Almost there: all I need is to get past a wiring hang up

[Z-Driver]

To the best of my ability I set up my engine wiring and when I went to start it I got nothing. I checked from the steering column wires all the way to the connections. There wasn't any sign of electrical in any guages or any other electronic system. My 260 worked fine before and now I'm stuck. I drew a quick diagram and posted it in my personal gallery. Could someone tell me what I might have done wrong. If further info is needed I will tell you everything. Thanks a lot. The last thing I want to do is pay to have an electrician tell me I'm an idiot.

[RPMS]

Wow, you don't ask the easy ones, do you?

 

Okay, let's start from the beginning. You say you have no voltage at ANY point in the car? No domelight, no radio, no headlights, NOTHING? If that's the case, I have a few suggestions:

 

1) Investigate your grounding procedure. According to your diagram, the negative cable from the battery is going straight to the engine and nowhere else. If this is indeed the case, you need to run a cable from the negative terminal of the starter to a body ground.

 

2) Use your multimeter as a diagnostic tool. Screw down the negative probe against the body, and trace the voltage as far as you can. Start at the positive terminal of the battery itself, then move to the starter terminal. If you've got 12v there, do you have voltage at the dome lamp/parking lights/cigarette lighter fuses? (They should always be hot).

 

3) Did you disturb or remove the fusable links? I took mine out because the previous owner bastardized them, and they were as ugly as an old shoe.

 

4) How is your alternator connected? I usually think of the alternator being connected straight to the + terminal of the starter along with the battery lead.

 

5) I know, I know, but I have to ask - how secure are your connections to the battery? More than once, I've chased electrical gremlins for days before discovering that there was a small amount of corrosion on the battery terminal.

 

6) If you've got voltage everywhere else, but no cranking, you might have to put a relay on the starter signal. My old wiring couldn't send enough voltage to trigger the solenoid, so I threw a relay in there and now it works just fine.

 

I just got my 260 on the road less than a month ago, so the process is still fresh in my mind. If you need any help, feel free to PM me and I'll get back with you as soon as I can. I know how frustrating it can be to be in your shoes right now.

[Z-Driver]

Thanks for the reply. First thing I will do is go through and check every ground. Then I'll do like you said and trace the wires with a multimeter. All the fusible links look good and all the stock wires are in good shape as well.

 

This is my first car build up so bear with me but another question I have is with my starter. It has an "upper terminal," which I hooked the positive battery cable to, a "lower terminal," which the negative terminal is hooked to, and a "spade switch" which I hooked the black-yellow wire to. Does this sound correct? Thanks

[theBrit]

Can't tell from what I read from your post BUT

Are you sure you didn't connect the posive to one side of the solonid and the negitive to the other ?

 

I did this ! and when you turn the ignition it all goes wrong as you short the battery through the solonoid on the starter.

 

one of the terminals is not supposed to be connected to anything by you as it is already connected to the starter and is grounded through the engine back to the battery.

[RPMS]

Depending on your starter, you may not need to hook anything to the spade terminal. My starter had NO spade terminal, so I used a ring terminal on either the S or the R terminal. Don't ask me which it ended up being - I swapped them back and forth a dozen times when I was diagnosing the problem.

 

My original black/yellow wire WOULD NOT WORK for some reason. It was getting proper voltage, but I can only guess that after 30 years, it was not passing enough amperage to trigger the solenoid. Test this by running a test wire from the solenoid trigger to the positive terminal of the battery. If the sterter will turn normally like that but won't do anything with the key, you've narrowed down the problem.

 

If it makes you feel any better, I have my own gremlins to trace. On the way to work today, the "+12v when key is on" side of the electrical system went dead. Oh boy. Fortunately I carry a jumper wire in the car, so I could jump the power relays to the engine cooling fan.

[Z-Driver]

I did hook the negative battery cable to the lower terminal Electrical is definitely not my talent.

 

I had a friend tell me that the thick(12 guage) white wire was suspicious and the black-yellow wire was not thick enough to activate the starter. The thick white wire is hooked up to the upper terminal along with the positive battery cable and now the black-yellow wire is connected to the lower terminal: I still have nothing, is the wiring correct? Should I begin to look elswhere for my problem?

[Dragonfly]

My first thought is that you cooked your starter and quite possibly a couple of relays in the process. The reason I say this is that when you put the neg. cable on the "lower" lug of the starter (z starter not ac delco) you created a direct short when you turned the key. Most likely the same is true with an ac delco. The only thing the black and yellow wire does is provide enough juice to trigger your selinoid everything else is handled by your battery cables.

 

Since you are still using what sounds like the stock wiring there is a very good chance that the "interlock" relay is bad or fried, when the interlock relay does not work all you hear is a single click when you turn the key then nothing. The best way to remidey the problem is to remove the interlock relay and run a new 10 gage wire from your key switch to the blade on the starter.

 

Good luck

 

Dragonfly