[urq] No stater motor functioning... need help!

[Justin Rettaliata]

When we tear the car down we will def be redoing a lot of wiring on the car,
that's a promise.

BTW, my dad was able to get the car started again!  Turned out that the
splice point where teh PO had wired in the 2nd hot wire off his reserve
starter switch had gotten pretty corroded.  My dad took it all apart,
cleaned and tinned the points and reassembled and the car seems to be
working 100% again.

Appreciate the help/suggestions!  We will def address them when the time
comes to make this car better than new!

-j

On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 4:34 PM, Ben Swann <benswann at verizon.net> wrote:

>  I've seen a lot of "new" wiring - but it almost always needs to be yanked
> and redone because it wasn't done right in the first place.  Seems to be the
> case in almost every car I have sorted out.
>
> Ben
>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* Justin Rettaliata [mailto:jretal at gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Friday, July 25, 2008 3:37 PM
> *To:* Ben Swann
> *Cc:* Mark R; urq at audifans.com; quattro at audifans.com
>
> *Subject:* Re: [urq] No stater motor functioning... need help!
>
>  thanks for the reply everyone!  My dad did a bit more poking around...
> the issue seems to be with a splice that the PO had done when installing a
> 2nd backup start button.  My dad did some poking around last night and found
> that he didn't get power at on emoment, and then when he wiggled the wires
> around he suddenly had power again!  So w/ the starter out of the car, he
> can get it to turn over.  He's going to clean out the splice and redo it.
> Hopefully that will solve the issue!
>
> it seems that some new wires have already been run to this area, but I'm
> not 100% sure as I haven't started really poking around.  I have plans to
> install a jumper block in the engine bay much like I did on my turbo'd
> 4000.  Makes life so much easier to have a central post like that.  This car
> is destined for a 20vt swap, so we will be redoing a LOT of wiring down the
> road.  That work involves swapping out the under dash fuse box for the one
> in the engine bay like the newer Urs and the 4000s.
>
> thanks again for the help everyone!  appreciate it!
>
> -Justin
>
> On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 6:57 PM, Ben Swann <benswann at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>>  Agreed - I don't recall what guage I installed ( think it was 4), but
>> put as big as you can run through the firewall.  OK - no need for 0 guage,
>> but 2 or 4 would be good.  OE wiring was still good, and I added extra
>> ground point from battery to underseat as well as takeoff from the chassis
>> to various points around the engine.  In theory, the steel chassis is a
>> giant ground wire and no need to run a large ground - but you do need to get
>> from the neg. battery post to the steel chassis and I've noticed these tend
>> to become failure points.  Also the ground to the engine is very minimal -
>> even on the 200/5000 cars they only had one small ground wire bolted to the
>> aluminum mount - fine when new, but the mismatch of metal over time resulted
>> in almost non-existant grounding.  I usually add at least one more ground
>> from the opposite side of the engine bay/chassis to the block and two or
>> three doesn't hurt - add one to the head if you like as the conductor from
>> head to block is headbolts as far as I can tell.
>>
>> Ben
>>
>>  ------------------------------
>> *From:* Mark R [mailto:speedracer.mark at gmail.com]
>> *Sent:* Thursday, July 24, 2008 5:26 PM
>> *To:* Ben Swann
>> *Cc:* Justin Rettaliata; urq at audifans.com; quattro at audifans.com
>> *Subject:* Re: [urq] No stater motor functioning... need help!
>>
>>    Especially with the older VAG cars (pre-early-1990s-ish), the primary
>> wiring was pretty poor.  By primary wiring, I mean the battery to starter to
>> alternator and major grounds.  One of my first suggested upgrades is to
>> replace or parallel the existing primary wiring.  The wire used was fairly
>> poor quality and over time, moisture wicks into the sheath and corrodes it
>> internally.  I've cut battery to starter wires apart only to find severe
>> corrosion well into the sheath.  Every try flexing the old VAG wiring?  It's
>> SUPER stiff and far from a modern ropelay construction.  I'd suggest that
>> 6ga. is minimal when new (especially considering it's construction) and I
>> usually replace with 2 ga.  (sometimes 4).
>>
>> VW recalled several years of 16V powered cars to replace the wiring from
>> the battery to starter (maybe to alternator, too).
>>
>> Good luck,
>> Mark Rosenkrantz
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 4:20 PM, Ben Swann <benswann at verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Justin,
>>>
>>> I was contiually having issues with poor starting current on my '83.  If
>>> you look at the
>>> wiring layout, you'll find that there is but a single positive wire
>>> aroung 6 guage that
>>> is really inadequate for the job.  Over time, any degrading of
>>> connections - pos. or
>>> ground or "weak" battery will result in slow/no truing over.  This will
>>> hasten the
>>> demise of the starter, too.
>>>
>>> I ran a dedicated positive 6 guage wire from battery positive directly to
>>> the starter
>>> post.  Routed across under seat and up passenger side and through
>>> firewall.  Area near
>>> exhaust manifold/turbo area was given extra protection.  Actually the
>>> rout taken goes to
>>> a jumper post I installed on the firewall near location of where the
>>> battery would be on
>>> 4000 quattro and then branch positive underhood electricals from there,
>>> but I disgress.
>>> The wire back to the battery may even be a #4, but with at least two (2)
>>> #6 wires going
>>> to starter and then to alternator, there is plenty of copper to run
>>> starter current
>>> through.
>>>
>>> Of course, having a new fresh battery helps, and I have had a few older
>>> batteries that
>>> were fine in other cars would not cut it in the UrQ.
>>> You have some work cut out for you, but really this is the way it should
>>> have been done
>>> at the factory.  If you install the jumper post, you will find it easier
>>> to
>>> charge/jumpstart the car as well as run new electricals, such as the EFI
>>> system you may
>>> eventually install.
>>>
>>> HTH.
>>>
>>> Ben
>>>
>>> [Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:57:46 -0400
>>> From: "Justin Rettaliata" <jretal at gmail.com>
>>> Subject: [urq] No stater motor functioning... need help!
>>> To: urq at audifans.com
>>> Message-ID:
>>>        <dfc6dd30807231357x10dca2c3rcf9a94caf28f4824 at mail.gmail.com>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>>>
>>> Ok ladies and gents here's the issue.
>>>
>>> Our '83 UrQ was running fine and dandy after we bought it, and 2 days
>>> later the starter
>>> motor wouldn't kick over.
>>>
>>> Everything else fires up when I turn the key, but when I go to start the
>>> car the lights
>>> dim a little bit (like there's a load on the system) and nothing happens.
>>> No clicks no
>>> nothing. The PO had installed a 2nd starter button to bypass the ignition
>>> switch as well
>>> since he was having issues w/ the ignition switches failing, but
>>> unfortunately pushing
>>> this button results with the same non-start issue and the same dimming of
>>> lights as if
>>> there's a load on teh system.
>>>
>>> My dad pulled the starter motor last night and tested it and it worked
>>> fine.
>>> I had tested power to the starter and grounding and it was fine. I also
>>> tested to see if
>>> it got 12v to the trigger wire and (iirc) it was getting 9-10v. My dad is
>>> going to
>>> reconfirm these #s tonight. That seemed too low to me personally, but I'm
>>> not sure what
>>> to think at the moment.
>>>
>>> Also, all grounds to the battery have been cleaned.
>>>
>>> Question I have is... where else should I be looking for an issue?
>>>
>>> Are there relays I should be looking for/finding to test if they're
>>> working?
>>> Need the car to be operational for another 6-8 months as we're not ready
>>> to start
>>> tearing it down yet. Also my mom wants it out of the garage as she
>>> doesn't like it that
>>> her car is now sitting outside :-P
>>>
>>> Any advice is MUCH appreciated!!!
>>> -Justin]
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>>
>>
>