The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Starter Problems…

Ok, I’ve been sitting on this a while, waiting to fix it until I actually get my truck over to my house, but I figured – what the heck, I’ll go ahead and ask now…

First question: when I start my truck, I cannot turn it back off. I turn the ignition to off – truck keeps running, what is the cause of this problem? Bad ignition? Bad wiring?

Second question: there is something wrong with the starter! When I try to crank it now, it will try to turn over two – maybe three times and then “click!” it won’t do anything else. Just silence when I turn the ignition to start.

So, I get out, take off the solenoid, put it back on and three or so more times I get to try to start it then “click!” again and – nothing. I have replaced the solenoid, and it still does the same thing. Now I didn’t have this problem until I ran the wire from the starter to the resistor to the distributor. Before that the distributor was hot-wired (which burned up my points) straight from the battery, but the starter worked fine.

The problem is, I didn’t install the starter and I don’t really know what to do about it. I had a lot of help with the truck (not necessarily the right kind) that put in the starter, but now I don’t have any help working on the truck (which maybe is a good thing) but I also don’t get to work on the truck as much as I would like. That’s why I’m trying to get it to my house, but it’s been hard trying to find someone to two it for me as I don't have a trailer.

Anyway, just wanted to maybe solve a problem ahead of time!

Thanks!

~R.

Rob, sounds ya deffinately have a wirin issue, mine is far from a stocker so i dont want to say on how to correct your prob. but there are some GREAT ELECTRICIANS HERE!..that will prob chime in soon an help ya fix this wirin problem.

Robbie,

There are a couple of different ways to wire these trucks and I don't know exactly where a '61 fits into the scheme of things.

If your bypass ignition comes through the solenoid, it should work sort of like this.

On your solenoid there are two small terminals. One should be marked S and the other marked R. The S terminal is connected to a wire from the ignition switch which pulls the solenoid in and engages the starter. When this happens, it also closes a internal contact and passes power out the R terminal to the coil side of the ballast resistor.

When the key is released to RUN, the starter disengages AND no power should flow from this R terminal. This is probably the only wire you should see on this terminal on the solenoid, and it's small.

Ideally, your ballast resistor should have two wires on the distributor side and one on the key side. The wire from R on the solenoid should terminate on the distributor or distributor side of the resistor.

The S terminal wire needs to be good and tight and not broken or frayed as this is what energizes the solenoid coil.

There are other methods that involve a key switch which is the bypass circuit, but I don't know if a '61 uses it. Check the wires and their locations and see what happens.

For some reason, bad solenoids aren't as rare as they should be.

There are other things that can make your rig not shut off with the key after it is started. They involve a alternator and how it was connected into the system. You haven't mentioned if there was work done in this area or not.

EDIT. Digging around I have found schematics that show NO ballast resistor, but instead the resistance wire. This would result in one R wire from the solenoid directly to the key side of the coil. Attached to this same point on the coil would be another wire from the ignition switch...this would be the resistance wire, which is the RUN source for the ignition.

Stuart

Stuart covered the ign. system well. On the starter issue it sounds like a weak battery. Make shure your battery is strong & all cables & connections are good. If the ground cable is hooked to the body or frame you need a good ground cable from the frame to the engine. If it grounds to the engine you need a 10 gauge wire from engine to frame. If all this is good your starter must be bad.