Battery Hooked Up - no smoke - but..., Starter doesn't turn Options

[lsintampa]

75 914/4 2.0

I worked up enough courage to hook power up to the thing.

The instrument cluster is out, as is the dash top, and most of the wiring is just hanging down.

Before I attached the battery, I did a once over to make sure I didn't see any shorts.

Here's what works.... with the ignition on.

Lights pop up and light, highbeams work, hazzards work, blinkers work, some annoying buzzer works (assume it is for the seat belts?), brake lights work, wipers work.... so it seems most things work.

With ignition on - I don't hear the Fuel Pump come on, I assume it should run with ignition on (no tank in the car, yet - getting it sealed again).

When I turn the key to start, I'm expecting the starter to engage, but it doesn't.

Worth mentioning that the car basically is still very disassembled. The FI is not wired up - so I don't know if that effects the starter or not - I wouldn't think so.

There were four red leads all that connect to the positive side of the battery, the long positive cable goes to the starter, and feeds another red wire that goes to the alternator / relay board.

The voltage regulator is new.

I'm not sure why the starter isn't engaging - it's new also, as is the alternator.

Onward through the fog as they say.

Len

[lsintampa]

Well here's where I'm at with this mess.

1) I removed the ignition harness and took off all of the casing. It is pretty obvious that some PO patched it. Hard to say if the fried wires were new or old.

2) Removed the AAR and it has a short. Checked continuity from the red wire to its case and sure enough it is shorted. That would send +12 to the ground of the car when ignition is on. Not sure if that by itself caused the wires close to the coil to fry or not.

3) I cut all of the fried wires off and taped all the ends. I left the big yellow wire for the solenoid alone as well as the backup wires. Hooked them up.

4) Plugged in the modified ignition harness, attached the negative battery line and tested.

Lights work, everything that worked before still is working... now the starter even turns over - so that's all the good news.

My ignition harness and my FI harness are in a bad way.

I need to search the forum to find out how to test the coil (off the car) to see if it is damaged.

I assume the condenser is toast, since I had to scrape the wire off the engine tin (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

At least the ignition switch and starter circuit is functioning.