C3 Starter

[don justham]

Looked at all the wiring diagrams and Im still confused on the wiring coming to my starter on my 1970. Just one wire that I'm not sure where it goes.
In the group of (4) wires coming to the starter:
Red- Large Wire-goes to the solenoid along with the heavy wire coming from the battery. No Problem with this wire.
Purple- Large Wire-goes to the opposite side of the solenoid from the red wire. No problem.
Black-Small Wire- goes to the bottom of the starter, probably a ground, No problem.
Yellow-Cloth shielded wire-Small Wire- Don't know where it goes or the purpose of it. This is the problem wire.

The car runs but right now I dont have that last cloth shielded wire hooked up anywhere. Another wire (black) goes from the distributor to the solenoid on a third post. Please advise where that last wire should be hooked up to. Thanks

[John H.]

Re: C3 Starter

Don -

There are three terminals on the solenoid, and four wires. The big terminal takes the battery cable and a 12-ga. red wire (which splices to a 14-ga. brown fusible link, then becomes a 10-ga. red wire which is the main power feed to the rest of the car), the 12-ga. purple wire ("start" circuit) goes to the small "S" terminal, and there's a 20-ga. yellow wire (12-volt bypass wire to the coil when cranking) that goes to the "R" terminal on the solenoid - that's the "mystery wire" you described. If it isn't connected, your coil is only getting 7-8 volts (normal running voltage) when cranking instead of a full 12 volts.