I just finished rebuilding a 289 from my '68 Mustang and put it back into the car this past weekend (worth a book all by itself). I tested the old starter with a twelve volt battery (new) and got nothing out of it so I bought a new starter and had it tested before taking it home. When I got it to the house, however, it would not run when hooked up to the battery. I tried running it through the starter solenoid - nothing. I took it back to the store and it worked on their machine. At the risk of looking like an idiot there and here, is there something I am missing here, something about the battery-solenoid-starter setup that I missed?

 

How exactly were you testing it?

 

If you put 12V on the starter, basically bypassing the solenoid, do you get any action?
Hook everything back up as it should be and use a nice thick cable to jumper from the battery side of the solenoid to the starter side and see what happens.

If you bypass the solenoid and your starter turns over then you either have something boogered up with the wiring or there is a problem with your solenoid.