Just went to start the fresh 302 and behold! No power lol. The dome light doesn't even come on inside. Changing the battery ground to a different spot and gonna try again. Any "oh, that always happens.." ideas on this one? Already tried jumping off another car, and the battery is pretty new. Tried switching the wires on the ignition coil and on the front of the starter selenoid. running out of wires to switch around... Positive of battery is going to the selenoid and the negative is grounded to the body. Other side of selenoid is going straight to the starter. Made for a very uneventful "first start" video haha
Is it grounded to both the engine and the body? And/or is there a ground between the engine and body?
no, just grounded from the negative terminal of the batter to the body. Looks like a grounding issue to me too, the more I play with it. So should I add a ground from a starter/bellhousing bolt to the body?
do you have the power wire that comes from the wiring harnes going around the front of the car to the battery area hooked up to either the + side of the battery or the hot side of the soliniod?
You need to ground it directly to the engine, then ground the engine to the body so the things inside will work.
Sorry, I don't know what wire you're refering to . There's the ballast resistor wire that is going to the + side of the coil. The only thing that is going to the + side of the battery is the near side of the selenoid. Then there are the two wires that fit onto the front of the selenoid, tried switching those between eachother. On the far side of the selenoid I have a cable running to the starter. (sorry, might've already said some of this. can't see). Just tried scratching the paint off of the underside of the regulator to hope for a better ground with no results. Tried grounding the negative battery terminal to all sorts of places on the body and frame. Tried some 14 gauge wire from the bellhousing to the frame with no results.
i cant rember the exact color, but i think its yellow. there should be a yellow wire that comes out of the wiring harness that goes to the voltage regulator and starter solinoid. it will be around 12 gage. there should be a fuseable link in it. they usually have a plastic tag of some sort saying the rated amperage. its the main power feed to the fuse box. if its not hooked up you wont have any power.
ok. so it started to turn over but the the selenoid started smoking like a teenager. I had moved the fusable link that comes from the front of the car (not the one from the alternator) to the battery side of the selenoid. Origonally had both fusable links on the the bottom bolt of the regulator. Tried moving both fusable links to the selenoid and got nothing. I was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Excited to hear it make a noise! Even for a second!
Whooooaoaaaaa BIG spark!! hahaha Feels like we're making headway I'll keep you posted if I figure it out!
to the point of chilton's pg. 47 where it shows a diagram splicing the fusable links... not sure what this means. Mine are not spliced
That 14 gauge only lasted one try before switching to using a jumper cable. Same results no matter where I attached the jumper cable. The negative battery terminal is now grounded to the passenger side cylinder head, only touching the cast part of the head. It always sparks from the selenoid (starter relay), no matter how its wired or grounded. Kinda looks like the selenoid needs to be grounded. It's raining now so I have to speculate. This still sounds like a grounding problem. Could it be the wiring? Would someone mind confirming the location of the fusable links on the selenoid for me? Bryant gave me a quickie, but I'm still confused enough not to know if it's wrong. Searched dozen of pages of gallery for a good pic, and google is starting to make me think screwy. Thanks guys! There are three of us here scratching our heads lol
Ok, I had it right then for a few of the tries. That way smokes alot lol. My next step when it stops raining is to independently ground the selenoid. Any reason this would cause more problems than I'm having? Already melted off the end of one battery cable I had and turned the end of one set of jumper cables kinda crispy just trying random stuff lol
I was just using them as a tester to find a good ground. Not permanent. The battery is grounded using a regular battery cable. The jumper was for the engine back to the frame
