Brown wire fried when slow starting.

Hi peeps,  my mk1 caddy has been struggling to turn over recently, so I changed the starter motor over for one I know is good.
but it's still the same it's as if the battery is low and then the starter speeds up randomly and starts the motor.
But the last time I tried, I had a puff of smoke come from the fuse box and a obvious smell of burning plastic.
soo, I unplugged the fuse box and found this burnt out Brown wire-


Can anyone confirm if this is a earth wire?
It connects to this-

 

Cheers Darren.







 

Yes, that is an earth wire. Looks like one of the thicker ones, so must have been quite a load to fry it.

The thicker of the 2 brown ones (left in 1st pic) is fine, it's the thinner one (right ) that' goes to the circular spades on the the bulkhead that's fried.
Have you any idea where the thicker brown wire goes too Lee?

OK, according to Haynes, in the wiring diagram for post 83 GTi's, the very thick wire goes to an earth point in an insulating sleeve in the front loom, the medium wire next to it goes to the earth rose on the fuse box bracket. On the other side of the white connector, the medium wire goes to an earth point bound in the dash loom, and the thinnest wires go to the warm-up valve, the auxiliary air valve, and fuel gauge sender, and the slightly thicker wires go to the fuel pump, and to D22 on the back of the fuse box/relay plate.

I hope this helps.
Lee

Thanks for the info Lee .
I've cut the thick brown wire out of a doner mk1 cab and joined it to mine and reconnected the smaller one to the earth spade on bulkhead as it was.
Battery charging at mo, so will have another look soon.

   fresh Battery in and still acts as if the battery is nearly drained ans in the process of trying to start, it's burnt out the small brown wire that replaced yesterday Going to swap over the starter from my daily mk2 GTI when I get back down my shed later to double check it's not the starter again.
Can anyone throw up any ideas why I keep burning out this wire please

if this is happening when you try to start the car, it could be the main earth from the battery to the chassis leg to the gearbox that is at fault, and the starting current is finding another route to earth - the thin wire. Worth checking it over. On another recent thread, Rubjonny recommends replacing the mk1 main earths with those from a Mk3.

good luck

Lee

Ah cheers Lee
Saturday I removed the head light, rad , alt etc loom out of car, stripped off the plastic casing/tape and checked over the wiring and renewed the brown earth and everything was fine.
Then cleaned up the all the terminals , taped up the loom and refitted.
tried starting and it was still the same
Then, took of the earth cable which goes from battery earth to gearbox mount off, it looked pretty clean But sanded the metal down to bare and replaced aaannd It  STARTED STRAIGHT UP   So the moral of this caper is check the earth cable/strap
Cheers for replying mate

Tried starting caddy today and it was still a bit slow, so done some research On all the earths on a MK1 and found this-

http://vincewaldon.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29&Itemid=28
So ordered this bush.
It's the main earth for starter motor, so it all makes sense now, as they should be replaced every time you replace the starter.

Just to conclude.
I did the mk2 golf earth mod on my mk1.
Removed and replaced the copper sleeve that sits in the bell housing.
Still the same, ie slow starter.
Thought F-IT and ordered a genuine Bosch starter from local Lucas shop which cost £67 and next day delivery and BOOM it's starts like a new car

Glad to hear you got it sorted in the end  

Cheers Lee, Got there in the end