Starter Problems

Thanks Tim65GT, I need to take a good look at the above. However, I dug out some old photos before the car was restored and afterwards. The Starter is the same one in both cases, so is the firewall solenoid, as part of the restoration an entire new Painless wiring system was installed. You can see that before the restoration the battery positive is connected to the starter through the Battery In post on the solenoid, there is a hook to the output side of the solenoid........similar to your mini starter diagram above. The current set up on the right of the attachment to this, has the battery positive to the starter on the Out to Starter side of the solenoid and nothing on the Battery In post of the solenoid, clearly the solenoid is serving no function in this set up......
Looks like you're on to something Tim65GT.....thank you.....
So I think the next stage is to rewire the solenoid and replace the ignition switch....

Tim65GT, what wire gauge would you recomend for the 'hook to output side of solenoid' in your diagram. Thanks in advance.

Guys,
It's been about a year since I first posted this issue and after receiving some helpful advice.......I've done nothing. I need to get on this, as the problem is only getting worse. I tokk the car out at the weekend, it started first time. After a 15 mile run out I brought it back into the garage and turened it off. I immediately tried to restart it, with no luck. I gotta get thai fixed, I'm a littl out of my comfort zone, but I gotta get this fixed. I'm printing off the entire thread and I'm going to make a start.

[quote="Side note: The fender mount solenoid doesn't really care which direction the current flows through the large terminals. All it does is short a large copper ring between the two posts.[/quote]

Great. I'd been doing a little reading this week and that was the conclusion that I'd come to, nice to hear a confirmation on it. I'm determined to make a start (pun) on Sunday morning. Thanks.

Referring to the attached, this is the wiring set up for the starter.
The battery is located in the trunk, the (-ve) cable is connected to the base of the starter, hence the engine block, main ground. There is another large cable from the base of the starter to the chassis frame.
There are two cables / wires attached to the starter a large one and a small red one.
There are two large terminals on the solenoid, let's call them A and B, there are two small terminals marked S and I.
From the battery the (+ve) cable is connected to one side of the solenoid, large terminal, lets call it post A.
Connected to post A is also a large cable that runs down to the one of two large terminals on the starter.
Connected to post S are two wires. One red wire runs down to a small post on the starter. It looks a little small to be 10 or 12 gauge.
The other wire connected to post S I assume is the starter wire from the ignition key.
There are other wires connected to solenoid posts I and A but I didn't investigate them as I'd already accounted for all connections to the starter.
There is nothing connected the other large post B on the solenoid.

So based on the rest of the content of this post and other reading, my plan is to replace the small red wire with a 10 or 12 gauge wire and connect one end to the starter and the other end to post B on the solenoid. When the solenoid is activated, the copper disc will connect the small red wire to the positive side. It would seem to me that the ignition switch is currently providing this connection. This may be damaging the contacts on the ignition switch causing a starting problem, but I'm out of my depth here. I plan to replace the ignition switch as well. Does this sound like a good plan? What is the other large terminal on the starter for?

Iamdiffrnt said:

Sounds right to me. Before going too much farther, i'd try moving the small starter wire (red) to the other large post (B) and see if that corrects your original starting problem.

The smaller wire size may not really be an issue, probably 16 or 14 gauge. See if the wire is hot after cranking the engine over, if it is, go to a larger size, if not, then it's likely not going to be a problem.

Click to expand...

Good advice, thanks.

So yesterday I temporarily moved the small starter wire (red) to terminal B and secured it. The difference when I started the car was like night and day. Starting was effortless and every time, first time. I am very confident that this is the fix. Thanks to all who provided input to this thread !!! I decided to make a new harness of power cable and red wire, when I discovered that the existing red wire was spliced together out of three pieces of different gauges.

Thanks again, I think I've got my car back again!!

geordie said:

So yesterday I temporarily moved the small starter wire (red) to terminal B and secured it. The difference when I started the car was like night and day. Starting was effortless and every time, first time. I am very confident that this is the fix. Thanks to all who provided input to this thread !!! I decided to make a new harness of power cable and red wire, when I discovered that the existing red wire was spliced together out of three pieces of different gauges.

Thanks again, I think I've got my car back again!!

Click to expand...

All done, starts like a dream now.