it melted it once when we tried to start the car. we had grounded the battery to the frame and seperately grounded the engine to the frame (were just trying random things at this point). Now the battery is grounded to the engine and there hasn't been any melting. Just used that as an example of how I'm getting weary of trying random things. I understand the 14 gauge is too small (Only used it once!!! hell, tried just about everything I can think of once at this point...). Gauge isn't the issue here. I don't understand why jumpers wouldn't work for finding a good grounding point. It's just battery cable with clips instead of fittings on the end. Isn't it? Thanks for all the help! I appreciate how difficult electrical stuff can be to diagnose, especially over the internet
Wow. That's good to know about jumpers! Makes sense tho.. I assumed they were just the same as regular old battery cables with clips on the end. Wow yea, that's the engine. A good project, but probably more of one than I was looking for.. The starter is from my 250. It's pretty new. After installing it I probably put a few hundred miles on the car before the engine died.
check wire on stater to make sure not grounding ANYWHERE. Solenoid needs grounded, follow your wire real close just like water hose feeding the bowl. Gotta flow only in hose till it hits the bowl
ok i assume the starter solenoid is bolted onto the inner fender as it is supposed to be. its those bolts that grounds the solenoid. when you say it sparks, where on the solenoid are the sparks coming from? if you have freshly painted the inner fenders the paint may be insulating the ground path for the solenoid. do the headlights turn on when you pull the head light switch? if so then you have the wire i was referring to hooked up correctly. so to have it correctly wired you need the positive cable coming from the battery to the big post on the left side of the solenoid. the negative cable going to the motor. the cylinder head is ok. you will need another ground wire for the body of the car. it can be hooked up in several different ways. you can have a 10 gauge wire come from the neg. terminal on the battery going to the body. the bolt that holds down the solenoid is a good one to use for this. you can also run a ground cable from the engine block over to the body. the sway bar mounting bolt is pretty convenient for this. a 4 gauge cable or thicker is good for this. they make these braided ground cables that work well for this also. you can not have to many ground circuits. just make sure that you get metal to metal contact on your grounds. painted surfaces do not make for good grounds. there is the yellow wire i referenced earlier that goes to the same post on the solenoid as the + cable. there should also be a wire from the alternator that goes to this post. its for charging the battery and wont have any effect on starting. the two small posts on the solenoid are marked with a S and an I. the S stands for signal and I stands for ignition. i don't remember the colors for these wires but if they are mixed up it will crank when you turn the key to the run position. good luck. take some pics of the wiring in the solenoid and post them if you don't get it sorted out.
Thanks guys! I'm gonna try scraping the paint off behind the selenoid then. Just painted the engine compartment before the swap. Put new fusable link ends on. Still have the problem. As far as grounding, I still have the negative terminal going to the passenger cylinder head and now have a 4 gauge battery cable from the driver's cylinder head to the bolt that holds the horn down. I scraped off all of the paint first. Yea, the headlights and everything works fine. It seems to spark from the outside selenoid posts when I try to crank it, but i guess it could be from the mounting bolts.. Those two small front posts are wired correctly (Black & Green). I've been using a full color wiring diagram this whole time (hard to tell, huh? lol). Idk what the compression is I will check to make sure the starter wire isn't grounding. I'm thinking it's gotta be that selenoid ground.. I'm gonna go try thanks for all the help!!
are you sure the starter is good? the solenoid could be bad. it shouldnt spark. a bad connection could just be the cause of the sparks. if you are confident of the connections then replace the solenoid. what size cable goes from the solenoid to the starter? is it new or 35+ years old?
The cables are all new 4 gauge. The header was pinching it on the metal part by the bolt. could barely even see it with those long tubes in the way. hell, that was so hard for something so easy lol. Thanks for all the help guys. geez lol Now to figure out why it still wont start! haha. But no sparks or smoke
