Starter wiring question
 

Ok I was dumb and didn't "clearly label and remove" the starter wires when I was yanking the old motor. I need to find out which wire is positive and which one is negative for the wiring on my '90 TurboII. There's "top" and "bottom" connections as far as I can tell, which is which? Thanks.

Assuming the turbo starter is wired in a similar fashion to an NA starter you should have two wires to deal with. The very large wire goes to the solenoid terminal with the large nut on it. The smaller wire comes from the ignition switch and should go to the flat terminal on the top of the solenoid.

Well, on the NA, the ground wire is bundled in with the positive wire, and the ground wire bolts to one of the two bolts holding the starter on.

That wire should just be a bit shorter than the other wire. I replaced my positive wire (have to run an electrical cut off switch, but it should be fairly obvious which is which.

PaulC

mine must be weird.. here's a kinda look-alike picture of what it looks like, looking from the back of the starter, as if the car was up on a hoist and I was standing under the car behind the engine, facing the front:

The small wire with a slide on terminal goes on top.

The main starter wire (4 guage or something that size) goes on the bottom.

PaulC

The big Red (or at least it should be red) cable from the positive post of your battery should go to the stud type terminal toward the bottom of your solenoid. The black cable from the battery (negative) should go to an engine/transmission bolt. The smaller wire from the wiring harness should go to the top terminal of the solenoid.

ok Ima have to look at this thing again, because I've got the main power (red) wire, but there's another REALLY short wire coming out of the starter itself, it's black as I remember, and it's got a little square flat piece of metal on the end with a hole in the middle to connect it through something with a nut on the other side. Right now I've got that really short one on top, and the red (power) one on bottom. Is this correct?

Barwick,

YES.

Read above carefully, that's exactly what we said.

PaulC