Hopefully someone from the west coast will jump in here to offer some suggestions, I have to head off to bed. Sorry I couldn't help. Good luck.

 

Ok my turn for a bit... simple circuit. 12 volts from battery to solenoid, solenoid closes 12 volts to starter, ground for starter is thru the case and the starter mount bolts to engine block to battery negative wire back to battery negative.
Sounds very much like bad wier either ground or positive...or the dreaded bad starter from the parts store to throw a wrench into things.
So grab your best set of jumper cables and using one cable connect it from the battery negative direct to the starter case/mount bolt. Then try starting truck, if starter turns you have a bad ground wire.
If it still doesnt work. Connect a jumper cable direct from the starter wire side of the solenoid direct to the starter wire connection. Then give it a try, if it starts the problem is a bad wire to the starter.
If it doesnt work, leave the jumper cable connected to the starter and touch the other end direct to the battery positive.... WARNING the starter will turn if it is good, so have the truck in park/neutral and block the wheels.
If the starter turns the relay or the wire from the battery positive to the starter solenoid is defective.
If none of this works it is most likely a bad starter.
Now I have to go to bed....430 comes real early in the morning good luck. I will check back when I get to work tomorrow morning and see if anything I said helps

PS
I did not see if it was 12 volts negative ground... I assume it was as the other option is 6 volt positive ground

 

Well, I got it! I'm dirty, tired and my face hurts from grinning so much after hearing the yellow beast fire up. The problem was when I was putting the starter in; the back cap on the starter (opposite the gear of course) was shifting on me and cocking itself just a little bit. I was doing it on the side closest to the tranny so I really couldn't see it. I took the starter out and put it back in about 4 times before I caught it. The last time I pulled it out it stayed that way when I snugged my bolts down to the nuts to keep it from comming all apart. Thank you everyone for all the help and the quick replies. I hope I can return the favor sometime. Now I gotta get to bed. Take care.

 

I'm noticing that this starter doesn't spin quite as fast as the other one did before it went bad. It sounds almost like it doesn't want to start. Does anyone have a clue why? It does start and run but when I got to work and shut it off, I tried to start it again and it didn't. It turned over. Just slow.

 

Well sounds like you could have a voltage drop somewhere...since it is a new starter........ wiring, connections, contacts on start relay are all placed that corrosion, crud, pitted contacts, etc live ... all these add resistance to the circuit and reduce available energy to the starter....thus causing slow starters.
Also timing advance to far on hot engines can cause slow turning starters.

 

Is it possible that the battery is a little drained after all the time spent cranking the old one, then trying to figure out the problem with the new one? Just a thought.... I don't think it would hurt anything to but a fresh charge on it to be sure??

 

are you sure block is grounded to cab/frame? if jumping solenoid posts gives no result, i mean not even a minute twist of starter, then either starter is defective, engine is NOT grounded, or maybe, just maybe the cable from battery to starter is internally shorting OR cable is grounding between post on starter and case of starter - grounding out system. you have definetly raised my curiosity to another level. lol pete

 

I drove it to work this morning with no problems. Lights, turn signals, ect were all working fine. With no physical signs other than the starter, could it still be the battery? The battery is a year or more old. It sat a lot during the winter but when it was started every once and a while this winter it started rather easy. I'm stumped.

 

Shops or parts stores have a hand held induction meter that just sits over your starter cable and measures the draw in amps, that would tell you if the starter has excessive draw. What is excessive draw on a 6 volt system, haven’t a clue, about the same as on dinosaur farts!

But you know that I have been wrong before!

 

The bendex shaft length changed in 1961. The starter for the pre-1961 y-blocks looked the same as the starter for the post-1961 y-blocks. Are you sure your shaft length is correct? You'll have to measure your old shaft, which I'll bet has already gone to core-return heaven.

 

How about some 6-volt basics:
1. Use big battery cables (1 or 2 gauge), not 12 volt.
2. How many volts are you getting when the engine is running? (7-7.5)
3. Is your voltage regulator polarized correctly?
4. 6-volt starters turn over slower, so they sound odd to our ear if we are only used to hearing 12-volt starters.

Good luck, Jag

 

I checked that yesterday before trying to put it in the truck. I didn't measure it but I held them side by side and they were the same from what I could see. Would it be such a small difference that it would need to be measured to tell?

 

I'll check all of that tonight. The starter will start the truck if the truck has been sitting long enough to cool down. It just turns over a couple times before starting whereas the old starter seemed to kick it right to life before it went bad. When the truck is warm it seems to have trouble starting back up. Sometimes it just won't start. Is the starter spinning too slow or does the engine need some adjustment?

 

I have had that problem in the past and after checking all of the above, it turned out that my battery was the weak link. So, if your charging system checks out, it may be the battery. But you always want to check the easy cheap thing before you move on to the expensive difficult things. :-) Good luck, Jag

 

Someone mentioned polarization, any component changes without polarizing the system?