We have been working on the '55 and it runs great...it just doesn't start.

Everything electrical under the hood is pretty much new: generator, coil, cap/rotor, plugs, plug wires, and starter solenoid. The only things not new are the starter and the voltage regulator. When we have it running it runs really well. However, the only way to start it is to jump the starter from the "hot" side of the solenoid (this is what drove us to replace the solenoid in the 1st place).

So working backwards from the solenoid, I am thinking bad ignition switch or bad wire behind the switch? I did a quick look under the dash before we called it a day and there is some "suspect" wiring back there.

Thoughts? Bets on what it may be?

Thanks,

Phil

 

It sounds like you have it figured out.

 

Okay more information as this is driving us crazy and we just tried something else. It isn't the ignition switch. We took out the push start button out and clipped the two wires (red with blue stripe). When we touched one of them to anything metal on the dash, the truck turns over and the other one grounds out (sparks, gets hots, etc).

...What does this mean?

Phil

 

It sounds like you have a pre-'52 starter solenoid. On those, the solenoid is energized by grounding the small wire from the solenoid. Try grounding the small terminal at the solenoid, if it cranks, there ya go.

The solenoid you should have uses power from the ignition switch via the starter button to energize the solenoid.

 

Is your 55 a 12v neg ground??

If everything runs fine after it starts, but it won't start on its own, I'd use a multi-meter to check a few things. First, what is the battery voltage doing while you crank the engine. Check the battery and all of the connections for your battery wires.

Is the wire from the soldnoid to the coil in place and working? This is the wire running from the "I" lead to the coil + (on a neg ground system). That lead provides full battery voltage to the coil during cranking and bypasses the ballast resistor. Without that, you could have a weak spark during cranking.

Dan

 

It's the stock 6v positive ground system. The solenoid is brand new from Rock auto and has the single pin:



I am contemplating running a new red/bue wire from the button to the solenoid. I need to trace where the other end of the red/blue wire goes.

One just goes from the button to the solenoid, but where does the other go?

Phil

 

Well everything works when we ground the push button. But it is currently setup so that a "hot" wire that is drawing power from the dash.

Our plan is to remove the "hot" wire and replace it with a ground wire.

Make sense to anyone?

Phil

 

It's like I said, that is a pre-'52 solenoid. They had single-terminal starter buttons that had the body grounded to the dash. When you pushed the button, it grounded the S terminal on the solenoid. You can use your two-terminal starter button if you ground one of the terminals to the dash.

 

Thanks Ross, but every schematic I have seen for 1955 shows the 1-post starter relay as I pictured like this:



....This is also consistent with the '55 shop manual that I have.

We hooked the 1 post relay up with 1-wire to the relay post and the other wire to ground and the push button works great! Problem solved!

Thanks,

Phil