TomF

I have owned an '85 Fiesta for the past 9 years and it has always been a "hard starter". Last month I finally had enough and decided to check everything that could be causing the problem.

It seems to have boiled-down to a previous owner installing a starter for an '87 or '88 Fiesta. The solenoid on this starter has three mark-identified connection points: "Batt", "50" and "15A". The "15A" is meant to accept a wire that goes directly to the coil, bypassing the ballast resistor, so that there is a full 12 volts applied to the coil during cranking of the engine by the starter motor.

The solenoid on my car has a plastic tower marked 15A, but there is no metal in the tower, and so the bypass wire has nothing to connect to, and is just hanging in the air. I think this may be my starting problem.

I got a Ford starter motor relay recently from the local Ford dealer and was going to use it as an auxiliary pair of contacts to allow that 15A wire to actually get voltage. However, the relay doesn't seem to show any continuity (as for a relay coil) on the four connectors it has, and I don't know how to hook it up.

It is a Ford (or Motorcraft) Part No. 6017846, made in England by Lucas. It has four contacts arranged on the points of the compass.

North and south are two heavy-duty screw posts which I presume are meant to conduct battery high-current flow. East is a brass screw post (lighter-duty), and West is a spade-type push-on contact.

Can anyone tell me what-is-what for these connectors, and how I make the relay go "click"?

Many thanks.