chrisjporter07

My 1965 coupe is not wanting to start. Turn the key and you get absolutely nothing. Tried to jumpstart it. If one terminal was connected, the starter would try to turn over when the other got connected, mind you all we were doing was hooking up the cables at that point. Got the battery tested thinking it was bad and was causing the random firing. Bought a new battery, went to hook it up and the same thing happened. When one terminal was already hooked up, we would try to connect the second terminal and the starter would try to turn accompanied with sparks and smoke from the battery terminal. Tried connecting both positive and negative first, same result. Any ideas? Car has new alternator and now new battery. Could starter be the issue? I'm lost on this one...

Flash70

Wouldn't that be the relay?? Like a bad relay or improperly wired one. That is what I would think.
By one terminal are you saying you hooked up the battery without grounding it???? Cause that would be no good lol

THUMPIN455

Could be the ignition switch, they are easy to check if you have a spare. Unplug the one on the dash and plug in the spare. If it does the same thing then chances are its the solenoid under the hood, or something is wired wrong.

JoelEsler

Are the solenoid cables backwards? You should have 4 cables (essentially) going to the solenoid. one from the battery going to the left, one to the starter on the right, and two smaller ones on the front.

I believe they are brown and red, I think the red goes closest to the "front (battery)" of the car. Sounds like a ground or Solenoid issue?

hiboostwoody

Sounds like the solenoid is stuck or could be the switch like Thumpin said. If you don't have a spare switch, just unplug yours and see if it quits doing it. If it's a stuck solenoid it will still do it.

FasterCat

Happens to solenoids all the time
(I got a new one from a "major" Mustang parts supplier which kept sticking "on")

.... first try buying a new solenoid ($20 or so ? ) ...

kalli

simple test.
remove the two wires in the middle of selonoid 'S' and 'I' but keep the big ones one.
So on left you should only have battery connected, on the right only the starter.
if it still keeps spinning when you put the battery back it's the selonoid, if it doesn't do it it's probably your wiring.

let us know which one it is

hiboostwoody

Don't know why I didn't think about testing the solenoid this way. Just trying to make it harder than it needed to be I guess.