oh jeez i need help

[Paiste402]

ok ive just aquired an old VC SL/E that hasnt been used in about 4 years. It has been outside all this time and ive just gotten it home.

I put a good battery into it and the gauges light up, the wipers work, the little water squirters work, lights work, highbeams work, indicators work, voltmeter works, LPG tank primes and the petrol clicks in, aircon works...

But when i turn the key nothing happens, the voltmeter moves a little but nothing. also i have noticed that in the steerting column where the peice of metal moves when you turn the key there are small sparks. which gets me nervous.

I have just taken out the starter motor and cleaned it all up and but it back into the car and still nothing (i swear i heard the solanoid make a click noise though). And now all of a sudden when i turned on the highbeams all electrics stop working until i turn off the highbeams.

Specs of the car so u know wats in it:

308 Black motor with electric dizzy (instead of the blue)
4 speed chevy trans with B&M shift
LPG Crow cam
LPG installed
Bored to a 312 - 5.1 litre.

any one know whats wrong?

[yobbo88]

Sparks near the key? check the ignition wiring in the column. Someone may have tried to steal it at some point but stuffed up

[Paiste402]

Sparks near the key? check the ignition wiring in the column. Someone may have tried to steal it at some point but stuffed up

actually it has been stolen twice in its life haha,

thanks mate

[Trav001]

you may wanna look at geting an immobaliser fitted,

[Paiste402]

you may wanna look at geting an immobaliser fitted,

yea that would be smart, dont wanna lose it again.

does anyone know what needs to be done to change the locks on the front doors? they are a bit chewed out and useless

[Paiste402]

sorry to resserect a dead thread but i still need a hand

i put in a recond starter motor to see what happens and still nothin.

Im scrapping my wagon to put parts into this car and i just dont know what it needs

[DANNY8]

To change the door locks, take off the door skin, unhook the lock, and all that holds it in is a wierd type of circlip thing. Just use some pliers or sumfin to pull it off from around the lock and she'll fall out.

With the starter motor issues. I'd pull the steering colum apart and start going through all the wires with a test light making sure they are working correctly. If u use a screwdriver or sumfin and place it on the positive side of the starter motor (which has the fat cables on it) and on the positive side of the solenoid (has a purple wire on it I rekon), it should kick in and start turning over the motor. If it does, well the starter is ok. So u start going backwards through the wiring to see wats goin on. Get a test light onto the starter solenoid (purple wire like mentioned above) and see if it gets power when the ignition is put into the 'start' position (so you'll prolly need someone to turn the key). If there's no power, check the same wire where it comes out of the ignition. If it has power, well somewhere between there and the starter is where the problem is, maybe run a new wire, or try and fix the old one. If there's no power, the ignition is either screwed, or there's no input power for the ignition, but if ur dash lights and that light up when the ignition is turned on I'd say there is power.

I'll go get a pic of my ignition and show ya wat wires are wat if I can still work it out

[DANNY8]

Ok here we go.

First of all, if u have an auto u also have the neutral safety switch. This is a switch so when the car is not in Park or Neutral it will not start. The switch is in the middle of the purple wire which goes from the ignition to the starter solenoid. The switch itself is around the gear shifter. Maybe hunt around with a test light and see wat u can find. See if power is going in, and coming out.

Here's the starter motor.



For the starter to work it needs power, earth and a signal wire. Power is achieved by the fat cables which run from the battery onto the positive post. Earth is easy as it's earthed out through the motor. The signal wire is attached on a male spade clip, which normally would be purple I rekon. My wires are different as everything is getting rewired. The pic doesn't show the signal wire onto the terminal, but I figured the picture could still help.

Here's the ignition wires. I've only got a few connected, as this is all that is needed for the car to start and run.


You should have a connector where I have the wires. One wire (big red, with blue tape around the heatshrink) is power. This wire goes to the positive post on the starter motor, so it has direct power all the time. This is the input power for the ignition. The skinny red wire with the blue terminal is the starter signal wire (normally purple) which goes to the male spade connector on the starter solenoid (or neutral safety switch as mentioned above). When the ignition is in the 'start' position, it sends power to the solenoid to start turning over the starter motor.

Now the last 2 wires here are outputs. The reason they are linked is because they go to the same thing. They both run to the positive side of the coil. There are 2 outputs as one is for when the ignition is on the 'ON' position, and one for the 'START' position. If u leave one disconnected, we'll say the 'ON' one, the coil will get power when it's cranking over, but when u turn the key back to 'ON', there will be no power going to the coil....so yeah these are linked together so the coil gets power when the key is in the 'ON' position AND the 'START' position.

Hopefully this will help ya out. I'm not good at writing real good sentences so hopefully ya can make out wat I'm tryng to say haha.

But yeah, get a test light and start playing around!

[Paiste402]

damn good post mate! but im still a little confused which may be why i cant get this car to turn over.

Ive got a VB 4.2 V8 wagon as well and ive changed that starter motor 4 times now and its worked everytime and there are only 2 wires. One which comes off the battery and one which is the little slide on female plug. This works but i see in ur pic that you have more than 2 wires! Ive wired up my VC the same way but there are multiple male slide on plugs, are they all the same but for different vantage points (eg. so it will fit cars that have different length wires) or am i wiring this one up wrong as well?

Also the starter motor makes NO noise at all, no clunk or notin. And yes then the starter motor is good, i used it 2 days ago in my wagon.

thanks heaps man

[PRH]

Ok from what your saying i suspect you have a voltage drop problem,you need a volt meter a cheap digital one will do.
The fact that everything goes stupid with the hibeams on indicates an earthing fault,what you need to do is to put the negative probe on the earth on the battery terminal and check the voltage at the ign switch,now turn on the lights and see what happens,if the voltage drops right down then work ya way back towards the battery positive post at the battery,then check the earths in a similar way by putting the positve probe on the postive post of the battery and check the voltage at the body earths.
Once you have eliminated these as a cause of problems check the starter engaging circuit,to do this earth the neg probe and probe the starter cable should be purple at the ign switch,been to may years for me to remember exactly where the lume goes but it will go to the trans shifter,and then down to the starter,bere in mind i beleive you have a different trans in the car so it might be down on the side of the trans itself.
If this dont help then ya might need to take to an auto electrician,if ya like you pay the fuel and i'll be down next weekend plus grog lol
Phillip

[Paiste402]

oh its got a voltage gauge, its an SL/E! so i can see what its doing.

The lights still work right now and the voltage is steady, at the point when it turns on the voltage just drops a little bit, just a little but thats normal. When i try and start it the voltmeter just drops by a quarter and nothing happens. I was just outside trying all this then and i had the highbeams on, interior light, ignition, indicators, cig lighter powered LED lights and the air con on and there were no hassles. Then i tried to start it and nothin, not a sound (except for the LPG tank priming)

Tomorrow im going to clean all of the earth points cause they are corroded a bit. Also the battery terminals are quite shagged out but its enough to get a good reading on the voltmeter so i dunno.

[Paiste402]

Alright, i have all of those wires in the steering column and i used a test light and they all work as they should, when i turn the key to start the starter motor wire lights up. And yea it was purple!

BUT!

I followed the wire from the starter motor and its green, which means its been changed somewhere. But the wire doesnt go towards the dashboard, it goes to a fuse at the right side of the engine bay. But there is this crude wire coming from it i am yet to follow...

Now, is this fuse neccisary? Is this just what the last owner put in place? I ask this because i just might run a new wire from the original purple wire in the steering column down to the starter solenoid.

[DANNY8]

Not sure about the fused wire, but yeah u can run a new wire from the ignition to the starter. Altho it will bypass ur neutral safety switch (unless u connect that to, which isn't really necessary).

[Paiste402]

thanks to u guys im getting really close. I have now found out that there is a short somewhere on the car. When i have the car in igniton and go to start everything turn off but turns on again when i take it off the start.

Now i just have to find tis fault, any ideas where it could be? BTW, thank you heaps for all the help so far!

[VN_Luke]

When i have the car in igniton and go to start everything turn off but turns on again when i take it off the start.

That's what it's supposed to do (except a few certain items stay on).. - so that you get more cranking power!

I haven't read the thread in detail, but the things i'd be checking are: (and get yourself a repair manual, with wiring diagrams so you know where everything should be.

- make sure the ignition switch is working (test for connectivity between correct terminals with a multimeter and the switch in different positions)
- make sure there is no 'kill switch' installed
- make sure all the cables are hooked up right
- locate and verify the operation of the inhibitor switch (neutral/parm start switch)

[maxpower QLD]

thanks to u guys im getting really close. I have now found out that there is a short somewhere on the car. When i have the car in igniton and go to start everything turn off but turns on again when i take it off the start.

Hi

I'm not tryin to be a know all or anything but have u look at the neutral switch thingo inside your shifter ?

i had this problem when i converted my farthers HZ ute to a manual . i removed the auto shifter and pulled the wires out not knowing that 2 of them had to be joined again for the the car to start .

[Paiste402]

Hi

I'm not tryin to be a know all or anything but have u look at the neutral switch thingo inside your shifter ?

i had this problem when i converted my farthers HZ ute to a manual . i removed the auto shifter and pulled the wires out not knowing that 2 of them had to be joined again for the the car to start .

There are 2 wires joined together for the starter and thats the way ive left it, im sure that there is a short somewhere or that wire that it is joined to doesnt go anywhere

thanks man

[matt_hayward]

this may sound stupid, BUT, try replacing the wiper/indicator stalk. we had a problem with a vh a few years ago- lost lights then indicators only had high beam then lost that and car would not start. had me stumped so we towed it to auto electrician and he fixed it in 20 mins (he'd seen it all before) there only worth around $40-50 might be worth a go and could explain the sparks in the column

[Paiste402]

its cool guys ive got the car running

it needed a relay for the starter motor. Also it wasnt a fuse it was connected to, it was a shagged out relay with 5 pins and only 3 being used. A new 4 pin relay (and some help from the guy in the auto store) and she fired up right away!

Thanks u guys, u really have helped me get this baby going! Man, 5.1 litres is LOUD! hahahaha

thanks again!