End of a headache (I hope)

[#lowcorrado 10]

Hi all,

 

Had a wonderful few weeks of initial corrado ownership, but hopefully sorted now. The main source for me to solve the problem i was having was this site and a few others, the information i was able to read helped me diagnose and fix the problem so it is only right I share this and hopefully help an unfortunate soul out in the future.

 

So....

 

Got my corrado home on a Sat, all was well. Got it out Sun, took it for a drive, nothing major few miles or so, no problems, although it did take a few turns to start it, but it has been stood previously a while so didn't think too much of it.

 

Got it home and into the garage, a friend came round to see it later that eve, started it up, rolled it out, turned it off, and looked around it for half hour or so, friend left, went to put it away, started it up, it cut out and never started after that. would crank, could hear the fuel pump prime etc etc no start.

 

The next few days i just read and read all the info I could on similar corrado and vw's of a similar age. My first thought was the aftermarket alarm/immobiliser. I checked all fuses beforehand which were good and checked all terminals at the battery, as i checked the battery connections something clicked and stopped, the digital display on the cluster had gone out, no warning lights, radio, nothing, wouldn't even turn over now. Then the digital clocks reappeared, strange, tried to turn it over and it would, but i noticed none of the usual warning lights were on like they were before the power cut. No battery light or oil pressure flash, and i also noticed I didn't hear the fuel pump prime like it did before, very strange, had i now blown a fuse?? Checked them all, no visible problems, all were good. Damn, so I asked a guy to come out to look at it who owed me a favor, he is a mechanic. He straight away said immobiliser, didn't really look at anything else and went, I wasn't convinced but went for that as it was my only lead. Traced and labelled all the wires before cutting the thing out where it had been connected into the ignition wiring (the black wire of the ignition harness had been cut and fed into a relay that must of come with the alarm. I connected those original wires back together but still nothing.

 

So now i was ready to bite the bullet and get it to an auto electric place, as the above process took some time and I am by no means a mechanic so if the issue was now in the wiring or engine bay, i wanted it sorted properly before I did any further damage.

 

But the warning lights not coming on really bugged me as they did show after the initial problem started, so after a few hours searching in google I typed in "no dash warning lights vw 91" I scrolled down a few entries and found a guy posted on http://www.vwt4forum.co.uk about his van not starting and having lost his dash warning lights, bingo, same symptoms and he had a loose connection in the back of the fuse board where the black wire from the ignition harness connected into the fuse board connector.

 

Id had a few beers and as i read this it was 2:30am, sod it, off out i went and wiggled the black wire in the red connector block (H1/04 Ignition Switch Start/Run Power Main Fusebox Start/Run Power Black wire - taken from http://www.a2resource.com/electrical/CE2.html)but still no joy, so i went to the other end and made sure it was secure in the ignition switch plug thing (sorry about the technical terminology haha) then there it was, the fuel was priming, i poppped my head up from the footwell and the lights were on, oil pressure light was flashing, went to start it thinking here we go and as the key turned into the start postion (3rd stage??) it cut all the lights again, but as i released it they came back on. It now had to be the ignition switch now, nothing else it could be!!

 

I searched how to bypass the ignition to test it, made myself a jump wire (which i wont post but info is out there to test your switch) this morning, hooked it all up in order and bang, first time, no struggle starting it fired loud and proud!!

 

Sorry for the long winded post but I feel it might help someone at some point. Id read on here of similar problems to what i was having but not quite the same so now iv got it going and i know its the ignition switch i will get that changed and hopefully (touches wood) can start to enjoy the thing!!

 

Thanks for taking the time to read

[MarkFoster 0]

Good to see you got it sorted, and thanks for a nice post which will hopefully help other members in the future.

 

:)

[vw rule 19]

Hello there,

 

sorry to hear of your problem with your Corrado,

great news that you've found the fault and are close to fixing it.

 

As Mark has said above I'm sure your detailed post will help other people out,

with the same / similar issue :salute:

 

It's mad really just how many problems the ignition switch can cause on the Corrado.

 

Si :thumbleft:

[robrado974 1]

As above ,nice one for posting . There are alot of non starter threads that go on and on , then at the end there is no answer to what the problem was , so no help at all really for people using the search .