J. Jonik wrote:

> 71 FI Std
> Car won't start.
> * Turning key, nothing except the click and whir of fuel relay.
> * Crossing solenoid with starter (key off) gets nice whirring noise.

Shorting between the 2 large studs on the solenoid should produce 
exactly that result.

If you short between the upper stud and one of the push-on 
connectors, you should get normal starter operation. There may be 2 
different push-on connectors there, but only one of those will give 
this correct result.

In a later message, I believe you say that you did this and got a 
sort of "air hammer" outcome. This points to a bad connection 
somewhere. What's happening is that the solenoid pulls in with a bang 
and then the starter starts to draw a lot of current. The current 
causes a large voltage drop across the bad connection so the voltage 
available to the solenoid is no longer sufficient, so the solenoid 
drops out. This ends the current and the cycle repeats.
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