Club 80-90 Forums

FYI - My van has always had a lazy starter, sometimes on tuning the key it would take a second or two before it turned over the engine.
Then on Monday after the van had been standing for over a week it would not turn over at all. The atmosphere was very damp, (It has a new battery which is fully charged) - Solution - Take a wire attach it to the starter solenoid touch the other end to the live feed to the allternator and hay-presto instant starting. Next step was to run a wire direct from the starter solenoid to the battery and again found I had instant starting. My assumption is that it's not the starter or the bush but volatage drop affecting the starter solenoid. Today it started on the key, but I am going to fit a alternative starter cable just in case.

Have you checked that you have feed to the switch wire (small spade terminal) when the key is turned to start. Sounds like a bad switch wire connection on the starter to me. I had the same on my 2.1but when terminal cleaned, turns over o.k. cheers.