Just fired up after 3 years....But now we have ignition/starter problem??

[jezza16v]

Hi all, after turning it over without ignition for a few seconds to fuel it up, it fired up first time with the ignition connected, (just for 30sec with oil and no coolant). Anyway this morning we put the radiator on and coolant in and it fired up again first time no problem, ran it til it was warm and the rad fan came on, all fine.......but....... Now when we try to start it the starter turns at the ignition point on the ignition switch without turning it to the starter position. The starter motor was red hot as well. We swapped the ignition switch for a new one we have and operated it with a screwdriver, the same thing happens so not the ignition switch. 

Bog standard small bumper Mk2 8v digi by the way.

Any ideas anyone? We're so close to getting it back on the road so this is a bit of a bu**er!

Thanks for reading.

[Craigwilson]

Just check all your wires coming from the ignition switch and make sure they haven't been cut and rejoined wrongly.

Thick red = constant live
Thick red/black = wire to starter
Black = ignition live from the ignition switch
There is a few more but with that it shouldn't be hard to make sure they are all joined correctly

[gazareth]

put the ignition key to running position then take spade connector wire of starter solenoid and check for voltage. if voltage there you have a wiring problem. if not then your starter motor has fault.

[jezza16v]

Just check all your wires coming from the ignition switch and make sure they haven't been cut and rejoined wrongly.

Thick red = constant live
Thick red/black = wire to starter
Black = ignition live from the ignition switch
There is a few more but with that it shouldn't be hard to make sure they are all joined correctly

Thanks, we're sure the wiring is OK because it worked perfectly the first couple of times so I guess there must have been a short while it was running. Just got to find it.

put the ignition key to running position then take spade connector wire of starter solenoid and check for voltage. if voltage there you have a wiring problem. if not then your starter motor has fault.

Thanks again, which spade connector? We have two spade connectors on the starter a thin white one which we traced through the sheath directly back to the coil and a thicker red one which goes into the loom and back to the fuse box I guess. When we pull the small white one off that goes to the coil the starter disengages, I think it takes a 12v feed to the coil to replace that cut off by the #8 X relief relay. We're sure something has shorted while the car was running as it started normally on the first two goes, the problem only started after it had been running a while & fully warmed up, just looking for ideas of where to look. I found a couple of other threads where people had exactly the same problem but they never ended with a solution, they tried two other starter motors and an ignition switch like us without luck so I'm guessing its a short somewhere.........? 

[gazareth]

its the thick red one you need to test. should power up when key is in start position only. as for the white one I have an 87 and a 90 digifant and both only have the red wire to starter solenoid. the four wires to the coil should be 2 to ignition module/ one to ignition switch/ and one to rev counter.

[jezza16v]

its the thick red one you need to test. should power up when key is in start position only. as for the white one I have an 87 and a 90 digifant and both only have the red wire to starter solenoid. the four wires to the coil should be 2 to ignition module/ one to ignition switch/ and one to rev counter.

Hmm, I need to check out the white wire then, it seems to be part of the original looms. Odd that it worked fine on the first few goes. Will have to break out the multimeter tomorrow. Thanks again, I'll let you know how we get on.

[X4MGS]

I would also check all the earth wires aren't corroded in the engine bay

[jezza16v]

Just thought I'd update you on the problem.......
After the first couple of starts, we rerouted the wiring loom to match some pics we had and when we put the spade connectors back on the starter we inadvertantly swapped the #50 and #15a terminals. Doh!   
The 15a terminal puts a full 12v through the coil direct from the starter circuit just for startups rather than passing through the ballast resistor which drops the spark voltage back a bit to keep the coil load down during constant running. This wire gets the ballasted voltage via the coil at the ignition point on the key turn which was just enough to trip the starter solenoid and keep the starter running. It got f! hot, but still seems to work ok, just hope we haven't cooked anything else.....
Thanks all for your help.