Hopefully you guys can help me out. I have a 72 Maverick with the 200 engine. Points and condenser have been replaced along with the ignition coil due to the fact I couldn't get it to start. Even so, the only way to get the car to crank is to run a jump wire straight from the coil to the battery. Today I replaced the starter solenoid and kept the jump wire the way it was to make sure the car would still crank like that. No problems. So I decided to re-attach the original coil hot wire back to the coil and remove the jump wire. The car would crank and immediately shut off. After doing this a couple of times, it finally stayed running but ran rough. I turned the ignition off, expecting the car to shut off since I no longer had the coil wired straight to the battery, but the car stayed running. Disconnected the ground from the battery and the car shut off. I know that sounds like an alternator issue, but the alternator has been bench tested and works fine. Plus, when I put the ground back on the car tried cranking on its on. Oddly enough, where the positive cable goes to the solenoid (terminal closest to the battery), I had to disconnect that and run it to the other side of the solenoid and ran the cable to the starter to the terminal closest to the battery. Tried cranking it again and once again it would crank but not stay running until after a few tries. Again, turned the ignition off and the car stayed running. Disconnected the ground from the battery, car stayed running. So I pulled the positive off to cut it off. This time reattaching the ground did not make the car try to start. Anyway, I checked the voltage from the ignition to the coil and its reading 10+ V when I try to turn it over. Is it supposed to read anything while the key is just in the on position? The voltage is fine going to the coil, right? But why will it only crank without giving me a huge fight unless wired straight to the battery? And why is it that when it isn't straight wired that it won't shut off when the key is turned off? Bad ignition switch? Maybe its a bad new coil? Perhaps a combination? Sorry this is so long, but I feel it is best to thoroughly explain the situation. Any help will be much appreciated.
Put the coil, battery and starter cables back where they belong and try reversing the two small wires that go to the solenoid.
I'll give that a shot. I initially hooked everything back up the way it was when I swapped out the solenoid but maybe the small wires have been backwards since I've had this car since I've had this problem from the beginning. Thanks! I'll try it in the morning and let you know.
So I put the battery and starter cables back to the original sides of the solenoid and flipped the two small wires around. Nothing happened. It wouldn't even turn over. So then I flipped them back around and the car cranked, only this time the car will cut off when I turn it off. One of the smaller wires I had to cut off before and crimp on a ring terminal that was too small for the other side, so when I reversed them I just used gator clamps because the factory wire boot on one side is too big for the terminal on the other side, if you understand what I'm saying. Basically I didn't want to cut and crimp new ends on each wire just to make them fit for the test. But since the ignition seems fine now, maybe the problem is just in the wire boot that attaches directly to the solenoid. I'll try to take a small file and file out the inside of the boot. If that doesn't work then I'll cut off the boot and put a ring terminal on it. Thanks.
