hey everyone,
I posted last week about my 69 coupe not cranking after shutting the car off 30 mins before. I had lights radio etc just nothing when I tried to start.

After reading the forum and some helpful tips, I cleaned the grounds, verified the battery, removed and tested the starter, and replaced the starter solenoid.

after hooking up everything, I connected the battery and the interior lights were dim and I saw smoke coming from the engine bay. The ignition wire seemed to have had 2 repairs from the PO. The wire melted in these two spots.

fast forward to today, repaired the wire, connected everything and same issue. Removed wire and connected battery and no power with the multimeter. The cable gets hot when connected to the starter. The positive lead from the battery also gets warmer than normal.

Side note, the NSS had been jumped by the PO and not sure if this had anything to do with the initial no start. Connected the 2 purple wire connector to the 2 yellow connector with no change. They are disconnected so I’m also dealing with that. There’s also a long thing red wire unplugged near the wire bundle under the dash as well.

pics below are of the wire (ignition wire that’s getting hot?) and the starter….
Any insight, help or thoughts is greatly appreciated !!

Ignition wire that getting hot and smoking. Disconnected I’m getting nothing from the multimeter with battery connected