Chaps - below is exerpt from my e-mail to BHM. Since found to be clutch switch:
"Car parked at one pub after long run. Left for 2 hours. Starts perfectly. Driven to and parked in another pub car park for an hour. Will not start. RAC called. While engineer is fiddling with fuse box, car starts. We think that the starter motor relay may be sticking. After this, starts again repeatedly. I then drive it for an hour, stop it to put petrol in it. Starts fine. Drive to friend’s house, where it is parked overnight.
Starts fine in the morning, 2 hour run through London. Park it at my girlfriend’s house. It fails to start. I fiddle with the starter motor relay, still won’t start. I check all the fuses again, all fine. RAC arrive again. Check the starter motor relay – and it seems to be clicking when I push the start button, so it appears to be something else. We gently try to bump start it – thus bypassing the starter motor – it still won’t start. Put it onto a low loader, bring it back to you. Get it off the low loader, it starts fine.
I would think that it was a hot start problem, except that as you can see, it has started while hot on a number of occasions. It’s not the starter motor assembly itself – car still wouldn’t start even when we bypassed this with a bump start (although we couldn’t confirm this by getting direct power to the starter motor due to it being inaccessible – you could try this and check the connections when it’s up on the ramp). It’s not fuelling as the engine won’t even crank when the fault appears.
I think it is either:
- ECU; can you reset it, or does it need to go back to Malvern for this?
- One of the sensors tied to the ECU
- One of the switches required for starting being loose – inertia switch, clutch switch etc
- Immobiliser"
It turned out to be the clutch switch.
I think the reason it wouldn't bump start is that the clutch switch doesn't operate on the starter motor circuit per se - it operates on the engine management. It is not a simple switch, but rather a magnet/circuit board combination that when you depress the clutch bring the magnet and board together, thus doing something that tells the engine management that you can start the car.
The part itself isn't expensive. According to Keith at BHM, getting the pedals and associated bits out to get to it is at least a couple of hours.
So there you go!
