... or how I cured the hot-start problem on my Mondial t Coupe that plagued the previous owner for years! <grin> After 3000 miles and two and a half months of trouble-free driving in a 19,660-mile car that I had serviced since it was new, an problem that the PO had brought to my attention but that I had never been able to duplicate at the shop reared it's ugly head in the parking lot of the supermarket on the way home (in 100 degree heat!) after I had stopped for ten minutes for an errand. When I turned the key, I heard what I assume is the "cycling" of the cold start relay (standard hot start procedure to purge the fuel rail and prevent vapor lock), but nothing, not a click, not a voltage drop (dimming of dash or accessory lights) when I turned the key. After being embarassingly pushed off by some helpful folks, I headed home thinking it was a temporary problem that I'd delve into later. I didn't drive the car to work Friday (yesterday) and went out this morning, car stone cold, to be confronted with the same problem. After locating the starter harness, I prevailed upon my long suffering spousal equivalent (there, David, the truth) to turn the key, confirming I was getting 12V piercing the insulation in the low-tension lead to the solenoid. After removing the spade lug terminal from the solenoid, which fell loosely away (!), I bridged the battery lead to the starter solenoid spade lug and it cranked over happily. I pinched the spade connector tightly together, but not before brushing a small quantity of Stabilant 22 on the spade lug and inside the connector. I'm very confident that this will fix the problem and would urge folks before they start replacing solenoids and starters, tearing apart fuse boxes and taking apart subframe bus connectors that they look at the simple stuff first! -Peter
Peter, On the 348's (and I assume mondial t's) Ferrari did one smart thing because they know they can't make electronics. That is to wire everything through the ignition switch. On 348's you even have to have key in position 2 to get brake lights. While this has many obvious advantages it also means lots of current flows in and around the ignition switch. As far as I am concerned the solenoid wire is a known issue and the first place I always suspect. When my car was a street car I used to have a home made spade terminal branch come off this area. If on the rare occasion usually on a hot or rainy day the car would fail to start I would hook up a remote starter and fire the car up and not get my hands dirty. You were lucky to have a complete failure to aid diagnosis. Back to the ignition switch it is not a bad idea to freshen up all these connections in a similar way. I like using solder. A soldered connection is more likely to break than give impossible to find intermittent connection that failed crimping does. As my car slowly went to a racecar I progressively removed electrical sytems which yielded an increasingly reliable car electronically. Finally, when I dumped all of the electrcal wiring except the ECU's, ABS, dash instruments and brake lights including the factory ignition switch for an on/off switch and a starter button the electronic reliabilty and safety of the car has shot up 100 fold. I do not know why the ignition area is a problem other to suspect increased electrical resistence in connections as these cars age. So when you ensure or remove connections everything works better. Off topic...You did not happen to get your Mondial T from a guy name Lou do you?
Stabilant 22a is beautiful stuff! Every 348 owner should have some (call Daniel at Ricambia: http://ricambiamerica.com/product_info.php?products_id=261171&osCsid=614e102da7dece4b228c9c2ce2be317a ). I'm also thinking that CL85 is the same stuff: http://www.bwdbrand.com/web_app/Main/ProductPage.aspx?ID=10
