Bizarre behavior: no start 20v200 avant

[Brett Dikeman]

At 2:29 PM -0400 8/2/02, Tom Donohue wrote:

>The Avant suddenly decided that it would not start on Wednesday.  I hooked
>up the jumpers, thinking I had run the battery down (left the radar
>detector on for about 5 hours), but absolutely no response. In experimenting
>with several accessories, I discovered that there was plenty of power to
>the radio, sunroof, windows, wipers, etc., so ruled out a flat battery.

<snip>

>Decided to try starting the car again....started like nothing
>ever had happened.  Turned the car off, and the problem was back!
>Couldn't start the car the rest of the day.

The starter cable has corroded- that's what my money is on, at least.
Extremely common, and has happened to me on both the type44's I've
owned and just happened to a friend on his 90; I don't think starters
fail any other way, at least on our cars.  The cable is exposed
braided copper, and just completely falls apart with time.  It will
make/break at random causing symptoms you describe; the dead giveaway
is that you can hear the solenoid clicking.

Remove the starter(disconnect battery, remove power connections,
remove 2 bolts, pull out, done), and take it to a shop that rebuilds
them and have them overhaul the whole thing, or get a rebuilt unit.

Paint the cable on the replacement with -several- light coats of
spraypaint if it hasn't been already- try to get as much of the cable
coated as you can, particularly near the base of the starter.

I believe the rebuilt unit I sourced from Foreign Autoparts had a
painted cable.

Brett
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