The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay high current draw when trying to start 235

Just finished rebuilding and reinstalling the 235 in my '55 2nd series 3800 truck about 2 weeks ago. After a few stabs at setting the ignition timing, it fired right up using my charger. Did the cam break-in and took it for a very short drive. It ran great. The next day, I started it up with no problem without the charger and took it for another very short drive. Yesterday, it turned over extremely slowly so I hooked the charger back up. It actually dimmed the lights in the shop when I hit the stomp starter (and still turned over slowly when hooked up to the charger). It finally started, but it wasn't happy (backfiring and it seemed like it didn't have enough juice to the coil.)I couldn't keep it running long enough to get out and put a meter on the coil terminals. Both battery cables are good (.3 ohms end to end), the connections are good, the neg cable is under the upper starter mounting bolt along with the original braided ground strap which runs to the firewall. Any ideas? Thanks in advance, Dale

Make sure you have heavy enough battery cables. Is the mounting area for the starter painted? If so you might want to clean things up so the starter can get a good ground. Does the truck spin good without the ignition turned on?

This is a 12 volt system, correct? I am wondering if your starter is on the way out. There are a lot of things to check out here like initial off load voltage of your battery.