Powermaster Starter

[Jim Streib]

The issue I had is that the starter would spin (but not engage the flywheel) as soon as I connected the main power wire to the battery - with no key in the ignition. This issue began when I tried to start the car - end of last year - battery was weak.

So now - I checked the all the leads connected to the starter - and confirmed that nothing was touching any other wires - and all connections were tight and secure. The only thing I noticed was the battery was very weak and the negative battery post did have some corrosion on it.

I cleaned the post and fully charged the battery, and made sure that the housing of the starter had ground to it - and now when I connect the battery again - I do not get the starter automatically spinning. I have yet to try to restart the car - but before I do - was wondering if this was "one off" issue - and perhaps not getting a good ground - or would it be best to replace the starter?

While the below is not the starter you have it is like a lot of them from Powermaster.

Basically you would have a ground with it being bolted to the motor and then a large ground cable going from the block to the battery negative post.

You would then have a large power cable from the battery positive post down to the top stud on the starters solenoid.

You then have a smaller gauge wire that attaches to the solenoid to activate the solenoid and this terminal on the solenoid go to and through the neutral safety switch or clutch switch and then goes to a 12v output on the ignition key but will only have power coming out of it when the key is in the crank position.

What you also will see on the powermaster starter is a bottom large stud on the solenoid that a flexible covered wire attaches to and then goes through a grommet to inside the starter motors housing.

So, with all of that said, if you had no ground but only power being applied to the starter through the large cable attached to the top stud on the solenoid, the starter will not spin as it has no ground that could complete a circuit.



If one were to apply power to the lower large stud on the solenoid then the motor would spin but probably not kick out the starter gear as this is controlled by the solenoid getting activated. While I have never tried applying power to the top stud and the lower stud I have to think the starter motor will spin but the motor will not turn over due to the starter gear not being kicked out into the flywheel.

Normally when 12v gets applied to the starter solenoids activation terminal, a few things happen. One is you will hear a clunk as the solenoid is now pulling the bendix out to mesh the gear on the end of the starter motor to engage with the flywheel. At the same time this is happening an internal connection is made that now connects the top battery cable stud to the lower solenoid stud which then sends power to the starter motor and has it spinning.



Just to be clear, the starter above was one I grabbed off the internet and I may have the wrong terminal labeled for the solenoid activation. Most of the pictures of the GM starters do not show the solenoid connection points as well as this one for a Jeep.

Jim