1970 Mustang

Skeeter70 said:

Hi. I'm new here. I'm looking for anybody that can tell me what the problem is with my Mustang. I was going to do some maintenance after it sitting all winter and when I started it, the starter kept cranking even though the motor was running. I had to pull the negative ground from the battery to shut the car off. Now if I put the battery wire back on it sparks. Does anybody know what the problem might be? I don't know where to start looking.

Click to expand...

Your starter solenoid has more than likely failed. The easiest way to test it would be to remove the small wire running to it that supplies power when the key is turned and attempt to connect the battery. If you still get a ton of sparks and/or it tries to turn over, the solenoid is bad. If it doesn't, you've got a problem with the ignition switch or your wiring.

If it's the starter solenoid, make sure and replace it with a high quality part, a lot of the cheaper solenoids are known to fail relatively quickly. Motorcraft is best if you can find it. Also, make sure you're mounting it to clean metal and that the screws that mount it are getting tight. The mounting tabs are how the solenoid grounds, and if the screw holes are stripped out or it's being mounted onto rusty metal, you're just going to be repeating this experience.