Bus Against the Wall

[Millennium Falcon]

Here is an interesting little mystery I had to solve one morning recently.

One morning in January I went out to the parking lot and found my bus had been pushed up and over the parking curb and into the brick wall of my building. Of course my first thought was that some punks had been messing with my bus and pushed it over the curb as a prank. I was getting pissed. But there were no hand prints, dents, or any sign of the bus being manhandled. The back of the bus was quite dirty so any of this would have been obvious.

I put the bus in neutral, went back to the engine compartment and tried to rotate the fan a little bit by hand: it was locked up tight. When I disconnected the battery the engine freed itself up (thankfully) so I figured I had a starter problem.

As it turns out, my hot start relay shorted out and engaged the starter causing the Falcon to drive up and over the curb then bang into the brick wall and come to rest. The starter obviously remained engaged for a good period of time since parking my bus the night before. The starter is fried.This occured during a mild spell in January so there was lots of salt run-off on the roads and I had just returned from a trip a few hours North of Toronto. The salt water worked it's way into the relay as it sat over night. Now I can detest road salt for an entirely new reason.

Thankfully there was no damage done to any other vehicle or person, and only a little dent on my license plate. If I had have been parked 5 feet to the left the bus would have went up and over the curb and straight into the passenger side of my neighbors recently painted Mustang. You can see it parked in the back ground. Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you.

So I replaced the starter with my spare (without the hot start relay) and all was good. In fact I never needed the relay in the first place and wired it up a few years back only because it came with another engine I was installing and figured what the heck.

What if the bus had have been in neutral with the parking brake on? I think a couple hours of the starter self cranking the engine may have been worse.
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"Don't worry, she'll hold together . . . You hear me, baby? Hold together!" -Han to the Falcon

1972 White Campmobile
1700 cc Type IV
Dual Solex 34 PDSIT2/3

[sped372]

I guess that relay was a little bit too eager to help out. Glad nothing worse came of it.
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1971 Karmann Ghia - 1600 DP
1984 Westfalia - 1.9 WBX

[SGKent]

Can we sticky this thread for the next guy who posts that we are all full of BS when we say that this is a known risk with a hot start relay? Glad the wall was there to stop it before it really got out of hand.
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George Carlin:
"Most people don't know what they're doing, and a lot of them are really good at it."

Skills@EuroCarsPlus:
"never time to do it right but always time to do it twice"

[Krautski]

There's a ghost in your bus, eh?
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BUS FOR SALE

[bigbore]

I never understood why anyone would need to put one of those stupid things on a vw. If they were needed vw would have installed them at one time or another. I have own and operated 6 volt vw in -60F and didn't need one my vw never failed to start and it sat outside all winter if I didn't need one there you never need one.
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where its cold and snowy

[Wildthings]

But it is such a cool addition??? Way better than correcting the original problem.

[Bala]

Scary!
If you are going to use one of these make sure it's safely installed in the interior of the bus.
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1976 Westy

1966 Beetle

[MOX]

i think the earth tried to move and your bus stood its ground and saved the world!
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if you can't bring it back in one piece, at least bring back all the pieces

[SGKent]

[Bala]

[Millennium Falcon]

I remember thinking it was a dumb idea to install the relay after I swapped another engine into my bus. Especially since there was never any reason to use one in the first place. Guess I just figured I'd wire it up and give it a try since it was there. A mistake. Surprised it lasted as long as it did. These things seem a bit like a ticking bomb and you do not know when it is going to go off. I will not be doing that again. Hopefully no one else will either.
_________________
"Don't worry, she'll hold together . . . You hear me, baby? Hold together!" -Han to the Falcon

1972 White Campmobile
1700 cc Type IV
Dual Solex 34 PDSIT2/3

[germansupplyscott]

good thing you didn't park with the transmission in reverse!
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SL

[SGKent]

[Bala]

[aeromech]

Guys,
I have a confession to make. You can kick me out of the club if you want to but I have to be honest on this one. Yes, I did install a hot start relay into a bus. There, I said it. I've been a member of the "it's just a bandaid" club for a very long time... until recently.

One of my car customers named Rick, a retired teacher, has a 1971 bus that I have worked on over the past couple years. In that time Rick has brought his bus to me for several jobs but mostly because it wouldn't crank. All in all I think I've tried probably 5 different times to fix this problem. I'd do something and it would crank and run fine. Then after 6 months or maybe less, Rick would bring it back and I'd start the cycle all over again.

I've cleaned all the grounds and cables
I've replaced the bushing, twice
I've changed the starter, twice
I've changed the ignition switch
I've checked the ignition switch connections to the harness

Each time I thought I'd fixed the problem only to have it's ugly head pop up once again. So finally I'd had enough. Alright damnit! I'm not only going to install a rebuilt Autozone starter, I'm going to go the extra mile and install my very first and only hot start relay in almost 40 years of working on these cars. I just happened to have a Ford style relay so I used that. So far so good. Wow, I feel better. Thanks for listening.

_________________
Lead Mechanic: San Diego Air and Space Museum
Licensed Airframe and Powerplant Mechanic
Licensed Pilot (Single engine Land)
Boeing 727,737-200-300-400,757,767
Airbus A319,320,321
DC9/MD80
BAe146
Fokker F28/F100
VW type 1 1962,63,65,69,72
VW Type 2 1971 (3 ea.) 1978, 1969
VW Jetta
VW Passat
Capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound

[bigbore]

Ok aermech put out your hand and receive your punishment!

well at least you use a proper ford type relay that will hold up those little relays will not.
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where its cold and snowy

[Millennium Falcon]

[tristessa]

I've had the same 40A Genuine Bosch hot-start relay on my daily-driver Westy for five years now with no failures or problems. It's mounted to one of the gas tank bulkhead screws near the pie tin, so the odds of it ever getting wet are pretty much nonexistent. Fires on the first or second crank too.

Put 'em where they'll stay dry and don't use a $5 cheapo relay and you'll be fine. I see plenty of good-quality 30-40A relays at the wreckers. Audi's are a good source...

[cdennisg]

[aeromech]

For what it's worth, that is a very nice, clean install. Well done.

Thank you. I felt bad about not being able to fix the problem so all I charged Rick for was the actual cost of the rebuilt starter. I threw in my labor, the relay, and the other materials. He's a great guy and showed so much patience where some other customers would have gotten pretty ticked off. There was a promise of some beer in the future but so far I haven't seen any.
_________________
Lead Mechanic: San Diego Air and Space Museum
Licensed Airframe and Powerplant Mechanic
Licensed Pilot (Single engine Land)
Boeing 727,737-200-300-400,757,767
Airbus A319,320,321
DC9/MD80
BAe146
Fokker F28/F100
VW type 1 1962,63,65,69,72
VW Type 2 1971 (3 ea.) 1978, 1969
VW Jetta
VW Passat
Capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound