914 Ignition won't shut off-please help

[williamm]

After about a year at a friends body shop my 1970 914-4 won't shut off with the key but starts fine. The iginition switch is only about 3 years old and it worked fine before it went to the shop. My friend said he took apart the steering column but didn't notice any problems. Since this was a cash job on the side I don't have any recourse with my friend and would like to solve the problem on my own. I pulled the voltage regulator while the motor was running to see if it was an alternator problem, but the motor didn't stop when it was pulled. I have the column apart now because it needed a new blinker switch anyway. I really don't want to tackle replacing the ignition switch if I don't have to. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[Zeke]

I don't think it's in the switch. When you turn the switch on and off, do the lights on the dash go on and off?

What else did your 'friend' take apart? You have the battery disconnected while you're in the column, right?

[williamm]

Thanks for the speedy reply. The dash lights come on and off with the key and have disconnected the battery each time working on it except to test it. He took the steering wheel off, dropped the steering chunck down and took the radio out. When he put it back together the horn button broke, but thats an easy one to fix. Is it possible that a grounding wire is located somewhere in there that isn't making contact?

[Zeke]

A lot of things are possible if he did that. Have you seen the size of the wire bunch coming out of there? I wish I could help you more from here, but all I can say is I usually find the problem related to the last event.

[D1A3]

I'm having the exact opposite problem, my car won't start! You say it was at the body shop, what kind of work was being done (other than pulling your steering column)?

You may also want to chek out the thread on my problem to get ideas...
'76 won't start, need ideas...

Good Luck!
Jason

[kmhemi]

sounds like a wire might have popped off at the coil. It would still start and run but not shut off.

[williamm]

The body shop dropped the steering column, but didn't mess with the wires. However, they did touch up the engine compartment and could have loosened a coil wire. I'll check it tonight and let you know how it turns out, thanks for the tip!

[kmhemi]

I rewired my 914 with a harness from a donor car. When I fired it up for the first time after the rewire I had your problem. This was the cure for mine. If I remember right, that wire goes over to the relay board then up to the collum. It's been a good while since I have had to look at a schematic for a 914. I got everything working again on mine. 914's are really cool cars..

[williamm]

Sounds promising. Which wire are you referring to? And where was the wire not making contact? The relay board, the switch or in the column?

[williamm]

The key still doesn't shut my 1970 914 down. It's carburated and I believe the coil wiring was moved around while the engine compartment was being painted. See photo. I tried switching the red/grey with the blue/grey and the car wouldn't start and the wires seemed real hot. So I'd rather not go trial and error anymore. Here is the present wiring:

red/grey - from regulator harness to right side of coil
black/grey - from regulator harness to left side of coil
brown - from regulator harness to temperature sensor
green - from coil to distributor
yellow - from goil to fuel pump

The above wires appear to be original with the exeption of the yellow wire going to the fuel pump. Any ideas? Thanks

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

Somebody has messed with the wiring in a major way. It looks like they took wires from a donor car and cut them up??? (Brown wires, for instance, are always ground wires for our cars, so someone has obviously been hacking on things...)

I would disconnect all of those wires, then hook them up correctly. See the relay board diagram for details:
http://www.pelicanparts.com/914/parts/Electrical/914_electric_73E.jpg

You need the following: A "switched power" wire to the (+) side of the coil. It should have +12V when the key is on, and nothing when the key is off. In the stock wiring harness, this wire is black and it might have a red stripe. It hooks up to the 12-pin connector on the right-rear of the relay board, pin #7.

You need the wire from the points (and condensor), which is usually green, hooked up to the coil (-) terminal.

You need the tach signal wire, which would be black with a purple stripe (the purple can fade to brown or even almost black), hooked up to the coil (-) terminal. Actually, you only need that if you want the tach to work; the car will run fine without it so you probably want to skip this at first. This wire hooks up to pin #6 in the relay board's 12-pin connector.

You need the oil pressure warning light sender wire (green/red in the stock harness), which plugs into the sender. It goes to pin #1 in the 12-pin connector.

You also need a way to power the fuel pump; whomever converted the car to carbs took the power off of the coil (+) terminal. That's OK but not optimal. It should work for testing.

Trace your current wires and see where the heck they go. Try to match them to the above.

--DD

[williamm]

Thanks Dave, I can hear the fuel pump running with the key turned to the first position at the moment which I thought was kind of strange. So if I wanted to turn the radio on without starting the car (second key position), the pump runs. It looks like only one of these wire is hooked up correctly then. That would be the green wire from the coil to the condensor. The rest I'll need to start over. One more question, which side of the coil is positive and which is negative? I couldn't read anything on the coil because of cramped quarters. Thanks again

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

You can mount the coil in any orientation, so the best that can be said at the moment is, "One of the two side connections is positive, the other one is negative." You will have to look at the coil itself to see which is which. The terminals are labeled, and they are also numbered. I forget which number is positive and which is negative, but a short glance at the wiring diagram will tell you--look for the little numbers right by where the wire trace connects to the component.

--DD

[williamm]

This morning I unwrapped the wire harness and discovered that as Dave mentioned, it was spliced with all sorts of odd colored, mix and match wires.

However, the actual wires (regardless of color) did match up exactly as Dave outlined from the correct pole numbers to the appropriate place (coil, temp sensor, etc).

That rules out several things, but leaves the fuel pump as the problem, which is currently running off the positive side of the coil. The fuel pump ground wire is attached to the fuel pump mounting screw. So I started the car, shut the ignition off, took the key out and of course it was still running. But what I discoverd was that by feeling the fuel pump (Facet), it was still running! Bizzare!!! So the pump starts in key position 1 (accessories), but won't shut off in position 1 or in the off position with the key removed?

So I could use some help on picking a switched wire for the fuel pump.....or is there some other problem?????

[williamm]

This afternoon I pulled the fuel pump wire, started the car, I couldn't shut it off with the key of course and 30-40 seconds later it died. I think this is because of remaining fuel in the carberator bowls. Enough to start the car and then some. But this got me thinking....even if the fuel pump was wired correctly to shut off, it still wouldn't immediately shut the car off because of the remaining fuel in the carberator bowls. So now I'm really perplexed? Apparently the wiring for the fuel pump can't be the culprit, since it isn't what shuts off the car. I've already replaced the ignition switch as well and that didn't solve the problem. Any more help would be appreciated. Thanks

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

The power to the coil should be cut out when you turn the ignition off. That should kill the spark, which should kill the engine. (Unless it starts dieseling, running without a spark, which doesn't happen all that often.)

Is power to the coil getting cut when you turn the key off?

--DD

[williamm]

I checked the power on the positive side of the coil, it turns on and off with the key? So that appears to be correct

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

Then it sounds like the engine is dieseling. Hot-spots (usually built-up carbon) inside the combustion chamber can light the compressed air-fuel mixture even when the spark plug doesn't fire. You can try running a higher grade of gasoline and seeing if that helps; also try using some fuel injector cleaner in the gas.

There are other ways to clean up the chambers, but they're a bit more than I want to go into now.

--DD

[williamm]

Today I had a mechanic friend look it over. He pulled the voltage regulator and everything shut off fine. He believes the points are stuck inside of it. So all I will need is a new voltage regulator. When I pulled the regulator some time ago, I assumed it would stop on it's own if the regulator was the problem....but I didn't shut the key off during that test!

[trekkor]

Are you running a MSD ignition?

KT