murfthesurf13

My 1979 garaged 928 will sometimes startup with no problems at all. I turn the key, all the dash lights come on and it fires right up. Other times, I turn the key and absolutely nothing happens. No lights, nothing. Will a bad starter exhibit this type of behavior? It has a brand new battery. I just drove it 45 miles the other day, starting and stopping twice. What gives? Any suggestions? Help.

murfthesurf13

Let me add that I backed it out of the garage this morning with the intent to wash it. It started fine, no hesitation or or slow starter action. Battery seemed fine. Amp gauge was at about 13. Shut it off, went inside, came back out to re-position the car, and nothing as I've described above. I finally jump started it and pulled it back in the garage. Very frustrating. Any ideas?

Kiln_Red

Could be a number of different things. The first areas I'd suspect would be my battery connection, battery ground strap, and connection to my starter. Could be an ignition switch playing out, too. The fact that your successfully jumping the vehicle off tells me it's probably something connection related at the battery or a marginal battery itself.

Fogey1

+1 to the above. But let me add the "little" wires at the positive cable and be the first to suggest the 36y.o. ignition switch as a notorious intermittent failure points.

Wisconsin Joe

If you have absolutely nothing, no dash lights, no radio, no nothing, first suspect would be ignition switch. Try wiggling the key in the switch, or turning it on and off a few times and see what happens.

The battery ground strap is a "usual suspect" for no starts, but you should have dash lights, relays clicking, ect when key is turned on.

Landseer

If bat ground strap has corroded extensively beneath plastic shroud it is also possible to have no lights at dash, dead as doornail.

Wisconsin Joe

Would it be intermittent like the OP reports?

For the OP:

An easy test for bad ground strap is to use a jumper cable between the ground post of the battery and a good ground on the chassis. It then acts as the ground strap.

Landseer

Yes. It could be. Happened to our 85 USA. Drove across town to pickup grand kids. Into house, out of house, 5 minutes. Opened passenger door, attempted to move seat forward for car seat --- nothing. Turned key in ignition. Nothing. Completely and totally dead. Ground strap was the problem.

Actually, that particular ground strap kicked-off this whole realization a few years ago about the failure potential of ground straps. A group of us sliced off the cover at Frenzy one year. Honestly, it was a particularly bad one. The car had sat 10 years and moisture had apparently gotten to it.

Regarding ignition switches, another good possibility. Have you ever disassembled one? Basically they are a series of very heavy-duty ignition points. They can sometimes be repaired and reassembled. Cheaper up to this point at least to replace.