I am trying to get my BB Buick started up but have hit a snag. Im sure I can figure it out eventually but thought the HAMB braintrust might save me a few obscenities. The starter is wired correctly. I have heavy gauge 0 fine strand wire and the battery is less than 6 ft away from the starter. When I turn the key, I get 12.5 volts to the solenoid but nothing happens. No click, no heat, nothing. I took the heavy SOB off and jumped it with a pair of jumper cables and it worked. I put it back on and also tried to short from the hot post to the solenoid and nothing. This is the same rebuilt starter, flex plate, cover, etc that was on the engine before. I just rebuilt it and put a transmission adapter for a 700R4 on it. What am I missing?
Is it installed again I take it? Yeah, even though it spins "no load" that doesn't mean it will work installed. Should get a grunt out of it though. A pretty good field diagnostic is turn the headlights on and watch what happens when you turn the key. With a good starter, with a good battery, they will hardly dim at all. If the headlights choke out it shows a problem. Battery, poor connections, roasted starter, etc.
Oops. My bad. It was not wired correctly. What is that extra #8 sized terminal on a GM starter for anyway?
If I’m thinking correctly it provides 12volts to the coil while cranking the motor. To provide a hotter spark on startup.
At least we didn’t come on and find out someone bought it from because it wouldn’t start, then they drove it out of the driveway
I think you have that backwards. But I think the OP had the wiring hooked up wrong as was not energizeing the solenoid
I'm struggling to imagine how, by virtue of the cable and terminal sizes, it would be possible to get the wiring connected up wrongly. It would seem like a lot more work to get it wrong than to get it right! Now, switching the start signal wire with the bypass feed I can see happening, not that I've done that, honestly!! Chris
A haiku: If the starter don't start...By Frank A starter is something that starts the car,A Ender is a broken Stater, It Ended its time starting the car,There for you must replace the Ender with a new Starter.....oh no applause necessary
I've gone out and checked a couple of GM rigs in the past 50 years that were no start rigs after being worked on that had the same issue. It seems to happen more often with rigs with HeI that have the solenoid with the resistor bypass post as his does. On some of the V8's the S post hides real well while the R post waves at you and hollers "Look at me"
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