Hi all i've just joined up to your forum to ask if anyone can help me, i'm at my wits end and my sanity is soon to leave! I have a 2005 fiat ducato maxi 2.8jtd, its been a cracking van til now and i've never had a problem with it but last week the starter went so i bought a new one for it. Between the Old starter being removed and the new one being fitted was about 2 days so the battery was disconnected for this time. When i fitted the starter and connected the battery everything appeared fine, she fired up no problem and thats where normality ends! It was getting dark so as normal i put the headlights on and the engine cut out! I then turned them back to dip and it burst back to life. I've had all the wiring apart and checked fuses, connections and cables and everything seems fine. If you just have the ignition on and turn the headlights on all the dash lights and clocks go dead and start to flicker up and down and the actual headlights don't even light up. Has anyone else had this problem? If so how did you fix it? Many thanks in advance!
Technical Ducato 2.8jtd strange problem
- Thread starter Monkey27
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Technical Ducato 2.8jtd strange problem
tommytopgun
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Check the wiring, sounds like your main beam is creating a short cuircit on the pick up pump or something else that's essential to the running of the engine.
Was anything else disconnected when replacing the starter motor?
Was anything else disconnected when replacing the starter motor?
I've checked all around the wiring in the engine bay and under the dash and there's nothing obvious, i disconnected the starter wires and had to remove the main earth lead as the bolt on the starter had rounded, when i put it back i made sure it had a good connection to the starter and the body under the battery tray
tommytopgun
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When reconected to the body was it reconected to the same earthing point or a new one, this dosen't usually make much difference, but its best to cover all the bases.
No same one, here's where it gets really odd! Its absolutely fine tonight, i had to go out and do a job which took longer than i thought so it was just getting dark when i came home so without thinking i turned the lights on and they worked! Not so much as a cough from the engine and everything is normal, could be it just needed to reset itself after being away from its battery for a couple of days?
tommytopgun
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It's unusual, there might be some chaffing between a couple of wires and they've moved apart, I'd see how it goes before doing anything else to remedy the problem. If you have no further problems, I'd leave it alone.
Well winter time is here and once more the van is playing silly buggers! Exactly the same as last time! It doesn't do it all the time so really difficult to trace, can anyone help? It hasn't done it for months now and I thought it was all sorted!
Hi. So did you replace the bolt on the engine end of the earth lead?
The reason I ask is I have made this mistake myself I used a bolt just slightly longer it pulled up and appear tight because it has reached the end of its travel but was not tight on the earth lead, a couple of washers did the trick.
The other thing I would do is remove the battery and make sure no other leads that should be connected have dropped down out of sight.
The reason I ask is I have made this mistake myself I used a bolt just slightly longer it pulled up and appear tight because it has reached the end of its travel but was not tight on the earth lead, a couple of washers did the trick.
The other thing I would do is remove the battery and make sure no other leads that should be connected have dropped down out of sight.
How old is your battery? Sometimes when the battery gets too old then it can play with the starter motor electrics had this happen on mine. Bought new battery problem went away. But before I diagnosed it was the battery I too replaced starter motor.
Hi both, yeah the main earth lead is tight on each end, thats the strange thing it turns over perfectly, doesn't sound sluggish to turn at all, i've just come back home again now because going along the road i indicated to turn right and it cut out right in the middle of the road, indicator off and it fired up again straight away! I think i'm going to have to take it to an auto electrician, its doing my head in!
Crossingkeeper
Established member
This symptom brought back some unhappy memories; however my van at the time was a 1998 2.5 TD with a mechanical injection pump with a fuel cut-off solenoid so the cause of your problem may not be the same.
On that van the supply from battery to the ignition switch passed through a large lucar connector (located on top of driver's wheelarch) which had almost burnt out.
The extra current draw of the indicators caused the fuel cut-off solenoid to intermittently drop out and of course as I was about to turn it was always a bad time for the engine to cut out
This fault took me quite a while to find & made the van almost undriveable in the meantime.
Edit: Just re-read your OP and am wondering if your problems are down to the ignition feed connector on the battery?
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I took the plastic around the steering column off this week and had a fiddle about checking plugs and wiring and it appears to have fixed itself again! There has to be a loose connection, plug or a partly broken wire there somewhere!This symptom brought back some unhappy memories; however my van at the time was a 1998 2.5 TD with a mechanical injection pump with a fuel cut-off solenoid so the cause of your problem may not be the same.
On that van the supply from battery to the ignition switch passed through a large lucar connector (located on top of driver's wheelarch) which had almost burnt out.
The extra current draw of the indicators caused the fuel cut-off solenoid to intermittently drop out and of course as I was about to turn it was always a bad time for the engine to cut out
This fault took me quite a while to find & made the van almost undriveable in the meantime.
Edit: Just re-read your OP and am wondering if your problems are down to the ignition feed connector on the battery?