Several years ago I had a hesitation before the starter would "Kick in"
and sometimes (like when it was raining) it wouldn't kick in at all.  It
would work every time by jumping the contacts at the starter (like
yours).  My starter was good.  My fix was to replace the female spade
connector on the wire from the ignition switch, cleaning its male
counterpart, removing and super cleaning the transmission ground strap
connections and the battery posts and connectors.  I haven't had that
problem since.

Mike

TJ Hemrick wrote:
> After a fruitless search of the archives (they locked up-again and now not
> accessible), I have a question for all the pro's and anyone who's had to get
> underneath their van and jump the starter contacts more than once.  If the
> switch portion is good (tested and verified) but I can start it up via the
> starter/solenoid contacts, is there ANYTHING else that I may have missed?
> Maybe some hidden component?  Some secret VW Engineer torture trick?  The
> switch portion of the ignition was an easy suspect as it hesitated (or a
> short pause) when you turn the key and 1-2 seconds later it would turn
> over.  Now, it won't turn over at all unless I climb underneath and do it
> the old school way.  It's an 87 Wolfsburg with an automatic.  I'm just
> throwing it out there BEFORE I climb underneath and start pulling the
> starter.
>   Now don't start a digest war over this one.  Me, I'm inclined to spend the
> money and get a good replacement starter (aka Bosch) from a vendor.
> Butttttt, some of you will swear by getting a no name starter one at FLAPS.
> Great guarantee from the latter but most of you have mentioned that you had
> to swap them out 2-3 times before you found one that would go the distance.
>
>   I've been fortunate for a very long time that I never had starter problems
> and overlooked most of the list comments.  Now, that's going to bite me.   I
> still haven't located the cause for my stalling and hard to start issue.  A
> horrible time for the starter system to act up.  German engineering at it's
> finest!
>
> TJ
>
> 87 Wolfie
> 87 Syncro
>