Electrical problem for John Hinkley

[Mark H.]

John,

I sent an email out to you a while back and am not sure it went thru, so I thought I'd send it to everyone and catch your eye.

Copied from previous emails :

Hi, Mark -

Item 5 - There's a black/pink wire on the "R" terminal on the starter solenoid - it's the only wire on that terminal, and it's function is to feed a full 12 volts to the coil (+) terminal while cranking (vs. the 6-7 volts the coil gets from the ballast resistor during normal running); when not cranking, there is no power on that wire. It's inside that starter/engine harness, and the top end of it goes on the coil (+) terminal along with the wire from the resistor and the radio capacitor.

Item 6 - What color is that wire? There should only be ONE wire connected to the top of the resistor.

Regards,

John Hinckley[/quote]
__________
Hi John,

Thanks for getting back to me. I was out of town for a while so just getting back to you.

Regarding item 5 : If the "R" terminal is the one small bolt coming out of the solenoid (next to the big bolt that connects to the battery), yes I do have one blk/pink wire coming off of it. [Note: there are 4 wires coming out of a taped-together bundle : the blk/pink wire (discussed above), a small purple wire, a BID red wire, and black wire. The later two hook up to the same (large) lug as does the battery cable. The small dark purple wire wraps around to the other side of the solenoid it seems. It doesn't hook up to the blk/pink post (which is what I think you're calling the "R" terminal) and I'm quite sure it doesn't hook up to the large battery feed. Not sure where it goes - would need to start taking things apart to see. ]

Item 6: it is a blk/pink wire, which together with the wire going to the coil makes it 2 wires at the top of the BR, which is wrong per your info.

Summary:

Ballast Resistor :
A - blk/pink coming from wiring harness above wiper motor to top of BR
B - black (non-stock) wire from top of BR over to coil (Hence items A and B equate to 2 wires off of top of BR)
C - bottom of BR feeds thru firewall to ignition
D - still have the wire that comes out of the harness directly above the BR (not the wiper motor) that is hanging loose. It is blk/pink .

Solenoid :
E - See discussion above ("Regarding item 5").

Coil:
F - + post gets one wire from the top of the BR, and one from the radio capacitor (so only 2 wires, instead of 3, since I'm missing any connection to the "R" terminal)
G - negative post feeds the distributor

Two tests I fail per your earlier statements. (1) I don't have a wire coming from starter/engine harness to the (+) coil terminal (2) I have 2 wires coming off the top of the BR (since one of theses has to go to the (+) coil, the other one coming from the harness must be wrong ....?

Just-discovered Point of interest : I found a - you guessed it - blk/pink wire that comes out from above the wiper motor that I'm sure was clipped off by my last "mechanic". I thought for sure that this would be the wire you mentioned as coming from the "R" terminal. I did a continuity check between this wire and the solenoid's blk/pink terminal, and there is no connection, so I now have this 2nd blk/pink wire that is an unknown

Again the car runs fine, which is surprising with 2 blk/pink wires out of the harness going no where.

Thanks again for your feedback, Mark

[John H.]

Re: Electrical problem for John Hinkley

Mark -

See your PM's.