everything is hooked up, but it wont turn over!! whats wrong!?

Might be better to get a savey friend over to check everything out. This stuff can be hard to diagnose when not looking at the vehicle.
Good luck, you'll get it.

 

"S" terminal on starter solinoid to battery positive, engine should crank over if the battery solinoid and starter is good, if it you can hear the staeter click or make noise, everything is probably good except the starter, providing the bat is full, not sure about your wiring but this by p***es it all to get it to turn over good luck

 

All except the gnd.

 

If the battery is good, terminals clean and the neg cable is hooked to the motor, you can eliminate the ground, the blinkers may not work but the motor will turn without the body grounded. you should have a ground from the motor to the frame and body, for lights and accessories, that car shoulld have a ground strap on the right rear intake bolt to the firewall, no fusible links on that year ford, so forget that.

 

You might want to just try leaving the lights in the "on" position, and start wiggling wires, and see if they flicker on and off. The simplest of shorts can cause the biggest headaches.

I spent some time scratching my head on an issue like this, on one of my previous projects. Come to find out, the problem was just a loose connection in the harness.

Good luck, and hope it all works out for you. -Joe

 

right now the fenders are off of the car, so the headlights arent hooked up, but the dash lights should still come on. same with the brakes. but they arent. and i do leave the key in the on position with the blinkers on, wiggling stuff around. me and my dad havent had any luck since getting that little spark of life sunday when we got it to turn over. since then, its been dead

 

OK.... I see everyone has said the Obvious .... Now take a look at your Headlight switch & the Horn Relay as they have Direct Power to each of them.

I looked at My F~100 and it seems that Both of them could be suspect... Headlight switch has a fuse ON the back.

Unrealted car i once had was a GTO & it had a DIRECT POER WIRE from the battery to the Horn Relay and it would corrode and stop ALL power to EVERYTHING.

You need to trace the DIRECT POWER wires from the Strarter switch, Horn Relay, Alt/Gen, & headlight switch.

I bet a Dollar to a Do~Nut one of them is bad

 

Agreed ....

Are the ground wires new > have you checked for continuity?
I have seen that blue gunk creep up wires from the terminals and creat a short or a break in the wire that otherwise looks good.

I would run new ground wires and new terminals , Get the easy fixes out of the way , if its a fresh built car that should be done nayway for cheap insurance on future issues.

Good luck.

 

If I were a betting man, this is where I`d lay my money. Your problem is the main 12v power supply wire from the battery to the dash / ignition switch. Since this is a Ford, the pwr wire probably runs from the starter solenoid up to the dash and probably joins into the horn relay and / or other such components along the way.

Check the main harness where it feeds through firewall. Unplug it and check for corrosion or possible blown fusible link.

A fusible link is not exactly what it sounds like. It is an electrical wire that looks like regular wire (about 10 gauge), but has a softer outside insulation. It is designed to burn into during current overload. You most likely will not be able to detect this visually. You need a test light at the very least.

GOOD LUCK.

 

Have you tried running a set of jumper cables from the battery directly to the starter? That would determine if the starter is OK, and that the battery has enough charge.

My gut feeling is that you have enough power to run a test light, but when a real load is put on the system, you develop an open.

 

jumping across the solinoid terminals byp***es the ign momentarily so with the key in run / on try the crossed solinoid trick
(screw driver - pliers handles whatever .. this tool will get hot and try to weld it self to the posts) this is the same as a remote starter switch!
if the starter does not engage or click its the full circuit from the battery that is not complete

so now with a separate a battery with jumpers try the starter in the car groundone leadon case of starter and hook other -momentarily to the starter terminal .. does it spin ?

isolation -or removing the separate circuits is what trouble shooting is all about... eliminate them one at time to isolate the bad area of wiring ..


hint is the ignition switch mounted securly it need to be grounded too.. especcially if other components may be loose and not fully grounded


good luck
we are here to help and give ya hard time later for not getting it right away

 

thanks a lot for the newer suggestions and advice guys. much appreciated once again. i'll print them all out and when im at work saturday my dad is gonna go over to my grandmas and try these all out to.

are there any fellow bakersfield hamber's out there reading this who are pretty good at this electrical stuff that would wanna drop by and maybe help us out just in case? i'll pay you what you think is fair if you can stop by

 

Sure seems to be a lot of hi-tech advice here. You can hot-wire a car in less than 15 seconds!! You can run a engine,Oh **** here's that Engine or Motor thing again,on an test stand with a battery and a couple of wires. Lets not make it too complicated it's not that difficult>>>>.

 

He's trying to diagnose, not just make it run. But i agree any motor can be started barebones with a few jumper wires.

 

I understand that. After watching his video I think he needs to eliminate all wiring problems and get the engine started before he has engine trama. Grinding away on the starter while juicing it with starting fluid just don't look good. Once he gets the engine running he can go back and fix his wiring problems by backtracking the system. Now he's just guessing and grinding all the ***embly lube off all those new engine parts. I watched the engine machine video and it looks like they spent some dough on everything and it's a shame to trash it before it even gets started>>>>.

 

Just watched the video, engine pro is right better lay off the starting fluid cowboy.

 

When we send out a new engine,aaaaahhhhh **** here's that engine and motor thing again,we stress that the engine fire immediatly. Prime oil pump,prime carb,have ignition set right,valves set,coolant full,wiring right. We want the engine to fire on or about the second full revolution. I know this don't have **** to do with his wiring problem but the poor guy sure as hell don't need anymore things to go wrong>>>>.

 

well its saturday and im at work and dad just got home from my grandmas working on it.

he replaced the ignition and...............




STILL NOTHING.

ugh we tried every single thing you all mentioned, down to the last little detail. nothing is working :-/

 

Is seems like the trouble is you're having trouble troubleshooting it. There are several approaches you could take:

• Call in for backup
• Slow down and really verify each step
• Keep trying new parts and maybe you'll get lucky

Add in there's concern for ruining the rebuilt engine. I'm not dogging you- it's hard enough to figure it out in person, much harder trying to troubleshoot over the Internet. And, no offense, but you might've missed something suggested.

Thanks,
Kurt

 

Let's back up and walk through at least some of these.

I am a little confused as to whether your starter is turning over or not. If its not, have you pulled the starter and had it checked like was suggested? Sometimes a starter will have some bad windings and if it "parks" just right on one of the dead windings, it will act like that. The frustrating thing is that it might test just fine unless it happens to park just right when it stops.

So ***uming you've already pulled the starter and tested and think its ok, have you jumpered across the solenoid like folks have suggested? Or better yet, have you tried a jumper CABLE (not a wire) onto the starter to get it to spin?

If you get this far and the starter is working, either you aren't getting 12v to the solenoid from the ignition switch, or the solenoid is burnt up. You ought to at least hear the clicking when you turn the switch.

A lot more to look at, but tell us in detail if you followed these steps and the results.

 

OKAY
SO THESE HAVE BEEN CHECKED?

battery fully charged?... still nothing - did ya jump /charge the battery while hooked up .. with the key or jumper
starter won't spin? in or out of the car (no matter how its hooked to a battery!)
starter bolted up clean + tight?
all cables clean and tight?
solinoid and wire tight (did ya byp*** this per list)?
all grounds in place , engine ,body, dash, battery ?
try turning engine over by hand?

trans in neutral? manual or auto?

call any real mechanic to help that ya know?

some thing simple is out a whack .. i just know it

before replacing any more parts go back to exact configuratuion you had when it did turn over .. replacing things while wiring is wrong replaces wrong wires ... wrongly?

you said you replaced the ign?
dist and wires ?
ign switch ?
starter system components ?

come on pics and video and lets get er running

 

It`s a 1958 Ford for crying out loud. It`s not that hard. You guys are overlooking something simple. Slow down and stop throwing parts at it.

 

aside the electrical did you rebuild it from the video it sounds like timing the disribitor could be off by a gear or two we ran into a problem once on a y simalar we replaced the timing chain and werent aware the dots on the sprokets and chain dont set up and down like other engines its like 12 teeth over theres some y block site that might help not sure of the adress google y block we did the same thing went through ignition battery ,starter altnater followed wireing wasnt it good luck hope it aint the same truck its cursed haha

 

Ok, you turn on the light, look at the ammeter, turn the key, and see if the lights dim or the ammeter shows a discharge.

No change, no draw of current for the starter.

then you check for voltage to the starter switch from the battery to the solenoid.
No voltage , bad cable or connector.
Good voltage, bad solenoid or ignition switch.
So you check for the voltage to the solenoid from the ignition switch, No voltage, bad switch.
voltage, good switch.
Now you check for voltage to starter from solenoid.
No voltage bad solenoid.
good voltage, bad starter.

Trader Jack

 

Wiring cl*** 101!!!! See ****. See **** run. See jane. See jane run. See **** catch Jane. See Jane get ****ed. Not that difficult. Start at the battery and work forward,old car simple wiring. If you can't figure it out call for reinforcement. Let someone else chase JANE>>>>.

 

Replace all the battery cables with good copper ones ,not junk from 7-11.charge battery then talk to us . I replaced a cable once with a new one that was defective .Some one else had to find it. I knew it was good because it was new.WRONG!

 

Good grief, surely someone here is in or around the Bakersfield area that has some electrical knowledge that can go help these poor guys before they trash the damn thing. Allyall are throwing so much "do this" and "don't do this" **** they probably don't know whether to **** or go blind.

 

I used to live near there...

 

alright guys for a while now ive been a little afraid to post in this thread again, because i hate being the 'idiot teenager', and i can tell that a lot of you are frustrated because me nor my dad can figure this out.

i really need to be clear though about something, i'm not trying to figure out why my motor isnt turning over, this is a completley different problem.

my problem is electrical. NOTHING electrical is working on my car right now. i turn the key to the on position, hit the blinkers, they dont come on. mash on the breaks, nothing... we need to figure out what is causing this before i can crank my motor over.

when i painted my dash last year, i took out the old ignition and put a new one in. and last week we put the old ignition in there and tried that, that didnt fix it. no fuses are blown. we've replaced the solenoid. everything has power, the battery is fully juiced, there is no corrosion on the battery terminals... we've checked everything that could be checked electrical wise.

here is a video i made, this was last week and we went over there today and tried more suggestions from other websites and still nothing:

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and honestly you guys, im sorry if im stupid and cant figure something simple out. but its not just me, its my dad to. we're stumped. im sure you've all had your share of 'stumped moments', well this is mine

 

Idk man, there is a problem there that the internet will not be able to fix. You need someone with skill to look at the car. Sorry, but there is no way around that.