Well, not ghosts but really interesting.

It was raining pretty hard this morning on my drive home. I got home, parked the car in the garage; leaving it in 1st gear with the hand brake OFF (as I usually do, the garage floor is flat/level).

My Dads comes up to me saying he heard a huge crash in the garage, go in and the car has CRASHED into the back wall of the garage. It did not roll, it MOVED and fast! The rubber mats the tires sit on had fired back behind the car as if the wheels were spinning (which they were I'm assuming). The battery is dead now.

So what happened is the starter motor somehow got power, I hope its not the DME (it shouldn't be for the starter right?)

Hope you enjoyed my holiday story!

 

Reminds me of a story off a 944 that kept trying to start itself with no key in it. Turned out to be a short in the coil IIRC. It was at a local shop. I can PM you contact info for it if you like.

 

The signal wire on the starter solenoid (the one that runs to the ignition switch) is very close to the positive lug from the battery. If it contacts it, the engine will turn, and your car will move if in gear. I would guess that if you look at the starter solenoid, you will find that the nut on the smallest stud (on the left side of the car) has loosened and allowed the wire to contact the wire from the battery. Take it off, put a couple layeres of heatshrink insulation around the terminals, and use a locknut to help prevent any further contact. How bad is the damage?

 

Wow. Early model, late, or is this the same on both?

 

I agree about the starter solenoid. I was working on my 951 and as I was taking a break, I heard the car start cranking. Luckily it was in neutral being that there was a Ferrari 360 in front of it. The issue wasn't the wires touching but the solenoid body had twisted and it was making contact internally.

 

If I leave my car in gear along with the parking brake on do I still risk it driving off or will it just stall? After reading this I think I'll start leaving my car in neutral while it's parked and hope that my parking brake doesn't fail...

 

I was mistaken it wasn't the coil but the starter as others above have explained above. I began leaving my car in neutral after hearing about this example.

 

Got around to addressing this today, pulled the starter... picture attached.

I figure that it wasn't heat shrink'ed correctly, and the rain probably did not help things. Wrapped it correctly and installed again. Works fine so far!

 

I should probably say that this is a Bosch Reman, also it hadn't been in the rain since I put in the new starter. I did not get a picture of the old burnt up heat shrink wrap but its just shriveled burnt rubber.

 

Ugh, don't click on those, this guy looks like a spam-artist... mods?

 

This has happened a few times and I doubt the pigtail between the starter and solenoid grounding out was the problem. I believe that would just cause a fire and not move the car. Generally there is other wiring or and/or mice that cause this sort of thing. At least one person had their garage door destroyed when the car rammed it on starter power.

 

It may be possible that it was "starting" for so long that there was enough heat generated to melt the shrink wrap, but why are none of the other wires fried?

 

Do wires normally fry when you start the car? If the start pole wire crosses with the battery cable it should not go toaster on you at that point, it's the same as turning the key. the burning you see would be from the starter running a long time and/or straining to move the car though an obstacle.

Usually this issue is in the wiring between the ignition switch and the starter or as has been suggested a loose connection at the start signal pole on the solenoid.

There is a thread on here where I think someone found the insulation gone and the ignition switch wire crossing the battery cable above the starter as well.

 

Here's what Jfrahm is probably referring to. It had a memorable thread title, one of my favorite intros to a thread.

https://rennlist.com/forums/924-931-...tf-moment.html

 

I wish I had gotten that in my first search (maybe I should have used Stephen King as key words).

Nice 951 Steve!