It seems that it should be simple enough, but I"m having problems.
I don't know why, but apparently the PO of this truck had the positive battery cable routed into the cab and connected to the starter. OK body mounted batt, that's fine --- then he had a black cable (presumably negative - but no battery connection of any type on the other end) also attached to the large terminal on the starter. ???
Well the OEM side-post terminals came with the truck so I hooked up the positive to the large starter solenoid terminal, and to the alternator. I then attached the negative to a free bolt on the intake, and to the body. I'm not 100% on the body connection, I haven't checked for continuity and didn't take extreme measures to make sure it was connected. Don't think it would make a difference though???
So I hook up a fully charged deepcell battery to my wires with some starter cables - as the deepcell was not a side post battery. Well I turn the key and nothing happens, no click no nothing.
I tried connecting the power terminal on the solenoid to the other switched terminal with a screw driver with no luck? I attached a wire directly to pos and touched it to the smaller terminal (start apparently) and it didn't crank. The only thing that happened is all of a sudden there was apparently a dead short and the batt terminals got very hot and the neg terminal melted :-( No idea why it did - I had it hooked up like that before, and did the same after - no melty....?
My thoughts are; Faulty Ignition Switch - but the screw driver technique should have solved this - right? P/N switch failure - but the screw driver technique should have solved this - right? Bad solenoid - but touching power terminal to the "strap" that goes into the starter did nothing.
The heat shield/tube that carries the 3 wires that run to the starter area go as thus; Red: Large power terminal. Black: Small switch terminal Light tan/peach: Runs back along the frame apparently - goes to no where. Maybe for a fuel pump? Does this vintage have an electric fuel pump?
First time I've started in on something like this - being mid resto it's so bare. The spark plugs tell the story that it's been started before so it should run again. What am I missing??
GMC Gremlin