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Hello,
I have an 86 245DL that would suddenly no start when it was hot, sat a couple of days, or just for the heck of it. You could jump the car and it would suddenly catch and start so at first I blamed the battery and charging system. Then I chased the starter as the problem. Moved on to the Neutral Pos Switch and ignition as the problem.
I changed the starter, replaced all the battery cables, the battery, the alternator brushes, replaced the back of the ignition with a new Volvo one, replaced the neutral position switch, all the contacts on the terminal block, and a few more things I have forgotten about. The problem even went away for almost a year so I thought I had that sucker beat until four weeks ago when it suddenly came back.
The test for this type of issue is if you can turn the key to pos II when it no starts, but then start the car up with a remote starter switch hooked from the battery to the starter solenoid. If yes welcome to the voltage drop club. You can also use a wire connected to the starter solenoid touched to the batter to see if that is the problem. I have a trigger switch that can be clipped in, a pull on the trigger started Inga up every single time the key would not.
Two weeks ago I did a mod that has started the car every single time based on the trigger switch. I added a relay (40 Amp SPDT generic one) that when you turn the key uses the starter solenoid voltage close the replay and to send voltage right off the battery to the starter. I don't have the battery voltage on a fuse right now, but I will add one this weekend now that I know this works.
This problem is caused by too large a drop in voltage as it passes through the switch, over to the shifter, and out to the firewall before reaching the starter for the starter to engage. I have not tried a variable DC power supply yet to find out exactly what the magic voltage level is to make the starter kick in. May do that later and write it all down. But whatever voltage Inga sends out must be right on that edge. I have measured as low as 9.8 Volts on the solenoid wire during a no start condition. The battery was putting out 12.26 volts.
Hope this helps,
Paul
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