Hi , this is my first post , I'm a bit lost as far as navigating the site , I think I'm in the right place , excuse me if I'm not.

I have a 1994 Magna GLX sedan Auto Trans , 2.6 litre , Carby model . I've owned it for about 14 months .

Problem : Car has been refusing to start on three ocassions . It's winter where I am and I've been doing short trips at night .This is unusual , I'm on holidays and have changed my usual routine of starting up early morning , driving about 40 Km to work , etc . generally clocking about 90 Km a day . I have a feeling the battery is on the way out as 2 nights ago it refused to start after two 5 minute trips around shopping centre , lights and heater on. Got stranded , asked for a Jump start from a kind stranger to no avail , didn't kick over . Left car where it was (Safe) returned next day and she turned over and started . I drove for an hour to test the battery and Alternator , seemed o.k. , battery seemed to be charged , couple of hours later drove home lights on , heater on. Next morning she started up fine , drove my son to school 20 Km , then around 7 hours later she turned over and wouldn't fire up . Always when you really need car to be reliable seems these things happen , was first day back at school .
So I'm stuck . Don't know of a Auto Electrician nearby , hoped I could figure this out .
Checked Battery connections , o.k. , charge was 14 volts ; didnt check Amps output ( not sure how ) . Have a multi-meter .
Checked contacts to Coil looking for corosion/bad contact , spark plugs , distributor , looked at all the fuses . Seem fine .

o.k. the weird stuff . About 4 days ago driver's side door lock jammed , couldn't open with key. Used passenger side door , opened o.k.
Then a situation for a couple of days of almost not turning over , but eventually she fired up .
Today after it failed to start I did the above (checked leads etc. ) , plus worked the key into the lock and eventually opened the driver-side door . I haven't got power windows or electric locking . Have system where I lock my door and all others lock/open . After tinkering with all the leads and fuses the locking buttons started jiggling around when I turned over the engine , huh ? And I can hear a faint sound of an alarm under the hood . When I bought the car I found later it had an alarm , but it has never caused me to feel it was enabled . In fact it's in really good condition (Car) and hasn't given me any problems . Had it serviced , tuned , and Auto-Trans tune in Jan this year .

Basically the car has a gremlin , with this weird chattering of the door locks and faint alarm sound , plus wont fire up , turns very slowly when using ignition .
Battery , Starter , ... fuse , I don't know ?
Anyone got any ideas how to troubleshoot Electrics , I don't have a manual , and not real sure about this system . The alarm is not Mitsubishi , and I dont have the key , but no probs in the past . Seems I may have upset it when tinkering with leads /fuses , but I don't think this is the underlying cause ; maybe a result of some other problem ?
Sorry about the length of post , any suggestions greatly appreciated ...

ok thats a ts/ts model




pm rod-d for the manual

I don't know your model...but my TN magna would not start yesterday. I knew what the problem was...dirty contacts on the 4 pin socket that sits on top of the distributor (not the high tension leads).
The socket that clips on here has holes on the side that let air in and that allows the two outside pins to corrode to a green colour that stops the pins making contact. That will stop the car starting.

If your model has this then check for corrosion on the distributor side of the connector with the plug removed. I use a small (old points) file to clean the contacts but it is not a long term solution to this problem.

Ypur problem does seem a bit more complicated tho.

You mentioned it not turning over (?). This plus the intermittent operations could also be caused by dirty battery contacts. If the battery terminals are black when the connectors are removed then clean them to a shiny lead colour with a small file...but do not take off too much metal or the connectors may not tighten enough to make proper contact.

that starting is usually the solenoid or worn brushes on the starter

I have a TN Magna and have the same problem, but only when the sun is up (around 1-3pm) and when the car has been on the road for half an hour or so, then stops. I bought a new Bosch starter motor, new distributor cap, leads, spark plugs, battery (also Bosch with 3yr warranty), ignition coil and had my carby fixed.

None of this fixes the problem. Sometimes it won't turn over at all, but that stops pretty quickly and then it will turn over but never start. Note: if it never turns over, check that the electrical plug to the solenoid hasn't popped off its contact.

One thing that does work is to get crank from it and then put the accelerator down to about 80% of its journey to the floor. I have gotten a very high rate of starts with that. Once it starts, don't touch the accelerator for 10 seconds, then apply a bit of pressure. You will probably need to idle at at least 1000rpm, preferably higher, before you can drive or it will stall when put into gear.

If the car doesn't start when cold, without the key in the ignition, floor the accelerator pedal briefly and release back up. Then immediately try to start it. This activates the choke and works for me everytime, but I need a full two minutes idling to actually drive it. It may take me longer as I have no hot air intake pipe from the exhaust manifold to the air filter as I put EFI extractors on 18 months ago (wrong type for carbies I know).

If you constantly idle at 1300rpm or higher and turning down the white flower knob on the back of the carby has no effect, you have a stuck accelerator cable. I installed a spring to the firewall which pulls it back the whole way and adds almost no additional tension to gas pedal, and it always idles at the recommended 1000 or lower since.

Magna-nimous

none of this may be relevent...but with my old TM and current TN I had to replace a lot of vacuum hoses that had perished badly.
For the TM, check all the way to the hard to find thermal vacuum switch (under inlet manifold), and other actuators controlled by the vacuum hoses. There are one or two " bellows" type actuators and these will also have badly perished rubber parts and will probably not be working. Some "mechanic" had fixed some of mine with silastic...once fixed it solved many of my cold and hot start and running problems.

another irrelevant point...if you have poor top end power in a TM, check your distributor vacuum advance is working and replace fuel filter.

all relevant :)

In relation to the starting problems I outlined above, I find I can only start it when it goes into that mode by removing the air filter with the bonnet open. Perhaps it allows more rapid cooling of one of the pots or quicker fuel evaporation as it does get flooded very easily when you can get crank but no start, as you are always pushing down on the accelerator.

A licenced electrician today told me it might be the ignition switch itself but he's not an auto electrician so I don't know (works in a major hospital). He suggested that the fusible link box under the bonnet may have a damaged relay in there so I swapped all of them with ones I had in storage from a recent trip to a wrecker. I will let the forum know the outcome of this.

The outcome is that switching over the fusible links has no effect, so there's no point in doing it.

:57:

Sorry , logged in and checked for replies for a couple of days and nothing.
Thanks all for your replies :57:

dirty hands Said:
Posted Jul 17 2007, 05:23 PM
"that starting is usually the solenoid or worn brushes on the starter"

You got it ! I took out the starter and it was shot . Put in a Bosch reco (12 month warranty ) and all the wheels started turning . :beer:

I consulted a Auto Electrician about the Alarm / door locks and it will be a lotta work to remove it and rewire so I'm gonna leave it be .
Starter has not been well for months it seems , car would just "Start" , bang ! This was a lotta strain on the battery which somehow it is 100% o.k.
The dynamic seems to be that starting was all the battery could handle , (starter had one turn capacity in it's damaged state ) then it would have been chewing current from the Alternator while car was running , and recharged .
Funny ( good ) thing is that my interior light works now , headlights brighter , gear box changes much smoother , overall better performance ; which I have to attribute to Starter sucking the Battery so hard to start that not much current left to share with the rest of the system . Just an observation , not a technical explanation.
The nature of the Alarm is when battery is low , or disconnected it goes off . Apparently this is normal . I take it that it's switched to the disarmed state since I bought this car . I would prefer it to be gone , but at least I'll know if it goes off again I've a low battery charge , or Electrical fault . It is wired to illuminate the "Security light " in the dash , so it's well and truly wired into the system , but innactive . I read the manual and there's a procedure for arming the standard Mitsubishi Alarm by locking the doors , this does not apply to alarm I have . I see it has a key , which I don't have , so as I said not a lot I can do without rewiring too many things .
Electrical gremlins are the pits , as everything is dependent on each other component .
Again thanks for your replies , and happy motoring .

I can now start the car easily hot or cold, after getting the carbuerrettor rewired at a specialists. All the wires were mixed up (to quote the mechanic they were "diabolical") and the charcoal cannister was full, so the carby couldn't breathe - this caused a lot of problems. As they are expensive, the guy just disconnected it. He also adjusted the three idle speed mixture screws or whatever which were way out.

This problem occurs when a hose from a valve mounted to the chassis running to a carby pot pretty high up and to one extreme side of the carby, pops off. When you try to start it hot, it usually won't until it cools. Look for a carby pot with a pipe sticking out but no thin-diameter standard carby hose on it.

I finally traced this problem. Voltage drop to the starter motor. Get a relay installed by an auto electrician. I did today and not once did the starter motor not crank over in several hours of trying.

Update: another full day has gone by and I tried to start it over 10 times throughout the day I'd say. Not once was it "dead on arrival".