Ignition Relay Woes

Recently the car would keep running after the key was turned off.  This wasn't a case of dieseling where the engine keeps firing because of low octane gas or hot carbon in the cylinder, but it was being caused by the ignition relay not releasing after the power to the relay coil was removed.

The relay never looked too good to me as it was open and pretty dirty.  I had an opportunity to get a used original one.  It turns out that my relay was an original, but it was missing the cover.  You can see it on the left with the replacement one and its cover on the right.

Replacing the relay isn't quite as easy as in the 308.  There, you remove a snap panel, pull out the relay and plug in a new one.  In the 330, first you remove the washer bag.  Then the fuse box cover and the battery.  After that, you unbolt the fuse panel from the firewall.  Only then can you remove the two screws that hold the relay to the panel.  The relay is buried at the bottom of the panel partially hidden by the battery ground wire in the picture below.

I carefully marked the 4 wires (so I thought) as I removed them.  At the same time, I took out the battery tray bottom and cleaned it up.  As you can see on the left, it needed it.  There are 6 solid rivets in this aluminum plate.  On the bottom side, it looks like there was some cloth under the rivet head.  I'm at a loss as to why there would have been a layer of cloth on this piece.  I presume that the rivets are to hold the battery up from the aluminum plate.

Ed Montini emailed an explanation of the battery tray and rivets.  When he took his battery tray out, he found that there was a layer of asbestos (1/4" thick) riveted on the underside.  Presumably this was to protect the battery from the exhaust heat.

With the battery tray removed, you can see where the windshield washer motor is placed on the series 2 cars.  This is looking down under where the battery sits.  The wires lead to the pump.

After the tray was cleaned up, I started putting everything back together.  I hadn't checked the new relay or wiring since I still had the battery out.  And I wasn't worried, the relay was working in another car a few weeks ago and I had marked all of the wires.  Of course, the car wouldn't start.  Nor could I hear any click of the relay when the key was turned on.  I had somehow mixed up the wires.  Since I only had to move wires, I thought that I could do it without removing the fuse panel or relay but first I had to remove the washer bag, fuse panel cover and battery.  However, there's not enough clearance nor working space to do that with the panel in place.  I unbolted the panel again.  Then I was able to remove the wires, but couldn't see enough to know where to put them back on.  So I had to take the relay off again.  The taking off isn't the problem.  The replacement is.  It's held on by two 3mm screws that go through to the back of the panel.  There, there's a flat washer, lock washer and nut for each screw, all to be placed by feel and by the way, they are tiny.  In the end, I got it all back together, only dropping one lock washer which I found later.  It's now taped to the side of the relay to be installed the next time I have the fuse panel off.

My wife kept coming out asking when I was going to be done.  Dinner was ready, but as we are driving the 330 down to the Oregon coast for a 3 day FCA tour tomorrow, I wanted to get it all back together first.  Her reply was that we could always take the spare Ferrari (308) even though we would have to pack a lot lighter (lots less trunk space).