coverting direct drive starter to gear reduction...?

coverting direct drive starter to gear reduction...? - 02/26/09 02:15 AM

Guys, I'm coverting the old direct drive starter on my daughter's '61 Plymouth's 225 /6 to a modern style gear reduction unit.

Her old starter has one wire coming from the battery side of the fender-well solenoid. How do I need to run my wires for the modern two wire starter? Thanks!!!

Posted By: sthemi

Re: coverting direct drive starter to gear reduction...? - 02/26/09 02:24 AM

There must be a relay similar to the common ford relay that you will need to grab the small trigger wire from and extend to the new starter instead of the relay.
Just follow the fat starter cable and it should end at the relaly you need to steal the small wire from.

Posted By: RapidRobert

Re: coverting direct drive starter to gear reduction...? - 02/26/09 02:24 AM

easiest would be to run a wire from your ign switch "start" down to the solenoid terminal on the new starter or if the ign sw has no place for that then a seperate pushbutton sw or better yet since the brown wire looks like it handles a fair amt of current would be to convert to a modern 4 terminal starter relay

Posted By: 1_WILD_RT

Re: coverting direct drive starter to gear reduction...? - 02/26/09 02:41 AM

No the easy way would be to use the heavy gauge wire going from the relay to the starter as the battery supply on the new starter by moving the relay end from it's current post over to the battery cable post on the relay and making up a new 10ga wire to go from that post of the relay down to the small post on the new starter..

Posted By: Anonymous

Re: coverting direct drive starter to gear reduction...? - 02/26/09 02:47 AM

Quote:

easiest would be to run a wire from your ign switch "start" down to the solenoid terminal on the new starter or if the ign sw has no place for that then a seperate pushbutton sw or better yet since the brown wire looks like it handles a fair amt of current would be to convert to a modern 4 terminal starter relay

You don't need any "separate buttons" there should be as posted above a "Ford" style solenoid,

if the existing solinoid is good, run the existing battery wire to the new starter just like the old, and make a short jumper between the large and small terminals on the new starter

I believe the old solenoid will have two small terminals, and I BELLIEVE that the second terminal is wired to the neutral safety switch

If you need a new solenoid, there are some years of Jeep that use this wiring scheme, that is, two small terminals on the starter solenoid that connect to the coil. These are NOT THE SAME as the popular Ford solenoid used for so many years

Posted By: John_Kunkel

Re: coverting direct drive starter to gear reduction...? - 02/26/09 08:58 PM

Easiest way is to leave the original wiring and solenoid, then add a jumper as described above.

Posted By: groovy ghoulie

Re: coverting direct drive starter to gear reduction...? - 03/02/09 12:41 AM

Guys, I wanted to say "thanks" for everyone's time. The jumper trick worked great! However, you can't swap out a direct drive starter for a gear reduction. The gear on the direct drive sits further out than on a gear reduction. The gear on the gear reduction doesn't kick out far enough to engage the flywheel. I'm going to have to get her old DD starter rebuilt - thanks though!