olemattinson

last november, while dissassembling and cleaning my starter, i caused a short by mixing up the battery cables. there was a shower of sparks, and then no electricity through the whole system, no fasten seatbelt light or headlights, nothing. so i paid some guy ten dollars to fix it (the only time i let anybody else work on it). what it appears he did is take the third wire from my starter (furthest from the engine block) and route it to the positive battery terminal. if i remove this wire from the terminal, it goes back to not having any power. voltmeter shows this wire runs 2.8 something volts, i wouldnt mind this, and i have seen alot of variation in how people wire their motors, but before this my truck worked great and was super reliable, since then it has burnt up 4 solenoids, and i havent got it to stop grinding for a week. the starter has been tested several times and passed each time. i have thought of a couple probable causes, but was looking for second opinions. i have shimmed the starter to the right position (when its got too much shim it cranks slow and weird sounding, and without enough it grinds. what is puzzling to me is why it continues to grind, when nothing has changed from when it started 5 minutes ago. i need to check the pinion gear clutch for one thing, and the toasted solenoids point to bad grounds. what is that 3rd starter wire for? and what could be altered by running this to my battery? what i want to know is why it doesnt work with just 2 battery cables like it did before, it seems obvious the problem still exists and something needs replaced. btw, before somebody says it, my flywheel is in pretty good shape

kevinkpk

That wire should only be hot with the key switch in start.

olemattinson

i had the key on while i was testing, but not all the way forward to the start (crank) position.