maddening car problems

so if some of you read my last post about the car not shutting off well now my 1977 malibu 350 with points converted to HEI ignition. car literally will not start.. just hooked up jumper cables to it for 30 min and i t wont turn a lick. it just clicks.. and before i got mad and started slamming stuff the car literally wouldnt even click. none of my electronics worked nothing. no clicks no electronics no nothing. i recently put on a new starter and hooked up the solenoid wire to the "S" terminal and when car is actually started it will not turn off
but somewhere along the line i have gained a parasitic drain. and it literally drains my battery so low that it sat for 30 min on jumper cables with a running vehicles and only clicked.
i literally dont even know where else to go. ive replaced the starter switch on the column, got a new starter, idk what else to do

Take the battery to a parts store and have it checked for free.  I'm guessing its bad.  Regular batteries can't deep cycle like that (meaning completely get drained by a parasitic drain then get recharged).  Only deep cycle batteries like optimas can handle that.  You need a new battery I bet, then diagnose the drain.  Disconnect your battery when you're not driving to save it.

When you converted to an H.E.I., did you run a switched power source for the dist? If you ran a full time 12 volt supply to the dist that would explain why your car won't shut off. At least that's what I'm thinking.

Check and clean both ends of the negative battery cable. Clean the ground point, also. I like to attach the negative cable directly to the block, but if your cable is attached to the alternator bracket then remove the bolts that attach the bracket to the block and clean those surfaces also.

Negative cables rarely corrode like a positive, but they do corrode and it messes with your sanity when it corrodes enough to stop the electricity.

I have changed starters needlessly for this very situation.

I remember the previous post. You could very well have an electrical drain. I also remember suggesting to you that you should check the wires near the accelerator rod under the dash, because it wouldn't shut off unless you "floored" the throttle.

Did you find anything there that was wrong?

bigredlaguna wrote:I remember the previous post. You could very well have an electrical drain. I also remember suggesting to you that you should check the wires near the accelerator rod under the dash, because it wouldn't shut off unless you "floored" the throttle.

Did you find anything there that was wrong?

i did not. i havent messed with anything under the dash besides what wires for my extra lights i have added but thats unrelated i did check under there just incase but there was nothing to be found.
i will go out and check the ends on both sides i do remember seeing alittle rust on my alt bracket where my neg cable runs. and when i pulled the pos wire off the terminal it was coroded but also one of the tightening bolts was alittle loose so i tightened it up. anyway going based off of everything i know now i think ill switch terminals from "S" to "R"

nowforever13 wrote:so if some of you read my last post about the car not shutting off well now my 1977 malibu 350 with points converted to HEI ignition. car literally will not start.. just hooked up jumper cables to it for 30 min and i t wont turn a lick. it just clicks.. and before i got mad and started slamming stuff the car literally wouldnt even click. none of my electronics worked nothing. no clicks no electronics no nothing.  i recently put on a new starter and hooked up the solenoid wire to the "S" terminal and when car is actually started it will not turn off
but somewhere along the line i have gained a parasitic drain. and it literally drains my battery so low that it sat for 30 min on jumper cables with a running vehicles and only clicked.
i literally dont even know where else to go. ive replaced the starter switch on the column, got a new starter, idk what else to do

Your post is a little confusing. Points were gone in 77. Car should be factory HEI. On the starter, the wire that attaches to the S terminal should be purple. The R terminal was used to bypass the resistor wire on point systems so that the coil got a full 12 volts when cranking, thats its only purpose. The R terminal was only live during cranking. There should be no wire for the R terminal on a 77. Re-man starters today still have the R terminal, it just isn't used on newer HEI cars.

hm, interesting... ill have to go back through and make sure that that wire is purple on up the line somewheres
but no it WAS points. the factory 305 still had a points distributor. but we changed all of that long ago and pulled everything to do with points out of it

Boy am I lost., Every Chevy with a V-8 that I've seen by 77 had an H.E.I. no matter what size it was. Weird!

In mine chevelle there is a positive cable junction just obove the fusebox on the outside in the engine compartment. There all the positive wires connect and the fusible links sit. There could be bad connection there or maybe even a wire corroded away there.

All wiring for the engine comes off of that, just Belove it the fusebox comes trough the firewall and has 2 Black switches on it. One is for the lights and the other is engine and gauges. I would at least tjek all the connections there. It is easier if you pull the washer bottle out the Way.

Also the wires run from the side of the firewall behind the engine and Down the right side to the starter. It comes Real close to the manifold, it could be that it is melted back there, making all sorts of crazy stuff happen.

If it tjeks out ok i would try and bypass the factory wiring and run a couple of new wires from inside the the car, find a ign on 12 wolt for the hei. Then a wire from the s terminal on the starter directly on to the battery positive terminal. With the ign on and touching the starter wire to the positive terminal on the battery, the car should fire right up and shut of on the key. If it does you have a fault in your wiring loom somewhere. The starter should run if the Big positive cable is on the battery and the s terminal gets a short jump. Then all the hei needs is a 12 wolt source to make the engine run.

The drain in the system is harder, i would remove all fuses and se if the battery then holds a charge, then ad fuses one at a time til the drain returns. At least you know what surcuit is draining the battery. The Down side is it takes a long time to do it this Way. I know there is a better Way to do it. Bit this is my redneck approach since im not electrician.

It can be a pita finding a power drain. But these cars have by modern standards a simple wiring loom. Mostly a power drain comes from people adding stuff like radios amplifiers and such, alarm systems , power accesorries. Also the clock and the cig lighter can be the source.

I have always looked at the wiring on my old cars and usually i have removed all not original wires, and cleaned all fuse points cable junctions and made sure all wires where good. In my chevelle i bought a new wiring loom for the dash and engine compartment. I bought it from the elcamino store. It was exactly a match from my original, and it worked perfectly. My old was to far gone to make it safe to use. The best is you can order it to fit your car exactly. Good luck and you will find the problems eventually.

I had a power drain from some aftermarket gauges a previous owner installed. I pulled everything and rewired myself only to have the same power drain. I made the same mistake the previous installer did.

The fuse box is labeled in a bit of a confusing manner for the extra power blades. There is one of those that looks like it is a switched source according to the labeling, but is really a constant source. If you have additional accessories plugged in those extra spots, then pull those and verify if the source is switched or constant.

" />" />
if it helps this is what my starter looks like

all of the wires on the block look to be in great shape

It looks like you have the small wires switched around from where they are supposed to be. The wire with the fusible link is to be on the same post as the battery cable. That is why you have no power anywhere, it is the main source for power distribution.

The purple color can fade over time and look like a faded red wire and can be mistaken for the other. I might be wrong, the color doesn't show the greatest for me, but the correct posts are being used.

Check further up on the main power wire that is on the same post as the battery for a blown fusible link. That could also explain the lack of power everywhere.

well... thanks to somebody earlier I have figured out my problem. I changed the ign column switch and when I did some how the hot wire that gets power when the key is turned on got switched with another wire on the ign column switch I tested the coil wire first which I found was hot even with the key off... so I simply removed the red wire from the equation and thus low and behold the car shuts off!!! thanks to everyone for there suggestions

It happens to the best of us, we have all tryed having a problem that we couldent figure out. Even though everything looks ok, faults can be present even if you cant spot whats Wrong. So keep at it and you will figure it out eventually.

This all sounds too familiar !! It's the simple things that get us in trouble !