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

i know man... i posted an ad in the 'wanted' thread in cl***ified, for someone with knowledge with electrical problems for cars, for who is near bakersfield or lives here. im just trying anything i can right now..

 

can you turn it over by crossing the leads on the started like you can on a chevy with a screwdriver?

 

Your light is lighting up in too many places, which leads me to believe you have it connected to the pos. side of the battery. If so this is wrong. Connect you test light to the neg side and you should only have power to one side of the solenoid. Try that and report back.

 

if you mean taking the starter cable and touching the red battery cable to get it to turn over, then yes, i did that last week and it turned over. but it almost welded together because of all those sparks so its kinda risky doing that

 

yea we did that today and we only had light on one side of the solenoid, the other didnt light up, so we did that

 

OK, That solenoid terminal that has the direct connection to the battery should have another wire connected to it. If still original it will be yellow in colour. It will run back inside the car and be connected to the back of the light switch. Check that.

 

hmm well we do have a yellow wire connected to the solenoid. it slips on under the starter cable, so not sure if this is the one your talking about. but we'll double check that next time we go over there.

 

Your first video shows the engine "turning over" and not lighting off as is obvious.

It could be as simple as having the distributor 180* out.


Or . . . are you GM guys and this is your first Ford?

I'm sure you're aware that GM and Ford have different firing orders, but . . . and this is the important part . . . Fords are 1-2-3-4 on the right bank and 5-6-7-8 on the left bank.

GMs are 1-3-5-7 on the left bank and 2-4-6-8 on the right bank.

You can get interesting results if you wire a Ford with a GM cylinder arrangement pattern.

Don't forget the distributor rotation direction either....

 

we're ford guys, but does this has something to do with whether or not the blinkers or lights would not be working, or the whole electrical system for that matter by chance? we're not concered with the firing order right now, we're focused on getting the electrical stuff all up and working right now

 

If you like I will pm you my telephone #, and you can call me when you are standing at the car, and I will try and talk you through getting ignition.

 

Don't worry about all of that, it's part of the learning process. Your posts in this thread are getting easier to understand. You should try to make this into an opportunity to learn. When I say that to you, I'm saying it to myself, too.

What are you using for reference material? Do you have a manual for the car? Do you have a wiring diagram for the car? I asked for one for a '61 Comet here on the HAMB and I got an answer very quickly. Do you have any books (probably older) with a section or more on auto electrical troubleshooting?

I don't know how those test lights work, but I'm still wondering about the condition of that battery. Do you know the condition? How old is it? Does it work in another car?

Thanks,
Kurt

 

well kurt thanks for the kind reply.
and to answer your question i printed off a wiring diagram of a v8 1958 ford fairlane, and we used it, but to no avail did it help us...
and the condidtion of the battery is good. fully charged, has power, it worked in my 58 5 months ago when i had the inline 6 in there.

and i went to the library and looked at a 58 ford manual for some electrical stuff but i couldnt check the book out since its a reference book

 

Okay, At this point you need to go to radioshack and spend 20$ on a volt meter. Test lights are retarded, and don't tell you much.

I will potentially be driving through Bakersfield next weekend, and I could probably stop by and tell you exactly what is and isn't working in about 5 minutes with my multimeter.

Buy a volt meter, and start probing around for power. Figure out where you have it and where you dont

And remember, you are measuring voltage relative to the negative terminal on the battery. Measure across the battery and you should see 13 +.

Then start moving the red probe around (following your wiring diagram) until you find the place you do not have voltage that you should.

 

well i went out and bought a volt meter from sears, cost me about 25 bucks. it says how many volts are going through it and it also checks for conitinuity, we tried it on just about all the wires we thought would be bad but nothing.

if you do come through bakersfield next weekend, you'd have to meet up with my dad probably. because i'll be working next saturday, and its the western nationals out here in bakersfield and i'm prolly going to it, my dad doesnt want to. but yea if u do, i'll pay you to help me out and if you get it

 

I feel bad for this poor ******* but damn if there arent some helpfull people around here !
Gives everyone hope for the human race , rock on!

 

Start out by charging battery with one of the cables disconnected. Test battery after charging. If battery ok, then disconnect any cables from the BATTERY terminal at the starter solenoid. Reconnect only the large cable from battery to this terminal.

Make sure the negative side of the battery is connected to an engine ground. Use a star washer under bolt of engine ***embly. Make sure there are smaller ground straps from engine to frame and to firewall. (No fenders remember)

MAKE SURE THAT THE SOLENOID IS REALLY GROUNDED TO FIREWALL OR FRAME OR SOMEWHERE THERE IS A GOOD GROUND.

Remove the starter cable from solenoid. Reconnect battery cable to positive terminal on batter. Take a screwdriver or piece of wire and touch between battery terminal on solenoid to S terminal. Does it click, NO means probably a bad solenoid, Yes it means so far so good.

Next if all so far is well then reconnect the starter cable to the solenoid starter terminal. Retry the momentary connection from the solenoid battery terminal to the S terminal. Does it crank, NO means bad starter cable, starter not grounded, starter jammed or is just defective. Yes means your starter circuitry is now working.

If you get it to crank then your issue lies somewhere else in the electrical system.

(My gut feeling says that the yellow wire from the battery terminal on the solenoid is being dragged down from voltage regulator being stuck and allowing the generator to drag down the rest of the system)

Any other questions or hints you can PM me.

Hang in there, you will get it!

 

Oh, one other thing,

Electricity:

Powerful
Dangerous

But it is not rocket science, just need to know all the possibilities and how to ISOLATE the problem.

ELECTRICITY IS FRIENDLY WHEN YOU KNOW WHAT NOT TO DO!

 

Going through your last video and found a couple of issues.

If you had the trouble light grounded and were touching the starter cable, there should be NO light there, unless someone has got the ignition switch in the START position. I think you said in one of the previous posts that the yellow wire was connected to the starter cable side of the solenoid. This is wrong, should be on the battery terminal side.

Also how is the solenoid grounded, doesn't look like the solenoid frame is connected to the car's metal anywhere? The frame MUST BE grounded for the system to work.

 

d2_willys so far your posts have been really helpful... but they bring up even more questions for me?

well i'll answer your questions first. as for the grounding of the solenoid, we took apart a remote starter and used the teeth and connected one set of the teeth to the solenoid, and the other set to the body of the car where there was ground. ive also set up the fender on top of the wheel and bolted the solenoid to it just to be sure and still nothing...

now.... when we had it actually turning over and the blinkers worked... my dad said he had that yellow wire connected to the starter side of the solenoid? are you positive its supposed to be on the battery side?


i still dont get what would cause an all electrical failure by just changing the firing order? everything was working perfect before taking the wires off and moving them. after that, nothing worked... wierd....

and if anyone owns a y-block can you back up willy's suggestion on "the yellow wire should be on the battery side of the solenoid"? just wondering

 

Well I don't know about the color, but some wire needs to be connected to the battery side of the solenoid or it will not be energized.

Actually, we may have stumbled on something here. I just helped a guy fix a similar problem on another forum.

If the ignition wire is hooked to the starter side of the solenoid, then when cranking you will be trying to draw the current needed to crank the starter through said yellow wire.

This will fry things as that system cannot support that level of current.

If you have it hooked up like it sounds that you do, and have tried to start it - likely you have smoked out part of your wiring harness, which would explain a lot.

 

Email me your wiring diagram @ bort62@speedtoys.com and I will tell you where that yellow wire is supposed to go.

 

Don't worry, you wont have fried anything. If you have the yellow wire on the starter side of the solenoid then you have no power at the switch at any time. As I said in earlier post. Yellow wire must be connected to the terminal with direct connection to battery.

 

Ok, you have done your first steps, but as mentioned in the previous posts the yellow wire is in no way suppose to be connected to the starter side of the solenoid. Only one wire should be connected there.
The big starter cable. As mentioned, you do not need to connect the yellow wire to get the starter to crank. Disconnect it and try the jumper from battery term of solenoid to S term.

 

just so we're all on the same page here, i drew up in microsoft paint what i currently have right now set up:



so we're all on the same page here that the yellow cable should not be where it is right now, and it should go on the battery side?

if so will this give power to all the lights and blinkers again?

 

Is the yellow wire the supply for the switch, or the switched hot for the solenoid? I have no diagram in front of me so I can't tell

 

as far as why just changing the firing order would do this to the electrical system, one explanation: COINCIDENCE. There are no electrical reasons swapping plug wires would do this. Chance are when you were cranking the engine the yellow wire might've done something.

 

You will get power only when the starter switch is in start (if the wiring is correct)

Just thought of something. Do you have the two wires going to the S and R terms? If so are they reversed. Reasoning is that the wire that should go to the R term comes from the ignition coil. It is used to byp*** the ballast resistor for coil.

First remove all the wires from the solenoid except for the two big ones and try the jumper from solenoid battery term and S term.

Let us know what happens, should crank.

 

that yellow wire in my little drawn up diagram is the ignition wire, i just showed my dad the past couple of replies and he doesnt get why that needs to get switched.

he is saying that even if the yellow wire were on the battery or starter side, it'd still getting power to it. i personally do not get what he's getting at, it seems like it makes sense if the yellow wire were touching the battery cable...

 

oh and my dad just said that the S and R terminals are not reversed, they are on there correct..

 

You are being led astray because your test wire was connected to the pos side of the battery. Under that condition all you were testing was the test light. When connected to the negative side there will only be power at the battery terminal. You don't need us to keep telling you this, you said you changed the ignition switch. Look back there and you will see the yellow wire connected to the bat terminal. Trace it back and you will see it goes to the light switch, and from there back out to the engine compartment. The ignition switch was marked batt, makes sense it should connect to batt. You could connect it straight to the battery, the other end of the cable, solenoid, is just a more convenient place.