72 Olds Project

Hello everyone,

We got my 455 running today in my 72 BUT we had to rig it from the wire at the firewall. It is the thick purple wire that runs down to your starter. We skinned it a little to run it direct to the battery. When putting a test light on that wire at the starter it is not getting any juice. Now we could not start it from the switch at all and thinking maybe it has a neutral safety that was not letting it start? I had previously pulled the entire dash panel as I am going with full Autometer gauges. Does something need to be connected there maybe? It ran before when it was a 350 sort of, but the wiring is a complete mess. Anyone come across this before?

Thanks!

Alb

The wiring harness on my 69 cutlass has 2 purple wires.They both go to the safety neutral switch. Then one of them goes to the ignition switch and the other to the starter. So if the safety neutral switch isn't making up. You will not have voltage at the starter.
Hope this helps.
Alb

Lady72nRob71

With parking brake on, hold key in start position and run the gearshift up and down. If it tries to start, then neutral switch needs adjustment.
If nothing happens, jumper the 2 purples at the neutral swich and try the key. If it works, then neutral switch is bad. If nothing, then ignition switch may be bad.
Ley us know what happens...

72 Olds Project

Thank you for all the info. I could have sworn one was yellow and one was purple. I will check again though. The thing is I am not sure this was an original console car. I did not see a switch on the console anywhere. Where else would one be if not there?
Thanks!

Project Grandpa

If the console doesn't have a neutral safety switch or a back up light switch that usually means it is converted. Look at the base of the column and see if there are any switches there. Should be double purple. If they are not there the column would be changed as well;. All you need is to find the connector and make a jumper wire out of some scrap 12 g wire and a couple of male spades.

That will get you running but you have to hug out some type of safety sweitch. Npothing kills a build like runing someone over or smashing into your washer and dryer in the garage.

Andy

72 Olds Project

Haha Thanks Andy. Had me laughing about the washer and dryer story. Sad thing is it may have happened to someone you know. That would be very upsetting for sure!

72 Olds Project

Well....not going to believe this but some previous owner put a toggle switch under the dash. No wonder I could not find the purple wires as someone hacked them out. The wires look like christmas colors now. LOL My question is what should I do? It is going from the switch inside....1 red wire is going to the horn relay on the firewall? And the other if I hook it direct to power and have it switch right It will fire up. Any suggestions on how to fix this mess? Does this really have anything to do with the Neutral Safety? Thanks!

MDchanic

You've found his kill switch.

Without a very specific and clear description of exactly where every wire comes and goes from, it would be very difficult to give you specific advice about whether and what to change.

- Eric

72 Olds Project

Well basically what it sounds like it boils down to is that the horn relay...I hope its the horn relay the gold little box...needs to get full on power from somewhere. All that switch does is take the power away from that relay. Where does the stock wiring get power to the relay? Is it full time or only when the key is on? I am assuming I can just run a power wire direct to the relay and take the switch out of the equation. I guess I need to know if its battery or switched power. Thanks!

MDchanic

Maybe at this point some pictures would help us to understand what's going on here.

- Eric

oldcutlass

If you close the switch and shift to park/ and nuetral, will the engine start?? Also, if you close the switch and shift to any gears will the engine start. IF it only starts in P or N then as stated above you have a kill switch. If it starts in gear then you are missing a nuetral safety and it would need to be installed in series with your kill switch wiring.

If you don't want a kill switch simply remove it and splice the two wires together.

72 Olds Project

That was what I did, but I just need to confirm that power should be on all the time at the horn relay. I would assume yes as you should be able to honk your horn with the car turned off and not switched on. Can someone throw a test light on the little stud thats on the relay to see with everything turned off if it lights? I am pretty sure it will.

Lady72nRob71

You assumed correct - there thould always be 12V at that big nut with all the wires under it. That is the horn relay.
Glad you found the kill switch! The original starter lead would have come from the ignition switch, through the neutral switch, to the starter. It should be wired back the factory way. A kill switch could be left in series with the heutral switch if desired. It makes me wonder if the ignition switch went bad, causing the last owner to tap right off the horn relay...

Be sure to look at all this unoriginal wiring and make sure the connections are good and things are wired correctly. Wiring hacks are often the causes of other problems in the future.
The previous owner of my car had the cigar lighter wired through a switchbox to the radio power antenna lead. When I pushed in the lighter with the radio on, I got a mushroom cloud erupting from under the dash...

72 Olds Project

Fantastic! Thank you Rob. That is what the last person had done then. They took the link out to direct power the horn relay so you use a switch instead to turn it on and off. That is part of what worries me. The under hood wiring has been cut like crazy and I have 2 or 3 wires that were just clipped and going to nothing. Hmmmmmm, though if they did wire it due to that would my key still work and turn the motor over? Because once I put power to that switch everything acts like it should. Put your key in and start the car. The bad thing is after figuring this out, the starter is only giving me a hard click and then nothing. Going to look at the starter after work today. I have cleaned all terminals and new cables. LOL Mushroom clouds would be rather scary. I am very careful now after grabbing onto a 50k MSD Coil with a leaky wire one time. It was a hair raising experience.