Adding a Starter Relay to a Milano
By Kevin Redden
Disclaimer:
I only do this stuff for fun, you assume all risk to self and property.
I'm only documenting what worked for my situation, your mileage
may vary! That said, let's get on with it...
A fewyears
ago I started having the common "clicky starter" issue
on my '86 Alfa Spider which usually signals that the ignition switch is
on
its way out, which I fixed by adding a starter relay. This seems to be
a
relatively common problem with Alfa Spiders. I recently started
having a hot start issue with my Verde where I would turn the key to
the start position and nothing would happen for 2-3 tries so given my
experience with
the Spider I immediately suspected the ignition switch was starting to
go. I did some poking around on the Web and found very little
about this issue on Milanos for some reason, not sure why it wouldn't
be just as common on them as Spiders, perhaps because the total number
of cars is
smaller? I did find a couple of references to this issue on the
alfabb but they had no pictures and a very short explanation of what
exactly needed to be done so I figured I'd do it and take a few pics to
make it easier for the next guy.
I did spend a
fair amount of time when I did this on my Spider trying to figure out
what wires I should tap into and ended up with a solution that
worked but wasn't the most elegant install. Turns out on the
Milano it is MUCH simpler to install a starter relay.
First a little about why this happens...
The problem is that many older cars
do not have starter relays and instead run the full amperage (current) needed to
run the solenoid through the ignition switch which are really not
engineered to withstand a lot of amperage and over time deteriorate.
Here is a picture showing the typical non-relay wiring for a
starter (this isn't the Milano wiring diagram but they are all pretty similar):
Figure 1
As you can see,
the full amperage of the battery goes through the little ignition
switch. Here is what the diagram looks like when the starter
relay is added.
Figure 2
What this does
is make it so that only a low current load will be sent through the ignition witch when it
is in the start mode. The low current is used to activate the
relay which then allows the high current load to pass through the
other two posts of the relay. The relays are built to withstand
the high load, unlike the ignition switch! I dug around in my
spare parts stash and found a spare Bosch relay (any 12v 30A relay should
work, mine actually says 20/30A on it) and pigtail.
Figure 3
Figure 4 shows where all the
work for this project takes place, right next to the combi-relay. First
unbolt the A/C solenoid (silver cannister with two bolts on top and red
hoses coming out each side).
Figure 4
Once that is out of the way
you can take the cover off of the junction box, be careful, the
plastic tabs may be brittle. The black wire with the white
connector is the wire that attaches to the small post on the starter
solenoid. The double wire in with the black connector (hard to
see in the pic, one wire is brown/white and the other is black) is the
wire pair connected to the ignition switch. I used a tiny
screwdriver and took the plastic connectors off of these two wires so
they just had the metal spade connector exposed.
Figure 5
The other two wires you will
need to make. The first is a short wire just long enough to reach
from the relay connector to the power post with the nut on it in the
picture above. In Figure 7 you can see the wire I added
(reddish pink). The second wire you need to create is the ground
wire. For this one I used a piece long enough to reach from the
connector to one of the extra ground spades near the headlight (see Figure 8).
You can either attach the wires directly to the relay with spade
connectors and then put electrical tape around them to ensure they
don't touch or do as I did and reuse the connector that I had in my
stash. I just pulled all the old wires out and shoved the spade
connectors in. Since they don't have the nice little tabs to keep
them from backing out you need to hold the wires at the back of the
connector tightly while shoving it onto the relay.
Now simply attach the wires to the appropriate terminal on the relay:
Figure 6
* The new short wire (red/pink one in Figure 7) that attaches to the
post with the nut goes to terminal 30 on the relay, this is your
contant on, high current power from the battery.
* The black wire with the white connector that you pulled off the
junction box goes to terminal 87 on the relay, this is the wire that
goes to the small post on the starter solenoid.
* The double wire (brown/white & black) that you pulled off the
junction box goes to terminal 86, this is the wire that goes to the
ignition switch.
* The long ground wire you created is attached to terminal 85 on the relay.
Figure 7
Next thing I did was to move
the combi-relay to the left a bit to make some room for the new starter
relay. I screwed in the new relay, zip tied the long ground wire
and reattached the AC solenoid. Then reconnect the battery.
Figure 8
Now you are done, go start the car. Mine was having this problem
with hot starts and I've now driven with it for two days an no more
starter problems!