Hi all,

A friend of mine is installing a replacement 3.5V8 into his 101. When you start it up, it sounds fine apart from an electrical whine. On further inspection we have found that the starter motor is running constantly.

We then went to switch the engine off and restart it. When I turned the key, it fired on ignition, without me turning the key to turn it over. Hence the starter is picking up power when it shouldn't do. If left for a couple of minutes it requires you to turn the key properly to ignition then starter, otherwise the starter runs when the ignition is switched on, and then all the time the engine is running.

We bypassed the relay, fitted an old starter, checked the ignition switch, checked through most of the wiring, changed the oil pressure switch (just in case), and still it does it.

Anyone got any idea what it could be.

Adsey

have yer checked that the ign switch is returning properly. it might be that its slow to return from the spring loaded 'start' position.

Yeh, we checked that.

To rule it out completely and check the wiring at that end, we changed the barrel for a couple of flick switches.

Really puzzling us???

reet yer starter will be the pre-engaged type. so its possible that the contacts are staying closed. and returning slowly to the 'off' position. take it off and check the operation of it. it should move forward before it starts to turn and when released should return quickly

Thanks for that slob,

we took the old starter motor and swapped it with the new one. This still gave the same symptoms making us think that the starter motor isn't the cause of the problem.

We tried the whole wait a minute till it stopped starting on ignition thing, and it constantly did EXACTLY the same thing. Leave it for about a minute and it would start normally(apart from the fact it would start and the starter motor would continue to run). This was making us think something in the electrical system is storing the charge of something like that. It seems to happen too perfectly to simply be something sticking.

Adsey

Found the source of the prob. today.

Dodgy ballast sensor. Don't know how it was causing the starter to run as it's meant to prevent you overloading hence killing the engine. Hmm.

Anyway when we bypassed that we heard nothing but the beautiful rumble of the V8.

whats a ballast sensoR? hows it work?

i'm not Mr Electrical,

but I believe it's purpose is to prevent the vehicle being overloaded somehow.

Sure someone can give a better explanation than me!!!!