Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2010 14:21:58 -0700
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: Starter Gone?
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( thanks for the mention ! I'm honored )
re
"cumulative effect of a number of degraded contacts"
Yes !~
People so often think 'component' ..
and so often it's not like this collection of 20 parts and connections are
all perfect and 'the one part' suddenly died.
it's usually more like that ..
numerous half not-right things that add up.
consider this in a 12 volt DC circuit.
Ideally ....the circuit itself consumes no voltage..
let's say the conductors are large or 'perfect' and the contacts are gold
and there's no resistance ..
all 12 volts of the circuit will be consumed, or used' or 'dropped' in the
consumer ..the light bulb, starter motor, horn etc.
However, the circuit does consume some of the voltage .
Let's say the circuit starts out designed by VW so it uses say .....1.0
volts max.
that leaves 11 volts ( assuming we are starting with exactly 12.0 volts at
the battery ) for the device we are trying to operate.
Over time ..
resistance builds up.....leaving fewer ( lot 'less' ) volts ( it's Less War,
or Fewer Wars, and not 'less wars' ) ...
.................fewer volts available for the device, so performance
deteriorates.
Lots of inspection and cleaning helps a lot.
here is how to measure voltage drop in a ground connection.
Energize the circuit you are working on.
Put your voltage meter on millivolt scale on both sides of the ground
connection .
You want to see less than 300 millivolts ( .3 of a volt ) dropped over that
ground connection.
just guessing, 100 millivolts max is probably more acceptable.
Zero volts dropped there, or nearly zero, is ideal.
Scott
www.turbovans.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Fisher" <garciasghostvw@GMAIL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Saturday, October 23, 2010 1:20 PM
Subject: Re: Starter Gone?
> Any minute now Scott's gonna get on here and tell you to get a remote
> starter switch. Using one is a quick way to tell if the problem is more in
> the starter itself or in the wiring. It would be best to do that after
> you've cleaned the transmission ground or added your ground strap; you can
> use a jumper cable (much common sense required) to bypass the main battery
> cable if you really think you need to.
> IIRC I just hooked mine up to the terminal on the back of the alternator.
>
> The worst part of getting the auto starter out is the upper bolt, imo, but
> it's not really that big of a deal. Somewhere in the archives there's a
> description of how to use a multimeter to test each key point of the
> wiring
> from the ignition switch through the safety switch and on back (from David
> B., maybe?). If you've never gone through the system and cleaned/inspected
> it, it would be worth a few hour's work to do it- if it's never been done
> it
> needs it anyway and it can help in that a big part of this problem, I
> believe, is often the cumulative effect of a number of degraded contacts.
> The ends of the wires to the solenoid on mine were pretty messed up and
> from
> what I've read that's pretty common.
