The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Will this work?

Here is the situation. Wiring a ballast resister for a 235 engine , 12 volt conversion with 6 volt starter, Foot start solenoid has side terminal supplying 12 volts when foot start pedal is depressed. I have taken the original wire from the ignition switch which ran to the plus side of coil to one side of ballast resister. From the other side of Ballast resister I have a wire going back to the side terminal of the solenoid. This wire should now carry the approx. 8 volts with ignition switch on. From this side terminal I now have one wire to the Plus side of coil. This one wire should now carry 12 volts when starter is depressed and 8 volts when ignition switch is on. The ONLY drawback I see is the engine WILL start when just pressing the foot start button but will kill as soon as start button is released if the ignition switch is off . Will this work if I want to live with the safety problem? Is there ANY Way around this problem? Thanks in advance, Jerry

Hy 1951Chevy1Ton, if you run the wire from the ignition switch to the ballast resistor, then run another wire from the other terminal on the ballast resistor to the positive terminal of the coil (if negative ground). The wire from the small terminal of the starter switch can be run to either the output terminal of the ballast resistor (the one with the wire going to the coil)or directly to the coil positive terminal, that is the way it was designed to be, hope that helps.

3B, Thanks for reply. I think electrically speaking we are saying the same things. I wired from point A to B to C. You suggest wiring from point A to C to B. In Electrical speak, they are all the same point. I would appreciate your comment if you differ.
My greater concern is the ability for the engine to start when depressing Foot Start pedal. Is there a known solution for that safety problem? Again Thanks, Jerry

Simply put. The ignition switch wire to coil has the resiter in it. And the one on the starter switch by passes the resister.

I think the point here is hitting the starter supplies a feed to the coil, even with the ignition off.

Hy guys, as to the safety aspect of starting while cranking, if you were to hook up a remote starter button to a solenoid activated starter and use that button to crank the engine, the engine could start while cranking, but it would die as soon as the remote starter button was released. The difference we have, is that we can activate our foot starter independant of the ignition switch, just like using the remote starter button on the solenoid type starter, yes the engine might start while cranking with the foot activated starter, but it will die once the starter pedal is released. For cranking tests with either system I always remove the coil output lead from the distributor cap and ground it. As 1951Chevy1Ton said either his wiring method or the factory method is essentially the same electrically, and the same "danger" of starting while cranking exists in both methods. I have never actually heard of any problems with this wiring system, but I can see a potential for an incident if you're unaware of what may happen if you don't remove and ground the coil output wire while doing engine cranking tests, hope that helps.

For what it is worth, my truck has the wire from switch to resistor to coil only and starts fine. Why don't you disconnect the wire coming off the starter and see if it doesn't start OK.