I put a new starter on today on my 96 ta. I was running out of time so i could not mess with it very much to see what was wrong. But when I hooked the battery terminals back up, I could hear the starter spinning really fast. Did I hook the connections on the starter up wrong. There are three connection on the starter and I did not label them when i took the old one off. I looked at shoebox web page and did not see anything where it say how to hook it up. Can someone help me out and let me know what it wrong. Also, I did not use any shims, and i think the gears are not touching. Please help if you can.

 

I remember there only being two connections, the postive lead from the battery and the switched lead from the ignition.

Was it spinning as soon as you connected the battery? If so you might just have the wires spun in such a position that they are touching. Or you could have hooked it up wrong i guess.

If it's spinning really fast and dosn't sound like it's engaging the flywheel / flexplate watch while someone cranks the car over and check to see if the solenoid is working and the gear is popping out.

 

it was spinning as soon as i hooked the battery back up.

 

when i seen the connectors, there were 2 about the same size and one small one.

 

The third one didn't have to be removed. I think it's just to connect the solenoid to the starter motor. Double check the connections. I think shoebox has the wiring schematics on his site, shbox.com

The large one should be from the battery and the small one comes from a wire loom next to the exhaust manifold.

 

My vote is that you probably had the two wires touching when you connected them again. I accidentally hit mine together as i put my final torque on the the positive one.

Mind you, I was a genius about my header install so I never disconnected the battery, then to my shock (almost literally....) my started just started whirring.