A friend of mine picked up a 95 300ex. We're having trouble getting this thing going, looking for some pointers. To start with the wiring harness was cobbed up bad. Bare wires twisted together all over the place. We replaced it with a known good harness from another friend. We're trying to get the starter working to begin with, starter seems good. We pulled it and hooked it up direct, the starter turns with good power. The weird thing is, once we put it back on the motor the starter doesn't work. We cross the solenoid and it will turn over randomly but 99% of the time it does nothing. We even tried hooking to direct power while on the motor and still nothing, but if we pull it and hook it up it turns fine. We get no spark when touching the terminal and the starter isn't getting hot, so I don't think it's a binding issue. It's like once it's back on the motor it's not getting power even when hooked up directly to the starter. I'm confused, any ideas?

 

Check the earths, battery power has to go from the negative side as well as the positive on the battery. It could also be that once under load, the starter isn't working. Mostly they just need new brushes, a fairly easy fix.