hey guys this is on my 1980 malibu, I just thought id put a posting on here as there are lots of people on here compared to my malibu source

need your guys's brain power with this battery problem/starter.

ok last time car was run was about 2 months ago. no problems. had battery in stock location, positive to starter. negative to inner fender and to the top of alternator bracket.

and now I have battery in trunk. groound wire to good spot on frame, and to body, motor is grounded to fire wall, and also big cable on the front driversdide on the first header bolt that is also a bolt for the PS. to the frame.

and postiive to the starter.

the only thing else i've done is install my autometer tach. and went over that and found no problems with wiring.


the first time I tried starting the car was with this battery I dropped so the cranking amps was horrible. and while I was holding the key down, the STOCK ground wire from the driver side head to the fire wall made of metal mesh wire. got red hot as I guess much of the current was getting grounded through the fire wall, because I first had the ground only set up to a good spot on the body, and i figured it woudl ground the whole car well.



i've taken this starter right off, and got it bench tested. I installed shimes, thinking that the teeth werent retracting. so tommorow I'm going to move battery to the front and see if it works with the ORIGINAL ground to the top of the alternator.

if not I will get a test light, and test the brown wire which goes to the starter to see if it stays on after I turn the key off from the starter position (I can actually take the key right out and it will still crank)

if thats the case I will know its an electrical problem, do you guys have any idea's on what would be making it do that? anything that might have gotton grounded out while that first test of the batter relacation with the insufficent ground made the ground wire to the motor go red hot?


hope you guys can help me out here, I spent 5 hours with that starter today, my bigger than average hands dont fit around those full length headers too well!

cheers!

blake

 

Sticking solenoid or bendix not retracting would be my guess of the top of my head.

 

About the ground strap. Ideally it should be a heavy gauge wire and go from the battery directly to the engine block to provide the shortest return. You dont want the starter pulling current through other wires. I suppose a heavy gauge wire to teh chassis and then another to the engine block would work ok.