hi i just got everything together on my 302 mavet(comrick) and it wont crank. i turn the key and it clicks like the battery is dead. i put it on the charger on crank assist still nothing. could it be anything else? did i wire something wrong? note: it was a auto car as well, converted to manual. could it be the neutral safety switch? and also it was 302 swapped when i bought it, i bought it with no motor or trans in it but everything else was. it ran before engine was removed
Or a starter issue, mine did it a few days ago, 14 month old starter needed 2 brushes replaced, did the same thing, just click.
I'm gonna tinker with it today, see what i can find out. I thought it was the solenoid too so I'll look at that more. Thanks for the replies guys!
i just looked at it, my starter has the 2 big posts and a smaller terminal. if im not mistaken that is solenoid as well isnt it? how should i bypass it?
I wound up taking my starter off and having the place I bought it test it for me, it's a mini starter, they replaced the 2 brushes for $20.00 and cleaned it up a bit, I do have a regular solenoid on the engine compartment apron, and the one on the starter. EDIT: When they tested mine they stuck it in a vice and used a 12v power supply (big battery charger) grounded the case and touched the positive lead to the large lug on the starter.
Yep.. that's the solenoid. To check it all you need do is ground the snout with the negative jumper cable and MOMENTARILY touch the positive jumper cable to the power lug to see if the bendix pops the gear outwards each time you fire it up. Sometimes they get sticky after sitting a while and lubing/working them back and forth with a screwdriver can free them back up. Make sure to pin the housing down to the ground with your foot during testing or it can jump around a bit. There's also the starter relay mounted up on the firewall to be concerned with as well. That can be bypassed with a screwdriver to troubleshoot issues there as well. Google is your friend.
Sometimes these "bench tests" can be misleading. The starter is not under load when doing so. I had a bad starter a while back, it would work all day long testing it here and at the parts store. Once put on the car it would not function, it didn't have enough grunt to turn the engine over. EDIT: I'm not too familiar with under the hood on these cars yet and haven't had a chance to look things over thoroughly. With that said are there engine to body grounds maybe, that aren't hooked up?
And the engine to the chassis. Grounds connections go bad with age just like the positive connections do.
