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Scirocco-l Digest, Vol 8, Issue 1



Efrain,

The first thing you should do is explain yourself when you say that it
"won't start".

Do you mean:

 1. you turn the key and absolutely nothing happens in ignition or start
 2. you turn the key and absolutely nothing happens in start
 3. you turn the key and nothing happens in ignition but the starter spins
 4. you turn the key to start and the dash lights dim but nothing
 5. you turn the key to start and the starter spins then stops
 6. you turn the key to start and the starter spins but the engine doesn't
    catch at all
 7. you turn the key to start and the starter spins, the engine misfires a
    few times but won't start
 8. you turn the key to start and the starter spins and the engine starts
    but dies immediately
 9. you turn the key to start and the starter spins too slow
10. etc etc etc

You see, "it doesn't start" is a pretty useless and generic phrase. Kind
of like "i crapped my pants". It's hard to tell whether its food poisoning
or the flu just from the most general description of the obvious symptom
and nothing else.

Don't take this personally; I'm just venting since this is one of those
annoyingly frequent 'list problems' like forgetting to post your location
when buying/selling/offering things.

AFA your hypothesis about the current shutting off the car, it's not
really looking in the right direction.. the fan doesn't draw that much
current, even if it did (i.e. its jammed) then it will blow its fuse. The
alternator is constantly providing power to everything electrical and
adjusting to the current needs of the electrical system anyway.. its
pretty unlikely that you'll be able to kill the engine by any electrical
means except maybe putting a dead short across the battery or coil with a
really beefy wire.

I'm no expert on hot start problems (I always seem to have cold start
problems instead) but I would look at your starter and coil grounds and
add additional grounding straps. If you have an 8v then I think there's
some accumu-pressure-fuel dealie that can cause problems too.

Good luck,

-Toby

On Mon, 1 Dec 2003,  Efrain A. Olivares wrote:

> OK, weird problem on the rocco.
>
> Sitting in traffic, if the water temp gauge reads higher than half
> (basically, above the light) the car will simply shut off. It won't
> restart until the car has cooled off. I pulled the fan switch and let
> the car sit until it got much hotter than halfway and the car idled just
> fine, so I guess my fan is drawing too much current when its second
> speed kicks in and its causing the car to shut off.
>
> Any ideas? What should I start checking? I'm bad at electrical. Thanks.
>