So, I posted the thread on my son's 1980 Capri and our plans and all that...now we have a wiring issue (and I hate wiring, I suck at wiring, electricity ain't my thing, that's why I always paid someone else to do it in my hotrods). In that thread I told ya'll about how the doofus we got it from had things all messed up with the engine and we got it running, etc.
Well, my son spent the day stripping out the interior. He left the dash and driver seat. Now, the damn thing won't start, it won't turn over, no click, no nothing. Everything else is powered up fine. We looked in, over, around everything and every wire we could get our hands on, nothing is amiss. So, it was either a bad coincidence that the starter solenoid relay decided to die right then, or he really did rip something in the process.
Either way, old car, simple solenoid set up, easy to jump across the solenoid leads, right? Wrong. I have never in my life seen a relay wired this way. I'm thinking doofus (the guy who had it before), in addition to having no clue about engines, was even worse than I am with wires. So, normally, you have a wire from the POS side of battery to one side of the relay and then a cable from the other main lead to the starter. There is also an ignition signal wire to the "S" terminal and the "I" terminal to the coil. This thing is nothing like that at all.
The POS side of the battery goes to one lead on the relay, but then another cable from the POS side of the battery goes down to the started. A cable from the NEG side of the battery goes to the starter. There is a thin red wire from the same side of the relay to the starter as well. The "S" wire from the ignition switch is there on the "S" terminal. There is nothing on the "I" terminal and the other main lead of the relay has a couple of thin black wires that go off into the firewall and we can't trace them out on the other side.
FACEPALM
Well, my son spent the day stripping out the interior. He left the dash and driver seat. Now, the damn thing won't start, it won't turn over, no click, no nothing. Everything else is powered up fine. We looked in, over, around everything and every wire we could get our hands on, nothing is amiss. So, it was either a bad coincidence that the starter solenoid relay decided to die right then, or he really did rip something in the process.
Either way, old car, simple solenoid set up, easy to jump across the solenoid leads, right? Wrong. I have never in my life seen a relay wired this way. I'm thinking doofus (the guy who had it before), in addition to having no clue about engines, was even worse than I am with wires. So, normally, you have a wire from the POS side of battery to one side of the relay and then a cable from the other main lead to the starter. There is also an ignition signal wire to the "S" terminal and the "I" terminal to the coil. This thing is nothing like that at all.
The POS side of the battery goes to one lead on the relay, but then another cable from the POS side of the battery goes down to the started. A cable from the NEG side of the battery goes to the starter. There is a thin red wire from the same side of the relay to the starter as well. The "S" wire from the ignition switch is there on the "S" terminal. There is nothing on the "I" terminal and the other main lead of the relay has a couple of thin black wires that go off into the firewall and we can't trace them out on the other side.
FACEPALM
