Ignition switch crapped out? But it was so young!

[MikeyM73]

Hey, I was close
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'73 Pop-top Westy, found sitting in a field for 10+ years, cleaned up, rebuilt furniture, reloved. Original 1.7 block/fully polished crank, 93mm 1.8L balanced AA pistons & cylinders, new 1.8L balanced rods, HAM 42/36 heads, Scat C25 cam & lubalobe lifters, Dual HPMX40s, R2C filters w/ Outerwears pre-filters, functioning thermostat & flaps, Pertronix Flamethrower III, 4-1 exhaust w/ Cherry Bomb 2" turbo muffler & OEM heater boxes, averages about 19-22ish on the highway.

[TomWesty]

[ToolBox]

[mikedjames]

When my OG starter switch failed I stripped it down and found the wiping contact had a huge blackened groove in it lined up with the contact post on the rear of the switch body.
Sanded it down, bent what I coukd, tried a wrong repkacement switch, then located the runaway ball bearing from the OG switch in the dark on the road surface ..

Worked for a couple more weeks. Fitted an exchange starter and another cheap switch as the fault started being switch sometimes and starter other times.

All been good for 40000 miles or so since.

The other day I measured the cranking current and found that the solenoid drew 16 amps and the starter was happily cranking a 1641 and drawing 50 amps ( not including solenoid, the current probe was on the starter feed.)
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Ancient vehicles and vessels

1974 VW T2 : Devon Eurovette camper with 1641 DP T1 engine, Progressive carb, full flow oil cooler, EDIS crank timed ignition.
Engine 1: 40k miles (rocker shaft clip fell off), Engine 2: 30k miles (rebuild, dropped valve). Engine 3: a JK Preservation Parts "new" engine, aluminium case: 26k miles: new top end.
Gearbox rebuild 2021 by Bears.

1979 Westerly GK24 24 foot racer/cruiser yacht Forethought of Gosport.
1973 wooden Pacer sailing dinghy

[airkooledchris]

Push button start is the route I went. The relays are an OK (at best) option, but you really need to route the wiring up into the engine compartment to keep them away from the elements.

The starter switches available now are just pure crap. I turn the key and push the button - love it.

As a bonus I can crank the engine to build oil pressure before turning the key whenever I want.

[MikeyM73]

Hey all,

Here's an update as of this past Saturday. After replacing the switch, which I was SOOO sure was the issue (30 min job) it would start only intermittently. Weak! BUT, again when touching the red and/red black wires together under the dash, going to the switch and bypassing it, it would crank 100% of the time. So, figuring there was a bunch of resistance along the current path, I got underneath to the starter and found pretty green corrosion along with some flakey termination work / broken strands, etc. at each wire/terminal connected to the starter. So.. per the sage advice here, I disco'd everything, sanded terminal rings that needed it, replaced terminal rings (and shrink wrapped them with silicon, internally) that needed it and re-terminated the ignition switch spade. Guess what... it's worked ever since. Why? He asks.

Is this because of the overall cumulative amount of resistance that had maybe built up with the corrosion, combined with the resistance of the superior hi-quality (not), 20 dollar, Chinese made ignition switch that was (hopefully) failing and on it's way out? That's the only thing I can think of. Really, as you guys suggested... clean and replace terminals giving all 4 wires to the starter (+batt, alternator, ignition switch, and one more I don't know what it does yet) fresh metal to touch. Along with a new (cheap) switch.

I found a couple OEM / NOS / used German switches, one of which I'll be buying in the next couple days to replace this newly installed Chinese switch but I'm kindof at a loss as to why it was intermittent after the new switch - unless my resistance rant is accurate.

If SG is listening in - in addition to all my blabbering above about resistance, I would imagine that if the solenoid grease is old and starting to stick, that would only add to the resistance and problem.

Thanks for reading,

Mikey
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'73 Pop-top Westy, found sitting in a field for 10+ years, cleaned up, rebuilt furniture, reloved. Original 1.7 block/fully polished crank, 93mm 1.8L balanced AA pistons & cylinders, new 1.8L balanced rods, HAM 42/36 heads, Scat C25 cam & lubalobe lifters, Dual HPMX40s, R2C filters w/ Outerwears pre-filters, functioning thermostat & flaps, Pertronix Flamethrower III, 4-1 exhaust w/ Cherry Bomb 2" turbo muffler & OEM heater boxes, averages about 19-22ish on the highway.

[telford dorr]

You're correct. At the current levels that the solenoid requires, ANY extra resistance is significant! To work reliably, every connection in the chain from battery to dash back to starter solenoid has to be in tip-top condition (e.g., like new, or better). Takes a lot of work to get there. Add crap parts into the mix, and failure is just around the corner...
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'71 panel, now with FI
'Experience' is the ability to recognize a mistake when you're making it again - Franklin P. Jones
In theory, theory works in practice; in practice, it doesn't - William T. Harbaugh
When you're dead, you don't know you're dead. The pain is only felt by others.
Same thing happens when you're stupid. - Philippe Geluck
More VW electrical at http://telforddorr.com/ (available 9am to 9pm PST)

[MikeyM73]

Thanks for the reply. So why do you think that VW decided not to include a starter relay If it were a pretty standard way of wiring by this time?? I would’ve thought it a safer, more reliable way to go but at the same time I can understand them not including the starter relay assuming all connections were/are in proper condition. Also, they most likely did not give thought to the fact that many of these vehicles would be resurrected from the dead and brought back to life and into service with all of those issues surrounding that aspect as well. Certainly no fault of their’s.

Thanks again… Don’t mean to beat a dead horse with this but I find it interesting.
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'73 Pop-top Westy, found sitting in a field for 10+ years, cleaned up, rebuilt furniture, reloved. Original 1.7 block/fully polished crank, 93mm 1.8L balanced AA pistons & cylinders, new 1.8L balanced rods, HAM 42/36 heads, Scat C25 cam & lubalobe lifters, Dual HPMX40s, R2C filters w/ Outerwears pre-filters, functioning thermostat & flaps, Pertronix Flamethrower III, 4-1 exhaust w/ Cherry Bomb 2" turbo muffler & OEM heater boxes, averages about 19-22ish on the highway.

[SGKent]

they did include a starter relay. That is what the solenoid is. What folks are suggesting is adding a second one to power the first one, the idea being that a small relay takes less current than a big solenoid. The Bosch starter uses the solenoid to also push out the drive gear where on starters like a Ford starter centrifugal force spins it out in what is called a Bendix drive. Our Bosch starter uses a fork powered by the solenoid to drive the gear out. In my book adding a second one is another point of failure however some folks seem to have really bad luck with finding high quality ignition switches. The junk ones crack and that causes all sorts of problems. I guess if they used a poor quality conductor internally that would cause heating issues. All I know is that if someone takes the time to go thru their entire wiring system like you did, and clean and grease the solenoid, 99% of the problems go away.

Also the problems can be anywhere. We've had people here where the inside of the battery cable rotted away but it looked normal on the outside. Chase that one down without a volt meter (which is your friend when troubleshooting ignition or wiring issues. Find a voltage drop where there should not be one and there will be corrosion there.
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“Most people don’t know what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” - George Carlin