205 won't start

Sounds like a bad earth to the starter or a weak battery.

If I remember rightly to check for the former, connect a jump lead from the NEGATIVE battery pole to the starter motor body and try again - if it works then it's the earth on the starter.

The starter motor is on the back of the engine below and in front of the air box.

1. Undo the jubiliee clip holding the air intake pipe on at the front of the engine bay and pull the pipe out of the concertina bit.
2. Undo the jubilee around the top of the carb body
3. Unclip the spring clips on either side of the air box lid
4. Twist the airbox lid anticlockwise to unclip it
5. Lift the airbox (and the flat oval box that connects it to the carb) upwards (you'll probably need to unclip the guide that's holding the fuel line to the plastic intake and disconnect the breather pipes from the flat oval box).

With all the air intake stuff (and box) out of the way, you should be able to reach the starter by leaning over the engine either from the front or from the side (passenger side is easiest assuming UK car) depending on how tall you are.

This is by far the easiest way of getting at the starter (rather than putting it up on ramps and scrabbling around underneath).

The starter is held on with 3 long bolts and the earth is held on to the end of it by a nut.

Removing the above will take 5 minutes and when I changed my starter that only took another 20, then 5 minutes to put all the gubbins back on again.

If your starter is buggered completely, don't expect to pay more than 25 quid for a replacement (recon) - It is the same starter as the Citroen AX-GT too (same engine).

Cheers, Matt

It sounds like your starter solenoid isn't pulling in fully - a common pug fault, at least on the 205. You can temporarily bypass it using a screwdriver to short the main battery feed (on the solenoid) to the big nut on the starter motor.

The reason it's not pulling in is (probably) that the ignition switch is carrying the full load for the starter solenoid (about 30A). The result is a voltage drop between battery and solenoid, so the nominally 12v solenoid only gets perhaps 8-9v, which means that sometimes it won't start. Mine tended to have problems when the engine was hot. The solution is to use a relay to carry the current, rather than the ignition switch.

shows a schematic 'before' and 'after' to show how the relay is fitted in my car. HTH Andy

Sounds like a sticky starter motor. As a temporary fix when it breaks a whack with something solid on the starter motor (back of the engine, under the air box) usually gets it going again. Its not a difficult job to change it (although you may need a Torx socket to get a bolt out, which you probably wont have). if you dont feel confident enough to do it yourself go down your local independant garage and get them to do it, it should take 30min at the most, so if your lucky you can get it sorted for

Same prob I had with mine. Changed the starter (Which comes with a solenoid anyway) and all worked fine.

sPoNiX

Thanx all for your reactions!

I have brought the car to a friend, who owns a garage. He checked all the things, and he said the startmotor was defect. So I bought a

2nd-hand startmotor. My friend is going to build the motor in the car, so I hope the problem is fixed then....

Cheers, David