My dads '71 Chevelle isn't starting. It's a 350 SBC/TH350 car.

He thought it was the starter so I took it off for him and we had it tested at the local auto parts store. Test came back fine. We also threw the battery on the charger and fully charged it (I believe it was showing 13 volts) I put the starter back in. When he connected the battery back up and it wouldn't crank or anything.

He wanted me to use a screwdriver to bridge the connections on the starter, but with the headers I didn't find a good enough way to do it safely.

Also we tried moving the gear shifter and starting it in neutral and holding the shifter up, etc.

What's next? We cleaned one of the terminals on the battery the other one didn't look bad, I wanted to test the battery but my dad didn't feel it was necessary. I'm assuming it's something within the Starting Circuit, so it has to be the ignition switch or a short in the wiring, right?

I'm not real sure, any help here?

 

Check your wiring very closely. Are you getting power to anything else in the car? when they tested the starter did they also test the solenoid? with my 79 Camaro it turned out to be a wire leading to the starter having a bad connector. If you can't get power to anything else then one of the wires to the starter is bad because the circuits are rather simple in those older cars. it only takes one or two bad wires or connections to trip the whole circuit. Hope this helps

 

I'm pretty sure I'm not getting any power to the stereo/etc but I didn't look. But yeah I'm assuming it's the wiring somewhere or couldn't it also be the ignition switch or the neutral safety switch

 

check and see if you're getting any power to anything. If not then it's the wiring around the starter. If you are getting power to other things then yes it could be the neutral safety switch