Starting Issues

[Alan_M 66 1 Cars]

I think this post may have been an omen.

 

Firstly. Almost ran over my old man earler testing the new wiring by leaving it in gear.

 

However it did show that it appears the wiring works! Whoopee!

 

BUT... managed to break the negative battery terminal connector, it's one of those wanky screw down ones and I overtightened it and knackered the thread. Bollocks.

 

Plus new ones are 7.99 on ebay! Daylight robbery!

 

Change them to clamps, cost about £3 for a pair from Motorists Discount Centre. Those wind down things are pants, in fact the negative one on mine caused loads of electrical problems just from a poor connection.

 

Glad you're getting somewhere with it

[GLPoomobile 958]

Ditch the screw down terminal stud. Get a proper terminal clamp, cut the end off of the cable, strip it back and fit it in the clamp.

[happygoron 2]

Ditch the screw down terminal stud. Get a proper terminal clamp, cut the end off of the cable, strip it back and fit it in the clamp.

 

Done. Starting and running beautifully. First few times it was missing like hell but after tidying the new terminal (I knicked it off the old man's boat!) and letting her warm up a bit she's running sweet.

 

A combination of this work seems to have properly sorted the clicking problem so for the record here's what I did:

 

• Changed starter for a recon unit (old one was dead).
  
• Changed battery (may not have been needed but certinally helped).
  
• Cleaned all earths and worked on battery terminals.
  
• Bypassed starter wiring by running a wire straight from the starter solenoid to the ignition barrel.
  

 

All fairly common knowladge but handy to summarise the thread for future use.

 

However she now idles like a gas turbine. Annoying as she idled beautifully before and there's no obvious reason why that should change. However cool it may be that the neigbours all probably think I'm driving a Jaguar concept I'll need to have a play. Fiddled with the idle screw on the throttle body but is tricky to get a balance between starting speed and hot speed, especially as the balance was perfect before! Because of this it seems like a SAD problem. God knows why I've started to get it now but I'll do some research and take a look in the week. At least she's back on the road!

[shalmaneser 26]

My car is in a very similar state.

 

New (well, new second hand...) gti-6 starter,

New battery,

soldered up brown mulitplug connector in the engine bay.

 

All working well until recently when it's started clicking again

 

I'm going to run a wire direct from the ignition barrel to the solenoid on Saturday, hopefully that'll fix the bastard thing.

 

Now I just need to find out the cause of my grinding noise that only manifests itself between 30-40 mph, and is expecially bad when turning left. And goes away when you put the clutch in.

 

These things are sent to test us, eh?

[flyfisher 6 2 Cars]

this is a common problem ive had same simptoms on two gtis and one turbo diesel. if you ta\ke i thinkl its the blue wire from terminal on starter solenoidoff and run a new wire from ignition barrel loom with a test lamp make sure wire you choose only becomes live on second position of key turn run wire to solinoid problemm solved all will be fine again

[Retro Pug 0 1 Cars]

I had this same problem for ages bought a new battery, replaced the wiring etc but with still no joy. I then bought another battery - Bosh Silver and all is well. Apart from the cost!

[happygoron 2]

Now you're just masking it! I bought the battery below that one, the good halfords one. The Bosch one was £65 with a trade card, the halfords was £45. Couldn't see how it could be that much better!

[Sean27 0]

Done. Starting and running beautifully. First few times it was missing like hell but after tidying the new terminal (I knicked it off the old man's boat!) and letting her warm up a bit she's running sweet.

 

A combination of this work seems to have properly sorted the clicking problem so for the record here's what I did:

 

• Changed starter for a recon unit (old one was dead).
  
• Changed battery (may not have been needed but certinally helped).
  
• Cleaned all earths and worked on battery terminals.
  
• Bypassed starter wiring by running a wire straight from the starter solenoid to the ignition barrel.
  

 

All fairly common knowladge but handy to summarise the thread for future use.

 

This def what I need to do! Cheer for making it do clear