Thanks Larry,

I did look at the Bentley, and while I pride myself on my mechanical skills, I have a more difficult time with electrical (especially Bentley's wiring diagrams). I can pour over a diagram for a couple hours and be more confused when I put it down. :(

I've had a hard time finding much specifically on the stubby ground from the solenoid to the starter motor but I found a couple references (Samba, web pages) to this wire disintegrating. I did find a page online where a guy replaced this ground. Not something I feel competent doing myself.

Looks like I'll be buying a new starter. I did learn that there appears to be a manual and automatic tranny starter. Too bad, I could have pulled the starter off my '86 GL to test with but it's a 4-speed and the '90 Carat is an auto.

Mark K
1986 GL/2WD/4SPD

On Jan 26, 2010, at 10:27 PM, Larry Alofs wrote:

> If you look closely at the Bentley, you will see, I think, that it
> shows that the solenoid has two coils, one which goes to ground thru
> the housing and the other which is grounded thru the starter circuit
> itself.  I believe that this means that if the starter brushes, etc.
> are bad enough, the solenoid will not activate, with a relay or not.
> The short cable that leads from the solenoid into the starter body is
> part of this circuit.  When the starter on my '91 GL quit, it was
> because that cable had turned to dust.  Those very thin strands
> corrode very easily when exposed to the salt spray, etc.  Everyone
> should smear that cable with heavy grease periodically.  I posted to
> the list about this a few years ago.
>   I had that starter rebuilt, but it was a little more expensive than
> usual because they had to replace the field coils: the end of that
> pesky cable is welded to the field coil.
> 
> have fun,
> Larry A.
> 
> On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 7:43 AM, Mark A Kippert <vanagon@kippert.com> wrote:
>> I picked up my "new" '90 Carat this past Saturday and started going through it. When I tried to start it I get nothing from the starter (BTW I do hear the fuel pump charge).. After checking electrical connections and rapping on it with a hammer I crawled under the van to take a closer look and try to hook up a remote starter switch (to be honest I'm not sure which contacts to connect the two clips to).
>> 
>> I  found that the electrical connections were clean and appeared to make good contact. However, while brushing dirt off the starter housing I found that the short ground wire from the motor housing to the solenoid was decaying badly. If I recall it's supposed to be a bare braided copper wire. This however was disintegrating and appeared red and flakey. I'm guessing this is my problem. I'm sure it will keep the motor from turning but would I still hear solenoid clicking? Is there a fix for this or will I need to replace the starter?