So, on my project 74' L48, when the guy brought me the car, he had rigged up a wire to the starter(the 12VDC that normally comes from the ignition switch) to manually start the car directly from the battery... yeah, I know pretty sad.
So, I rigged up a switch to do the same thing, and it was working fine for a week ish: I don;t drove it, but move it in & out of the garage...
So, I hopped in it today to move it into the garage after completing my Pathfinders strut install(funfun), hit the button, it kicked over like normal(needs a few cycles to get going)
All of a sudden, no more starting... nothing.
I've got 12V still to the switch.. I even tried directly going from battery to the wire going to the starter.
What I found weird is, when I touch 12VDC to the wire going to the starter, it sparks.. no starting
Does this likely indicate a faulty starter?

Thanks fellas,
Rich

 

So - need a bit more info to make sense of the problem.

There are two wires going to the starter. The big one - directly from the Battery to the Starter that handles the power the starter needs to turn over the engine.

The second wire is Much smaller - and this wire provides the power to engages the solenoid, and as the solenoid engages - there is a big contact in the solenoid - that is what switches the power to the starter motor.


So - here's what I'd do - you have verified that you have 12 Volts on one side of the "extra" switch. Hit the switch - and see if you then have 12 volts on the other side of that switch. If you don't - disconnect the wire that runs to the solenoid, and try again. While the solenoid pulls far far less current than the starter - but it still pulls a decent amount - so that draw could have burned out the "extra" switch contacts.

If you do have +12 Volts on both sides of the Extra switch while attempting to start - it's most likely the starter (or actually the starter solenoid). You can do one final check to see by checking voltage at the smaller terminal on the starter solenoid while someone else hits the switch - but the odds are the solenoid is gone. You have to pull the starter either way - but you may be able to replace only the solenoid - not he entire starter...

 

I believe mine has three wires: the purple wire(that is missing actually) is that neutral safety switch wire.
And that's the wire that the guy who sold me the car, rigged up with a temporary wire that ran up to the battery area(had to touch it to start)
I thought maybe the switch I installed went bad, so I tried extending it back to the battery, but nothing..
I wish it would have died in the garage, and not the driveway! Oh well, that's the way it goes
I'll need to read voltages when I can get under it again..
Thanks much,
R

 

Hi again,
Lets hope that most of the factory wires are still there.

Here's the basic start system:


Here's where the wires go:

Your yellow wire go to the 'R' terminal
Your purple wire goes to the 'S' terminal (closest to the block).

'74 schematic:


You mentioned NSS, so here's about that:

 

Problem solved.
The 12V + wire I was using to feed the S terminal went bad.
All is well again, and thanks for the info & diagrams... I'm sure I'll need them again.

Cheers,
Rich