Probably not old school, and won't really help the hoodless cars but heres a quicky for ya. Now if you´ve ever owned a High Performance GM powered ride you have probably encountered a minor problem at one time or another, that being a hot start problem. You know the drill; you roll into the hot dog stand and kill your motor. Then for whatever reason you decide to split in short order. Now with everyone watching you hit the starter, Rrur, rrrr, damn. So you wait til it cools and try again. The GM starter (or any starter for that mater) is just one big heat sink. Multiply the problem with a set of headers that tuck in real tight, and compound that by shoehorning it into a rather small engine bay. Now put the starter solenoid right there and shazam!!!, it growls when it´s hot. Short of getting into electrical engineering/physics, here´s a simple (and cheap) solution. Just move the solenoid. Nine outa ten times keep the solonoid cool and it'll start.
Start by arming yourself with some 10-gauge wire, some connectors, a couple of ends for your battery cable, and a Ford solenoid (´76 truck will do).
Your next step is to get at the original starter solenoid. Not essential to pull the starter just easier to take a pic this way. Do not remove the solenoid. But do make a jumper to go from the battery terminal to the S terminal on the solenoid.
Next find a suitable out of the way place to mount the Ford Solenoid. I stuck this one on the web on the inner fender. You could put it in the trunk for that matter. Just keep it away from the heat.
Now you´ll need to take the original start wire form the starter and extend it to the new solenoid. Do not connect it to the Chevy starter, use 10-gauge wire once again. Note: if your starter has a wire attached to the R terminal you will extend that one also and land it on the I terminal of the new solenoid. After that cut and reroute your positive battery cable to the battery side of the new solenoid. Last you will run a cable from the other battery cable terminal on the solenoid to the battery cable terminal on the starter. A cheap hot start kit for your Hot GM.
Using your head to solve problems seems pretty 'old school' to me! Good, informative post on what I always called the "Ford realy conversion". They sell aftermarket kits to do this very thing, but as you've illustrated, it's a breeze to do at home! (Ford used starters with GM style solenoids on some of their 460 powered pickups a few years back, and they had a metal "jumper" on the solenoid to do the job of the short wire in your photo. Probably a part available through your Ford dealer still. They used the remote relay on those trucks, too.) Good work, Porker!
another way is to use the magnetic starter from gm ('95 and up i belive), it's un-affected by heat and it sounds kinda like a gear reduction starter. it's also lighter and smaller.
1oldtimer, I'm gonna have to look into the GM thing. Shouldn't have a hotstart problem on the F-Turck, but lighter is always a good thing. Thanks for the info
One imprtant part of this tech is using a big wire or a copper strap to "jump"from the bat terminal to the S terminal. Part of the hot start problem is the regular wire to the S terminal is very small and when it gets hot it can't carry any juice. I know this isn't "old school" but Summit sells a kit to do this with a copper strap included.
Great tech thread porker. Thanks for taking the time to go through this.I just can't keep up with all the good stuff coming out this week.
Cruzer, the Summit kit is a good kit. I've used it, just not on my stuff (too cheap I guess ). Pete btw, I always pay attention to the irrelevent stuff. Its always the answer to the question I forgot to ask.
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