Hi people
I don't have any actual issue starting my wee car, but I did notice something I find odd and I cannot find reference to it being normal, so I wanted to see what a) others thought and b) whether anyone else had ever seen it (or tried what I tried).
Fitting a new gauge to the car, I was poking around the engine bay, looking for switched power. I did eventually wire it to one of the fused options and this whole but is largely irrelevant except that it explains why I was under the bonnet with a multi-meter.
Anyway, a mate asked me about the rather wire-covered box bolted to the frame. I explained that it was the starter relay and for fun, I used the multimeter to show him where the power and starter lead were. I had my black lead grounded and was probing using the red lead, so all I was doing was earthing out anything I touched.
Now, the meter showed the requisite 12.4 volts on the power lead from the rear of the car and zero when I touched the opposite main pole. However, it registered somewhere between one and three volts when I touched both the upper and lower signal wire (ie: the spade connectors that stick out to either side). I thought this was a bit odd - the ignition was off and there should be no power as far as I know at either terminal unless someone has the key in the "Start" position and the car is cranking over........or am I wrong?
To me, it seemed weird that power was on either of those connections at all. I did not pull the wires off and check the terminals again to double check (silly me) whether it was wire or solenoid that had the possible 'leak', but instead I jumped on here to see whether there SHOULD be power there.
- If there is power at the solenoid spade connections without the wires connected, is the solenoid stuffed?
- If there is power at one (or both) of the wires that connect to the solenoid even when the ignition is switched off, is this normal?
- Why would there be power in those wires?
As I said, the vehicle starts, runs and drives as normal The battery does not deteriorate over a week between starting and the starter will still turn the engine over at its normal quick rate. I don't actually HAVE a problem as yet, but want to know if I should do something about something weird that is happening BEFORE it turns into a problem.
Any ideas?