Ghosts in the bay

[Bobreoc]

Hi all.

Had a bit of an issue earlier, we took the bus out for a little cruise this afternoon no issues what so ever.
I parked the bus up in the garage which is on a slight incline... I don't like to the put the handbrake on while parked up for long ish periods so I left it in first and choked the wheels.
Anyway.. we parked it up and left, my wife said that she left he jacket behind so we went back to collect the jacket.

When I got back I opened the garage door and was greeted by clouds of smoke... the bus had jumped forward and ruined a chest freezer, after clearing the smoke and making sure nothing was on fire I found the starter motor was burnt out.

What I don't understand is how can the bus just randomly jump forward like that? No sign of a break in and the ignition was completely off and I had the keys on me.. the only thing I do know now is that the starter motor does a perm live instead of an ignition live..

Any suggestions as this is a bit of mystery at the moment.

 

[sparkywig]

Starter solenoid shorted out.

 

[Pellwood]

+1 for a short of some sort in the solenoid or ignition circuit.
One side of the solenoid takes a permanent live from the battery the other is fed via the ignition (unless you have a hot start relay).

 

[983 Huey]

50 year old wiring harness and solenoid etc are playing on my mind after reading this.
I'm considering a battery isolator switch for peace of mind.

 

[slow-lane-Matt]

...I think there is normally a permanent live feed to the starter motor (in fact to solenoid) on all unmodified buses.

The ignition feed fires up the solenoid (dirty black thin cable), which engages the starter motor to fly wheel, (click!) and internally sends
12v high current through solenoid to starter motor.

Thick cable on left goes direct to battery +ve (so permanently live) - broken red cable takes power to front of bus for lights etc

So if you short out the two terminals on solenoid and have in gear bus would shoot forward, (and possibly run over owner messing with starter motor underneath).

The solenoid is disengaged in it's relaxed state - so it would seem you had an electrical fault that applied 12v to solenoid. I am no expert but think more likely your ignition switch failed than solenoid....If ignition switch failed what you described could easily happen - if solenoid failed normal symptom is bus won't start (ask me how I know)