chouwalker

I bought an 86 951 back in March. I've been having way too much fun without any problems.

Well, that's over: my starter motor is stuck on. The car will start fine, and the pinion engages and disengages properly, but the starter motor just keeps running, even when I take the key out of the ignition. To get the thing to stop, I had to disconnect the battery.

I have several questions about this problem:

1) The starter motor ran for about 4 or 5 minutes without the pinion gear being engaged. Is this likely to have damaged my starter?

2) Has anyone else experienced this problem, and if so, what was the problem and what was the fix?

3) Any advice before I crawl under the car and start unbolting the starter/solenoid? (I know to disconnect the battery first)

4) I bought a CD of the "complete" Porsche 944 7-volume shop manual. Chapter 27 is listed as "Starter, Power Supply, Cruise Control". This chapter has pages 27-1 through 27-25, but makes no mention of the starter. Am I missing some pages? Even the Haynes manual has more information!

Any help is appreciated.

Bones944

Same thing happened to me recently, Bendix is shot, you need to have your starter rebuilt. I had mine rebuilt for $100.

IceShark

The starter power is directly wired to the battery, without any fusing, and the solenoid is the relay. So either the solenoid is getting stuck closed or the power into the switch side of it is not switching off, i.e. your ignition switch contacts are not letting loose. I would guess the solenoid is stuck.

Take the starter off and test it out on the bench.

Having the starter run for 4 or 5 minutes would be a concern in the areas of overheating it and melting things like the windings or overheating the main power cable and melting its insulation because that feed is not fused. I would be most concerned about the latter because if you expose the bare wire and it shorts to ground you can start your car on fire as there is no fuse to blow to protect you. Just ask Perry951.

On the very bright side the pinion didn't engage during this run time so there wasn't any load on the starter and you may may have just dodged a bullet. You could have smashed into something if you had it in gear and let off the clutch. And with no load maybe you didn't overheat components.

chouwalker

I just figured I let everyone know how I "fixed" this problem.

I took the starter/solenoid out and tested it on the bench. Everything worked fine: the starter motor only kicked in when power was applied to the connector for the ignition wire. I crawled under the car and verified that the ignition wire only has 12V on it when the ignition switch is turned to start. I put the starter/solenoid back in and everything works fine.

So what was the problem? How was it fixed? I don't know for sure, but here's my theory. I dropped the starter/solenoid about 6" onto my cement garage floor during the removal process. I think the solenoid was stuck on and the drop onto to cement banged it loose. It's still working and cost zero dollars to fix, so I'm not asking too many questions. If the starter ever gets stuck on again, I think I'm in for a rebuilt unit.

Paul C 944

A starter on ebay ends in 1.5 hr if you want a spare! <img src="graemlins/drink.gif" border="0" alt="[cherrsagai]" />

Peckster

It isn't fixed, and next time you might not be so lucky. Your car might be in gear.

Hans

[quote]chouwalker: I dropped the starter/solenoid about 6" <hr></blockquote> [quote]IceShark: I would guess the solenoid is stuck. <hr></blockquote>Replace the solenoid.
Next time you wont be that lucky
The motor is what is known here in NL as an short-circuit type motor.
In an No-Load condition it never stops revving up.
You will end up with the windings all over the place.
The fact that the pigneon did not engaged indicates that there is a lot of dust to be removed and re-greasing is required.
TakeCare