I'm sure this has been beat to death, but here it goes. I bought a 67 cutlass, and the starter will not spin, or kick out. here is a picture of wire harness , is the purple wire, hook to the S terminal, and yellow/Black to R side? this harness was unplugged when I bought it, I plugged it in and nothing, headlights come on, that's it.

 

Well, for starters (pun only slightly intended), have you tried jumping the stater directly to see if that's the problem? With the starter out of the car, I use a set of jumper cables. Positive to the stud on the solenoid, negative to the case. Short the S terminal to the positive and see if the starter even works.

If it does, then check the harness. Use a test light to see if the purple wire in the harness on the car gets power when the key is in the START position. If not, find the problem. I'm guessing it's the neutral safety switch. Any chance this car was converted to a floor shift?

 

1st off, those wires need to be replaced. The purple wire from the neutral safety switch goes to the S terminal and the other runs from the R terminal to the coil. As Joe suggested, if its an automatic, the problem is at the neutral safety switch.

 

You can bet, I'm replacing the wires. bench tested starter, it work fine.The wires were wired right, I was hoping they were wrong ( that would have been a easy fix. I will start probing wires later today. thanks for your input

 

Wires were unplugged a neutral safety switch ! Why ! plugged them in car cranks over. Thanks for all the help.

 

Amazing how wires manage to hold up as long as they do when you see them in this condition. I love replacing old beat-down wires - good you found the issue. Be sure to use heat shrink where necessary on the new wires.

 

Soldered and heat shrink. they are good now.