well its been a loooooong time since i have posted anything, but i have finally gotten some time on my hands to work on the old project car. For those of you unfamiliar or who have never seen any of my old posts, my car is a 1986 gxl with the grannys ford 5.0 conversion.

Everything on the car is running pretty smooth right now but im having some serious starting problems still. heres the history

First the car would crank but really weak...so i jumped the battery and got it started...then when i shut it down it was still really weak when trying to start it again. I figured dead battery or alternator not charging, so i went and had both my alternator and battery tested, and niether tested badly, both passed under load and everything. Then i thought maybe my starter solenoid was grounded bad, and relocated it to a better spot, this helped tremendously. All was going good after that untill one day a bolt came loose from my starter and i had to replace the bolt to get my starter back on. After this, i started having the same problem again...really hard to get it started. I jumped it again and it started up...so i drove it for a while and it ran fine. Heres where it gets wierd. I started checking around the solenoid since thats where the first problem came from and couldnt find anything wrong...i removed the solenoid and wire wheeled the metal surface i attach it to so as to be sure its still grounded good. When i put it back together i went to try and start the car again..now the car just makes a buzzing sound and for some reason...my clutch fluid line gets really hot...what is that about? anyway..if anyone has any ideas or just some general information about how to wire the starter system please let me know..it would be very appreciated!!

 

If your clutch line is getting hot it sounds like you have a bad ground. Make sure that ground cable from the battery is grounded directly to the engine block. Then also ground the engine to the body. Since the starter draws the most amperage the ground going to the block is critical. Sounds like it is trying to ground through the clutch line which is causing it to heat up.

BTW how do you like your v8 RX7? I'm in the process of swapping a 5.0 into my 87 TII. I'm making my own mounts and am trying to get the engine farther back and lower than the Granny's kit. I see that you are located in SA. I live about an hour from you. Are you a member of Alamomotoring.com?

 

I had to put a heat shield over my starter to get it to turn the motor when restarting hot. It would start it cold but not even turn over hot, until I put on the heat shield. It was a flexible silver colored product I got from Summit for about ten bucks.