Maestro Starts on Key but won't run

[Brendanfelix]

Hi there, my father-in-law's 1.3 petrol Maestro will start up when the ignition key is turned, and provided you keep it turned, it will run. However, as soon as you let go of the key it dies.

Does anyone know why this might be happening, so I can try and fix it before we sell the car please?

Thanks

Brendan

[Jeff Turbo]

Sound very much like a fuel issue, is the fuel pump working correctly, is there enough fuel in the petrol tank. Remove the fuel pipe to the carb and put in an empty container, an old coke plastic bottle should do then turn the car over. Do you have a nice fuel flow going into the container?
Next thing, manual or auto choke?

[Doctordiesel77]

If you check fuel & it is ok, do the ignition/oil lights come on when engine stops? if not, then it may be that the ignition switch is gummed up due to lack of use, switching it on and off a few times might clean it up.

[Brendanfelix]

Thanks Jeff, but I'm pretty sure it isn't fuel, as she starts and runs fine as long as the key is kept turned. I will check what Doctordiesel77 has suggested when I'm next with the car, but even that seems unlikely it was a sticky ignition switch when the car was taken off the road due to this problem as it was used daily until it occurred (in 2012). Could be sticky now though!!!!

I once had a similar symptom on a Vauxhall Victor 101 back in the 90s, But this had a small ballast resistor on the terminal of the coil. The idea was that the power to the coil was "full fat" when starting, but as soon as you let go of the key, power was sent via the other wire and through the ballast resistor to reduce current through the coil when running. Whilst the symptoms were the same, in that case, it was simply the ballast resistor was broken, so I bypassed it by attaching both wires directly to the coil and running it at "full fat" the whole time. Worked fine.

I've looked on the Maestro and there doesn't appear to be a ballast resistor or second wire to the one side of the coil, so I assume that its either elsewhere in the circuit, or non-existent.

Any other thoughts folks?

[Doctordiesel77]

Strange, there is no ballast resistor and the starter and ignition circuits shouldn't be connected (other than both being operated by the ignition switch!). If you connect a live wire from the battery to the white wire on the + side of the coil it should turn the ignition on/ make it keep running. Be careful when you try this though, I had a similar problem with a telehandler heater plug...it turned out to be connected to the starter circuit, so 'hotwiring' it resulted in plenty of rotating pulleys etc. If connecting a live to the coil does result in the starter engaging, you may need to investigate further, if it doesn't then you should be able to get it to run with a hotwire on until it is sold, I guess anyone buying it will be able to sort it out later.