Hello,
After a nice long weekend road trip the Amazon has developed a nasty gremlin.
After long drives, it won't start...nothing, not even a click. It push starts with little effort, or if allowed to cool down it starts like a champ. I have gone over every wire and connection and it all looks patent, everything under the hood is only a year old except the block and head.
Any suggestions about where the gremlin might be residing?
Thanks,
Erik

Bad solenoid. For old times sake I will remind every one that if you bridge the contacts between the big cable from the bat to the contact going to the starter motor you can usually bypass a bad solenoid. A large screwdriver and some guts is all that's required.

WARNING!!! this is a good way to give yourself a shock/start the car moving with no one behind the wheel.

Had the same thing happen to me 1000 miles from home... When I disassembled the starter, the thick wire connecting the starter to the solenoid crumbled. I figure it had been broken for some time already, and in the end made contact only when cold.

However, if it doesn't even click, and you get 12V from the key when you turn it to the start position, it's probably the solenoid. I got a NOS one from a starter shop that was glad to get rid of it :-)

Next time it balks, try whacking the starter solenoid and starter with something hard and solid, and try again. Another thing to check for: clean grounding of solenoid to starter, starter to engine, engine to battery: the return path of the circuit.

Same thing happened to mine .. the braided wire from the solenoid to the starter motor disintegrated and the symptoms were the same ... check it out ...
--
Brett Sutherland & the 1.5 million mile 122 Canadian

The thought of hitting it with something hard did come to mind...:)
I will replace the solenoid and and double check those connections and see what happens.
Thanks.
-Erik

Rather than replacing it you might take the potting out of the screws,
unsolder the wires and open it up. I've had to do that and clean the
contacts (with a file) about every 4 or 5 years. After several times
you may want to get someone to build the really worn contacts up with
some silver solder. Would you believe I have NEVER replaced a starter
solenoid in 35 years of driving oldtimers?
--
George Downs, The "original" Walrus3, Bartlesville, Oklahoma

My suggestion stems from identical symptoms to Erik's occurring with a Bosch starter on a well-used '64 Alfa 1600. Once the knock on the solenoid did the trick several times, I took off the solenoid cap in the way George describes. The moving copper bar inside had rattled sharp-edged grooves in the sides of the plastic cap, and sometimes got stuck in those grooves. Hence no click. I smoothed out the grooves, rounded the edges of the copper bar, and dressed the contact surfaces like George describes. No further troubles. Volvo engines may not vibrate their solenoid innards the same way, so it's a long shot, what I suggested.