53 merc flathead. Just rewired. All grounds are clean bare metal. ground from battery--motor--frame--body. all good and clean. All new large cables. When I ohm the wires to check them, i get 8 ohm from the neg. side of battery with only the neg is connected to the pos terminal on starter. That doesn't sound right. the two should not ohm out correct? reason I'm doing this is because the starter is turning very slow. and yes battery is charged and good along with solenoid.
It is possible you have a bad connection on one of the end lugs of the cable. Most of these are just crimped and not soldered.
well, I removed all the cables, neg. and pos. I got my volt meter, clicked over to ohm's touched one to the head bolt that I'm using for a ground touched the other to the pos. terminal on the starter and it ohms out to about 8 ohm's.
.....I use star washers on the ground connecters( against the frame and firewall),solder the battery connecters........Your starter sounds like it has a drag in it..which could slow it down....
You removed the two cables at the battery... so measuring from the ground bolt to the pos side of the starter you get 8 ohms.... you are measuring the resistance of the starter motor.
You need to give us a little info. Is this Merc converted to 12v neg ground, or is the car still 6V pos ground? If you are still using a Ford starter (that uses a starter relay to connect battery to starter) then the 8 ohms is probably right. You are measuring the starter motor resistance!
12v neg. ground ford starter. OK, so i was measure the resistance of the starter. OK well back to the drawing board. I cant figure out why it cranks so slow.
Check the voltage from the starter terminal to ground with the engine cranking. Should be at least 10 volts. Also, a headbolt is NOT a good place to ground. There can be corrosion on the threads.
OK, ill check the voltage during cranking tomorrow. If its low what should i check for? New battery, a few days old. The head bolt has everything grounded well, but where else should i bolt it to?
First we will assume the starter itself has no mechanical or electrical problems??? You are looking for high resistance connections otherwise. Could be a cable end (lug). Could be something in the starter post itself. They come loose once in awhile. Like others said, the ground is better on the bell housing near the starter. If you can't find anything, put your voltmeter on the 1 volt scale and start checking across from the lug to the cable. You can do this by poking a pin in the cable itself to pick up the cable before it gets to the lug. Any reading here is not good.(under cranking load) Another quick check is to crank the engine for about 15 seconds with the key OFF. Then quickly feel all cables and connections to see if they are warm. GO EASY!!! Something might be REAL hot.
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