John, For the little jumper that connects the two lugs on the block mounted starter, instead of using a piece of heavy wire, get a small piece of steel and drill the necessary holes and trim/cut/file the piece to the desired shape. The MAD kit includes a piece like I described for this purpose but of course with a little effort you can make your own.
Herb -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Nasta Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2007 2:29 PM To: chevelle-list@chevelles.net Subject: Re: [Chevelle-list] starter & starter wiring I just checked a couple of local stores and it seems that if you want to make your own "kit" for the Summit/MAD type Ford solenoid wiring you will need: Battery to solenoid & solenoid to starter cables, about $8 - $10 each for 4 gauge cable w/ factory ends. I happened to have a brand new 38" cable that looks like it will just about make it from the battery to the firewall. I bought a 40" cable to go from the starter to the solenoid b/c I'm not sure how it will work out w/ the routing. I'll let you all know if these lengths work out ok. Ford V8 (LTD) solenoid - $15 to $16. Seems like it could easily mount on the same firewall bolt as the ground strap to the pass-side head bolts to. 14 gauge and 12 (heck, make it 10) gauge wires: about $4 for a small spool of each. However, w/ the solenoid on the firewall there's no reason why your original small wire(s) would not reach the solenoid directly, so you don't really need the 14 gauge wire, you just need the jumper wire, which should be the beefiest that you can get on there. Some lugs for your jumper wire, which should be soldered on. So, you could end up spending up to $45 to get all the parts locally if you need absolutely everything, but if you don't need the bat to sol cable and the "S" wire, that knocks about $15 off of it. The MAD/Summit kit is actually a good deal for the price, except that you end up re-using your original battery cable (which is longer than you need for this application), and you end up making your own sol to starter cable instead of having a nice 4-gauge factory-made cable. I'm going the home-made route since all I needed was the solenoid and the new solenoid to starter cable. I probably won't get to actually do this today but I'll let you all know how it goes. JN
