Bought a high torque mini starter off of ebay last Sunday and waited all week to be able to install it Friday (today)...installed it and hooked the wire up to the wrong side of the relay (the diagram is wrong)...fried the starter. The diagram has a picture of the solonoid and it does have a picture of the pos. bat cable running to the solonoid, but it has it running to the left side and not the right side. I hooked it up and the starter moved...I thought..."hmm, maybe it shouldn't do that, but the picture shows this way" and cranked it...the starter was my problem as I thought, but now it's fried because it was hooked up wrong...the place said they don't exchange if installed wrong and it's $16.00 shipping each way, not to mention i'd be waiting until next weekend to do it, so I might just go to the auto parts store and buy a remanufactured starter and be done w/ it. This blows...$85 down the drain...Hooked up starter wrong..FRIED...misleading diagrams!!!
- Thread starter TheUser
- Start date
Bought a high torque mini starter off of ebay last Sunday and waited all week to be able to install it Friday (today)...installed it and hooked the wire up to the wrong side of the relay (the diagram is wrong)...fried the starter. The diagram has a picture of the solonoid and it does have a picture of the pos. bat cable running to the solonoid, but it has it running to the left side and not the right side. I hooked it up and the starter moved...I thought..."hmm, maybe it shouldn't do that, but the picture shows this way" and cranked it...the starter was my problem as I thought, but now it's fried because it was hooked up wrong...the place said they don't exchange if installed wrong and it's $16.00 shipping each way, not to mention i'd be waiting until next weekend to do it, so I might just go to the auto parts store and buy a remanufactured starter and be done w/ it. This blows...$85 down the drain...
Michael Yount
Mustang Master
Ford_Racing
New Member
well, I pulled the starter and figured I could maybe replace just the solonoid and get off easy. Took it to autozone and just told them what happened and I needed a solonoid and got a solonoid for a ford high torque mini starter...$38. Easy enough, got it on and threw the starter back in...and hooked it up correctly...if i would have READ all of the directions instead of glancing at them and using the picture only, I would have realized I was supposed to move the starter cable over to the solonoid post w/ the (+) battery cable and throw the supplied wire on the other post. Either way, i'm now back at square one...it clicks, but doesn't crank, which is why i replaced the starter. When I first hooked it up (incorrectly), it did crank, but it did make a really loud noise, so maybe it wasn't lined up or something, but I don't see how it couldn't be lined up...it's a bolt-on, so no room for adjustment. I turned the crank to see if maybe the starter was locked up...turns fine, so it's not locked up...Guess i'll start back at square one. Do you think maybe when I hooked it up wrong, it fried the solonoid on the fenderwell? It doesn't stink like the one on the starter (smells like beef jerkey kinda). I might unbolt the starter and ground it and see if it will work w/o load. Any other ideas besides go through the starting circuit checklist again?
I had a problem like that and eventually it was because the solenoid was not grounded to wheelwell it was loose . We tightened it better and it fired. Then couple days later it was loose again same problem. There are basically only a few things it can be and you said you are getting a click so you are getting some power there. good luck.
BlackFox5.0
Founding Member
How are your battery cables? Check for cracks in the insulation, if it's all cracked up, then water can get inside and corrode the cables and cause a lot of problems. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with my car and why it wouldn't start after driving even when I was getting voltage. Turns out my battery ground cable was all corraded up, so I went to walmart and got one for like under $10 and it works perfectly now 
checked for voltage at starter end of starter wire...12.61v and it drops to around 11.99 or something under load, but the starter doesn't crank. Since I hooked it up wrong and blew the solonoid, although I did buy a new replacement solonoid for $38 and put it on there...could hooking it up wrong have caused more than just a blown solonoid? Could it have messed up some of the starter wiring as well? This is nuts. Guess i'll pull the starter and hook it up to my battery w/ some jumper cables and see if it runs then...then it would be failing under load just like before. No warrenty on the starter, especially if you install it wrong, so I'll prob. just go to autozone and get a remanufactured starter and be done w/ it. I didn't really NEED a high torque mini starter, but since it was $85 after shipping, figured it would be a worth-while investment, but I don't wanna order another one and have to wait another week. Grrr...the only bad thing is that when this is fixed, something else is gonna break (that's how it's been going with everything here lately) and i'm scared what it's gonna be 
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