I've been having starting issues for quite some time. I put it down to the limited use the car receives, sometimes it could be used once a week sometimes it could be once in two weeks.

I would charge the battery and it would start fine. At one point I exchanged the battery under warranty and that was fine for awhile, until recently.

On the way home from the Pistonheads show at Bicester I stopped for fuel. Upon returning to the car it wouldn't start. I checked the battery terminals and they were tight on the battery posts but I noticed the cables going into both terminals weren't as tight as I'd like. After a little wiggle the car started, so that must be the issue?!

Once home I removed the cabling and cleaned up the copper core and refitted. It started fine so I left it. Fast forward a couple of days later when I wanted to use the car and it wouldn't start. I charged the battery up and it started, could it be a dodgy battery?!

Then next time it wouldn't start, this was becoming more and more of an nuisance. I disconnected the subwoofer positive and it started?! Hooray! But my luck came to an end rather quickly.

The battery terminals rely on a screw at the top of the terminal to hold the cables in place.



I wanted a more secure solution so I sourced some terminals with an 8mm post. The new crimp on ring terminals were quite beefy and my crimping tool would'nt be good enough to do the job. So I called upon a couple of friends who would have the equipment to help.

So I begun with disconnecting the battery, but when I moved the positive terminal to one side it moved more than it normally does.

Next thing I know, I'm holding the positive cable but it's not attached to the car.



Turns out its been joined in the past, but what wire is it?

The alternator got disconnected and we checked continuity to the broken cable, nothing. The concerning thing was the broken cable was the same as the battery earth which is black with a yellow trace. But this was 100% connected to the battery positive.



You can see the broken cable where the yellow heat shrink is on the end (this was capped at the end of the night)

The broken cable goes into a loom covered in conduit which splits into a Y. One side goes to the Alternator and the other side goes towards the back of the car, where the Starter Motor is.

The insulation on the alternator live was peeled back to reveal a white cable, this was traced back to the fuse box.

So the broken cable must be the starter motor then. We had some spare red cable long enough to run a fresh live from the starter motor to the battery, bypassing the original loom for testing purposes. The car started first time with no hesitation.

The new live cable was cable tied out of the way to get me home.





Fast forward a week to my next day off and I decided to tackle the original wiring conduit to make things tidier.

I began by removing the OEM conduit and insulation tape.



The old starter motor live was then accessable and could be removed. Most would have left this in place mainly for ease, but lets not do things by halves.



Over time insulation tape seems to get stickier. I removed the old tape and gave the conduit a wipe over with some brake cleaner





I also removed the aftermarket earth kit and cleaned up the contact points with a wire brush drill attachment



I used some insulation tape to keep the loom together, refitted the conduit and the wrapped it all in tesa tape. Once the battery was reconnected I then cable tied the loom to keep it nice and tidy



I even covered the new Starter Motor cable in tesa tape so it wouldn't stand out too much





A couple of hours well spent and my starting issue resolved

Although google searching for an answer could have been quicker, there's some fun fault finding yourself and you learn along the way