Date:         Sun, 04 Dec 94 15:15:48 CST
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Joel Walker <JWALKER@ua1vm.ua.edu>
Subject:      Re: Starter relay

On Sun, 4 Dec 94 15:07:21 CST sstones said:
>Okay... Here's the scenario...
>You jump into the van, ...
>Now what's going on here.  Has anyone else experienced this?

well, a couple of things it MIGHT be:
there's a tech bulletin out on older vanagons about the battery cable and
starting problems. might be that. also check the ground strap on the battery.

another possibility is the key-ring/chain. if you have a lot of keys on
your key-ring (with your ignition key), it can put a lot of strain on the
ignition switch over the years. so the switch itself can get flakey after
years of all that extra weight hanging from the ignition key.

one thing i did on my old 80 bus was to run a BIG ground wire from the
battery ground strap-body connection back to the starter ground connection
(the mounting bolts). this helped a lot. BIG, REALLY BIG wire. :) so why
haven't i done this on my current bus? PAIN, REALLY BIG PAIN running a wire
that big and blow-torch soldering the connections onto the ends of the
'cable'. but it did help. i got the idea from an article in one of the
magazines, about beetles in winter. they did it to help starting, and ran
another big wire up front to each headlight ... getting better, brighter
lights. it just provides a direct ground path back to the battery.

>If the computer really does need this extra second to calculate before
>allowing startup... Push starting would be a bad idea wouldn't it?

if the computer needed this extra second, it would be a bad idea. but you
can still push start a fuel injected car, cause by the time you get every-
thing moving, the computer is ready. the problem is, if the battery drops
below 10 volts, the computer won't work. :(  so if you've ground and ground
the starter, until it NEEDS to be push started, it's likely that the battery
won't have enough juice to run the computer.

>I always thought that the Do Not Push Start warning on the visor was just
>to deter morons from fucking it up through stupidity.

well ... that IS one benefit of those stickers. ;)  reminds me of the first
vanagons and the gas station cretins who pumped gasoline into the oil filler
tube behind the license plate. so VW had to put the word "OIL" on the top of
the oil filler cap.  i really do wonder about some of the people who work
at places such as zippy marts and gas stations ... or traffic cops. i got
stopped for speeding (in my 80 vanagon ... yeah, right) and the cop had to
asked me what kind of car it was. "Is that a Volvo?", he said.   i've often
wondered if i could have gotten that ticket thrown out for that. ;)

joel