Help!

[denzil]

Looking for any bright ideas or experience with a starting problem. I have 500SE and have been having problems starting it after it's been running. I thought it might be a battery problem initially, but this has now been well and truly ruled out. When it's been running and is properly hot, it won't restart at all. On turning the key there is no evident voltage drop or even any sign of the starter trying to engage. If a booster pack is brought in the result is the same, however, if it's jump started via the Anderson plug, it goes straight away every time. I took it to a car electrics place yesterday and the guy there thought it might be a problem getting enough voltage to the starter motor, so he changed one of the connections on the starter itself. We then started it several times with no problems. I took it for a spin up the road, brought it back, and again, no problems, so we thought it was sorted. I then drove home, switched it off and tried a restart, and it wouldn't go! Went into the garage later and tried again and it started on the button. Any ideas please!! It's a nightmare, as I can't trust to park it anywhere unless I can either jump it or bump it. I can't even stop for fuel and guarantee a restart. Many thanks. Mark.

[5.0ltr]

Sounds like a classic 'hot start' issue. Google same, it can be sorted !

[spend]

You need to prepare an extra method to put +12v to the spade terminal on the starter, so that you can test IMMEDIATELY when you get the failure.

If that works ok, the fault is in the immobiliser / low current to the starter. If it makes no difference the fault is in the BIG cables / chassis.

TBH if the anderson scenario was correct (possibly cooled enough in the time it takes to fit) I would suspect poor battery connection / chassis grounds, but normally you would get a click then under load it's like the battery suddenly gets cut off? If it just clicks & no battery side affects thats generally sticky solenoid not activating so new starter or the more risky (IMHO) throw bigger current at it to force it.

[gavgavgav]

5.0ltr said:

Sounds like a classic 'hot start' issue. Google same, it can be sorted !

As said this is really common, I did the £5 relay fix which worked fine for a few years which was replaced when Carl freshened up the alarm system.

http://www.tvruk.tv/

more info:

http://www.chimaerapages.com/resources_hotstart.ph...

[carsy]

Have a read of this.

http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?h=0...

[QBee]

Don't panic unduly - just be prepared to wait approx 15 minutes and it will re-start. It's to do with heat and resistance (resistance goes up with temperature), so as soon as it has cooled down sufficiently it will behave again.

[denzil]

Thank you all. It does sound like a text book case. I always thought the hot sart issues were fuel related and so did not look for them! The guy at the electrical place commented on how thin the wire was to the starter motor and was also surprised at far it went around the car! Will see about uprating some bits. Thanks again. Mark

[QBee]

denzil said:

Thank you all. It does sound like a text book case. I always thought the hot sart issues were fuel related and so did not look for them! The guy at the electrical place commented on how thin the wire was to the starter motor and was also surprised at far it went around the car! Will see about uprating some bits. Thanks again. Mark

Get him to uprate that wire - it may be all you need. They degrade over time.

[Rob_the_Sparky]

Wish I had the time to look at this, I have spent time measuring the same problem on Pug 205s (which I've owned for years) and people came up with several similar fixes. However, it turned out that there were a number of contributing factors rather than a single cause when you actually got a DVM out and started measuring things. Not sure how much effort has been put into actually diagnosis on TVRs but on Peugeots many people were "fixing" without understanding the problem, I.e. just masking the true cause by bypassing it. Now that will make it start but personally I prefer to understand the problem...

[QBee]

Rob_the_Sparky said:

Wish I had the time to look at this, I have spent time measuring the same problem on Pug 205s (which I've owned for years) and people came up with several similar fixes. However, it turned out that there were a number of contributing factors rather than a single cause when you actually got a DVM out and started measuring things. Not sure how much effort has been put into actually diagnosis on TVRs but on Peugeots many people were "fixing" without understanding the problem, I.e. just masking the true cause by bypassing it. Now that will make it start but personally I prefer to understand the problem...

TVRs suffer from:

1. Factory mis-wired a relay in the immobiliser
2. Immobilisers fail over time
3. Starter motors ditto
4. Poor quality, thin and rather long, starter cables
5. Starter solenoids fail over time
6. No Grief or Chimaera is less than 11 years old now, average age is 17.

FWIW I had this problem from day one of my TVR ownership, and my alarm started to fail too, so the fix for me was to replace the entire alarm immobiliser (Carl Baker did that for me. Never had the problem since)

Edited by QBee on Tuesday 20th May 13:59

[tivver500]

A quick 'help my starter motor' fix is to wrap a heat insulating cover (Demon Tweaks?) around the motor. This will stop it absorbing heat from the exhaust downpipes when stopped.
The absorbed heat causes the pre-engagement solenoid to bind thus stopping the starter motor from working. If you want to go to the next step then remove starter and increase the air gap around the solenoid armature by about 0.001".
I wrote an article on PH some years ago about this and I haven't had a problem since doing the mod about 10 years ago

[denzil]

Thanks again for the advice. The starter motor is already wrapped with heat proofing, so will go down the route of upgrading the wiring. Fingers crossed!

[EGB]

QBee said:

Don't panic unduly - just be prepared to wait approx 15 minutes and it will re-start. It's to do with heat and resistance (resistance goes up with temperature), so as soon as it has cooled down sufficiently it will behave again.

Agree. My 56K miles tired starter motor gave out, click, click, click on the ignition key. Could have been the solenoid.
Replaced with a new 2kw starter motor (better than the standard 1.7kw). Cured my hot start after a hot run. Spins engine start like a Dervish now even with existing TVR battery cables. However, previous to this I fitted Mr. Beers hot start kit. Worth checking the battery has enough oomph amps and earthing points are all clean and bright.