[Vwdiesel] no start, relay and a smoke puff

[Chris Jude]

Tad,

Thanks for the reply.  I'm looking at the wire-diagram (admittedly, I'm a
little weak at electric diagram and DC troubleshooting),  it looks like the
starter grounds through the transmission body, and the battery grounds at
the ground cable, which looks ok  to me.  There is a 4awg wire goes from
the starter to a pin on the glow plug relay.
I've long had a funny problem on this car where the oil pressure buzzer
goes off randomly, and is often (not always) shut off by beeping the horn.
But that may or may not be entirely unrelated.
Any other suggestions on what to check with the ground path?

Chris


On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 5:23 PM, Tad <tadc at europa.com> wrote:

> Chris, I'd start with checking the ground path between the starter and
> battery.  It sounds like you've got a bad connection that is
> backfeeding current through whatever path is available (the TPS wire
> in this case).  Not sure how the GP relay fits into the picture
> though...
>
> On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 2:02 PM, Chris Jude <vegbenz300 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Folks,
> >
> > For the last couple weeks I've bee having an occasional no start
> situation
> > with the 85 Jetta.  It's not every time, but occasionally the car wont
> > start, and sometimes it won't start and there will be a small puff of
> smoke
> > from the fuse box area.  I've noticed that the insulation of the Brown
> wire
> > going to the throttle position sensor switch is melted.  When I remove
> the
> > glow plug relay the car will crank and start fine (sans glow plugs).
> > Last week, after this happened a couple days in a row, the battery died.
>  I
> > tightened up a wire going to the alternator and that seemed to fix that
> > problem, and the car started regularly for several days, no problems.
> > Today the problem came back, with some smoke, I haven't looked yet to see
> > if there is another fried wire.
> > Any thoughts on where to look?  I don't see any bad connections at the
> fuse
> > box, and the glow plug relay pins look fine.  The battery is charging as
> > well.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Chris
> > 1985 VW Jetta NA
> > Pittsboro, NC
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>