Just finished swapping my engine back in. I thought the wiring on the starter seemed odd from what I read about connecting it. Now, when I reconnect the negative battery cable the starter starts to kick over instantly. So something is obviously shorting it. Can you guys please tell me what the proper connections are on it, maybe even a picture. Thanks a lot, I wanted to get this thing running tonight!

Jim

Some how your positive wire is not connected to your solenoid or your ignition switch "starting" wire is tripping the solenoid to go.

What starter do you have?

this happened one time with my mazda also.
seems the root of the problem was the selenoid became stuck in place so when the juice was hooked up the starter cranked over.


what you might try to do is tap the start with a hammer a few times. if the selenoid was stuck this should at least let you hook the bat up and if it doesn't start turning the moment you do so that is your problem
easily replaced by taking the starter selenoid off and replacing it or do as I did with my selenoid and just clean it out.... VERY easy to do on my mazda. remove the selenoid has like 2-3 pieces in there wipe clean with wd-40 then use clean dry rag to wipe down one last time to get any left over dirt and wd-40 out. worked well being schucks said the selenoid and starter are one piece so all they could sell me was a $149 starter

I have the original stock starter on the car, 91 RS. I'll try hitting the solenoid, I have a friend that had to do that with his every so often.

Am I right, that the 3 ground wires (2 rings) and the positive ring all go on the same main terminal post? And the one small purple wire on the other small post. Somehow that never seemed right to me having grounds and positive on the same post, doesn't make sense.

ttt

the ground wires should as far as I remember with my TH350 or mazda starter is the ground wires connect to the bolt holding the starter in place... again this is if I remember right for the TH350 I had I know the rx7 was this way and the pos went to a big post on the back and then I had another one for activating the starter selenoid

if nothing else take a multimeter and read your wires find out which is which and the post should be marked I would assume

Well, I got it fixed, you were right RX7. I just took apart the solenoid and cleaned it up and reconnected it all and it works fine now.

BUT, now I have a big problem. I started cranking it over and it was backfiring a little from the TB so I figured it was 180* out and flipped it. Then I started cranking over again and wires started smoking and the ground wire right by the battery was extremely hot and smoking as well.

What is this telling me? Are some grounds bad and not grounded right or what?

there was a thread about this last night.. it could very well be a bad engine ground. basically your only ground for your system right now would be the battery to chassis ground. (wire of neg terminal right to fender if that is the one you are talking about) You may want to make sure the engine ground is good and so forth.. Remember, you engine has to complete the loop for it to fire properly since the engine itself is what grounds the plugs so they fire.

Ground wires are usually the culprit for many electrical problems.

almost wonder if you have the batt hooked up backwards. and I'm not trying to say your stupid or anything please don't get me wrong. just know I have done some things also like that and when working tech support in computers you learn quick that even those who know what they are doing still make mistakes
but usually it is the pos wire that gets hot not the ground wire
also it could possibly make sense if you are getting backfire out your TB if the motor was spinning the wrong way.

but honestly I don't really see it firing if it was done that way I'm just throwing an idea out
found that one out the hard way of what happens when you hook the cables backwards to something when I did that to my car amp and the cable turned RED HOT

when i got my car the battery to chassis ground wire had all the insulation on it melted off. We had to tighten and clean all the ground contacts and it was fine after that. should probably replace that wire now.. Anyhow.. an engine can't really fire backwards i don't thing........ but then i might be able too.. that is always a good question of why an engine turns clockwise instead of counter... or the other way.. can't seem to remember things tonight lol

Yeah, the battery is hooked up right, I only disconnected the negative terminal and didn't move anything for the whole swap. Maybe I do just have to clean up the contacts for all the grounds.

To clear things up, the small wire coming off the negative terminal of the battery was smoking. It was also smoking in the back, I believe from the ground strap wire on the back of the passenger side head.

Sorry - my error....

There are no negative wires that attach to the starter. All of them are positive. The starter gets ground from the engine thru the starter bolts and starter housing. The smaller wires with the large rings go on the same terminal as the large positve wire from the battery. The small ring wire goes on the small connector.

Ok, my mistake, I thought they were negative wires for some reason, guess I traced them wrong. But, they ARE connected right. It seems like everything is connected exactly as it should be, which is why I don't understand this smoking!

Check your grounds from engine to battery. Grounds from engine to body and the positve wire from the battery to starter. Has to be one of them. Or the starter has an internal short.

I'd throw that solenoid in the garbage and buy a new one. They are cheap. You can even put it on witout dropping the starter. Keep tinkering with it and it might burn up your starter/wires and cause a big headache.

In this case the heavy ground cable that goes directly from the battery negative to the engine block is bad or missing.

RBob.

OK, thanks a lot for the help guys.

RBob nailed it, the bolting holding that ground had backed out a little. fixed it and set the timing and the car is running good. Thanks for the input!