alt.energy.homepower

The message <$@>
from "NotMe" contains these words:

> "Johnny B Good"
> |
> | > Likely much of the problem was corroded or missing ground strap between
> the transmission and the chassis.
> |
> | Nope! That would not have allowed the starter to crank once the
> | pre-engaged solenoid had closed the contacts. It was most definitely
> | excessive volt drop due to the very long run of wire feeding the
> | ignition/starter switch and that 40 odd amp demand placed on it by the
> | pre-engaged solenoid load.

> I've worked on VDubs since the mid '50s. I've even build power plants for
> small
> aircraft with the 1600cc engines.

> The reality is that a major part of electrical 'fail to start' problems are
> due to the grounding strap between the transmission and the chassis. This
> impacts both the starter drive current as well as the pre-engaged solenoid.

I don't doubt that, but the fact that I was able (initially) to 'work
around the problem' by the expedient of switching the ignition coil
loading (6 amps) off the ignition feed which also fed the pre-engaged
solenoid via the all-in-one ignition/starter switch rather suggested
excessive volt drop in the feed to the solenoid (45 amps at 6 volt),
rather than a bad grounding strap.

Fitting that heavy duty contact 6 volt relay completely cured the
problem. A bad earth strap wouldn't have allowed this fix to work. The
wiring looked heavy duty enough to pass 45 amps ok but the excessive
length of wiring _and_ a 6 volt system made that 2 or 3 volt drop far
more significant than it would have been in a 12 volt system.

--
Regards, John.

Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying.
The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.