Hello all, I have a 71 Mav with a 302 from an 85 F-150. I am trying to finish up my wiring and start 'er up but my starter ground arced when I tried to fire it up. Any ideas what might cause it? My starter solenoid currently has the following setup Positive Post: 3 alt. wires A stereo amp wire w/ fuse Battery positive cable Negative Post: Starter ground If you need any other info about the electrical system (I wired it as far as the engine bay is concerned) I can readily supply that.
Did it just arc and not click or turn over? are you using the late style starter or early style? the wiring will be different. I think you have a large load and a marginal ground. I could be wrong it would be the first time in the last ten minutes!
Just arced. What's the "late" style? The one with the big chromium colored cover? How can I increase the ground, if that can be done?
Ground for battery to engine block and engine block to frame or body or both . As for wire size the bigger the better at the very least 10 gauge or larger. And clean all contact points to bare metal.
Starter Ground??? Starter is grounded to block, should be a negative(ground) battery cable of #4 or larger to block and a #10 or larger to chassis...
Yeah I have a cable running to the neg. side of the starter solenoid from the starter. But I'm pretty sure the one I have now is an internal solenoid unit, so ground to engine and go?
Except for the mounting bracket there is no negative side of solenoid, it's basically a switch... Voltage is transferred through solenoid from battery to starter post by cable connected to stater...
Thanks for the information Tom After looking at it today, I noticed my oil dummy light comes on when the car is off and the battery is connected. Hopefully this is a big help to someone who can point me in the direction of the fault.
Also, a little more info on the circuit im having issues with: I have a electric fuel pump positive cable wired into my ignition wire (red w/ light green stripe, per the shop manual) and ground to the fender and my carb positive wired into one of the alternator positive cables and ground to the fender as well
Not sure about all the issues you're seeing here but sure sounds like insufficient grounding to me. Same exact arcing effect you'll get when bench testing a starter and the ground cable isnt making good contact with the housing. Reset the cable clamp, wiggle wiggle and the arcing goes away. The fuel pump should not share power with the ignition system and should most definetely have its own dedicated circuit/fuse.
So I disconnected everything except for: positive batt. wire negative batt. wire (ground to block) Wire to starter from other side of solenoid A speaker fuse wire And it still arcs at the battery when I tap the terminal. The current is flowing the whole damn time without the key in the igntion!!! I don't know where to go from here... Anybody know what the issue is?
