Gentlemen, I just upgraded my 1966 Riviera to a dual quad setup. After making sure all was as it should be I test-fired the engine and it fired right up. I could tell by the RPM's I had a vacuum leak so I shut her down to resolve that issue. When I went to fire her back up nothing happened except for the clicking of the starter solenoid. The battery is fully charged as it was when it fired up several times before, what could have happened in the 45 minutes between starts?
I know that is a possibility but the stater is only a year old and one of those Powermaster type starters and it's barely been used as the car is undergoing restoration. Do you think it has $&*% the bed already?
If nothing turns over after your cable work, try tapping on the starter with a block of wood and see if that works. If it does, the brushes might be hanging up in the slides and the springs aren't pushing them down properly. That can happen to any starter, but generally doesn't happen until the brushes are well worn and the debris from wearing brushes gets into the slides.
Roger that, I have a 48 Mercury and appreciate the availability of the fender-mounted solenoid. I will inspect and clean all of the aforementioned components (never did like the block ground location), hopefully, my luck is as good as yours.
I have not tried to jump the car because the battery is holding steady at 12.5 v static and I keep in on a maintainer when not in use. The car was running just fine all week leading up to this incident, if cleaning the connections has no effect I will try the old school jump and if that fails, remove and test all the aforementioned componenets.
Rubber mallet to the starter did the trick. I actually tried that before I submitted my post, guess I didn't hit it hard or long enough!
Hopefully the starter is still covered under a warranty that you can exchange it. It shouldn't have problems with brushes sticking in the slides already. Glad you isolated the problem.
