Thinking back to my own 911 starter problems, and it's been a while now, I had a partial click but no contact to turn the starter over. I switched the solenoid wires to much thicker wires and heavy duty connectors. That solved the problem, and the starter has been fine ever since. It was a reman Bosch starter that I bought locally.

rusnak - was that on a Vanagon?

---------------------------

I'd trade this POS in if I knew of a compact camper to buy. Big hole in the market IMO.

Closest thing seems to be the GT-RV mod on a small Ford van - $40k. A friend in Idawho has a giganitco Earthsmasher or something - 4x4 Ford big van jacked up further, with a dome top on it. He hung a big basket type thing off the rear to carry formaldehyde laden reptiles in...

No, that was on the 911. Come to think of it, same thing happened on the 914-6 too.

at least the 911 has the ignition switch in between the battery and the starter

the more I recall about my '73 VW, and learn about this '86, the less highly I think of VW

Yeah but 31,000 miles is respectable service for a starter solenoid. If it makes any difference, my '91 Chevy had the same hot-start issue, which was fixed with a high torque starter. I am way too busy to mess around with stuff that breaks all the time.