ok heres the issue, i recently swapped my lg4 piece of s**t motor for a 76 K20 350 and the swap went perfectly (i only pulled out half of my hair) and the motor runs (i shot oil 20ft out of my motor after i forgot to hook up my oil pressure sensor) but as i started to work with my engine getting the tweaks out of it i notice the starter getting sluggish, and now the starter doesnt even engage so i took the starter down and had it tested and it tested perfect. all the wires are tight, the fuses are good, and the battery is producing power. im thinking it might be my clutch sensor but then again iv been known to be wrong

I would do a voltage drop at the starter, Or oham out your battery cables.

Check out all of your cables...


Weak connections will draw power with no results.

Also, if those wires are getting pretty hot you'll get the same problem. I had the hot start problem on mine. Wasn't usually too bad until I swapped the headers on. I would still check the wire connections in the starting circuit though.

i took an ohm meter to the starter and there is no power going back to the starter but power goes everywhere else

If you're using a multimeter, set it to ohms and check the resistance of the wires. that'll tell you if there's a bad connection, broken wire, etc. It's all about the troubleshooting.

edit: my bad, I was skimming and since I saw the no power part I thought naturally assumed voltmeter. haha. I should go to bed now anyways.
Check the resistance on the cable going to the starter. That is what you're talking about right? Or was it the ignition wire that you were thinking about? There's two terminals on the starter, the top one has the majority of the wiring going to it while the one down and to the right of it has the ignition wire. I think. I had a problem with a car once where the ignition wire was keeping me from getting the car to start. It would crank for days but never start up. To test it, I ran a wire directly from the battery to the ignition plug on the dizzy.

well what im saying is that power goes through the live wire on the starter since i have the battery connected directly to the starter but the ground is whats not returning. the radio works and all the lights work but when i hit the ignition all it does is reset the gauges like the computer is recognizing power going to the starter, but there is no action out of the starter. it acts like the clutch isnt pushed far enough but thats not the case so i thot maybe it was the clutch sensor

My ranger had that problem.


Check your clutch resiover. Mine wasent pushing all the way.


Either that or your out of blinker fluid...

When you have the key in the ON position is there voltage running into your alternator wire?