The title says it...I posted earlier about not being able to get the old starter out....so, what I did was as suggested by someone else in a message in the archives....I took the solenoid off of the old starter, and it basically fell out. Now, to get the new one in, I did the same procedure. The solenoid was removed and re-installed once the starter motor was in place without much incident (fairly simple setup too...hard to screw it up).

So, I re-wired the starter (in the same way the old one was wired)...one thing struck me as a bit strange though. On the solenoid, the three terminals were not all hooked up. There was one small red wire going to the right termial (if you were staring straight at the back of the solenoid), and three wires going to the large center terminal. No wire was connected to the terminal on the left. But that being said, thats the same way that I wired the new starter (same starter, same wiring, or so I thought). So, everything is wired up, I re-connect the battery, and turn the key...CLICK (the sound of the solenoid pushing the bendix out), and then everything dies....all my electricals....all lights....everything. So, I wait a little bit, and they all eventually come back on. So I tried again....CLICK...same deal...only this time, it killed my battery. Two tries and my battery was TOASTED (reading around .5 volts on a voltmeter). What went wrong??? Oh, if it helps, the bendix did not appear to be fully retracted after this attempt...and yes, when I put the solenoid back on , I put the spring in). Any advice???

 

Sounds like a short to ground. Check your wiring where you reconected the solinoid. It's normal not to use both terminals on the solinoid. Check for shorts with a meter to avoid killing another battery.

 

there should be 3 large wires including the one from the battery to the large terminal, there should be a purple wire that goes to the small post closest to the block, and clicking usually means the battery is dead, now if you had a short i would believe you would have a lot more going on then just clicking more like melted wires, smoke.... ect , recheck your connections a bad ground will do that