ot/ positive ground on neighbors car, wtf?? Options

[jsayre914]

My neighbor has a 65 austin healey, sitting in the garage for years, he sees me working on the teener every day. today he comes over and asked if i could help him change the battery in the car because it would not start. (he is older, no real tools) so i ask him if he checked the voltage first, he said no. I had 12.7 volts good. turn the key and the volts drop to 1. so i hook up a jumper box and turn the key, i hear the starter spinning but not enguaging. I am not an expert in any way, so i figure its either the starter or the solinoid.

how do i figure it out??

and the best part is the positive lead on the battery goes to ground and the negative lead goes to the solinoid wich is about 6 inches away from the starter. all my meter readings were done with the red wire touching the body and the negative touching the solinoid.

i cannot figure out how to think backwards. If i want to test the starter, the bolt is negative and the body of it is +

i really want to help the guy out, but i dont know how. If it were me i would already be ordering a starter.

what is the next step??

thanks


p.s. who the @#$#$ thought up the idea of reversing the ground, what benefit could that possibly have??

[GeorgeRud]

If I remember correctly from my 65 MGB, the starter (Lucas) used a drive gear that spun on the armature to engage the flywheel, and not a Bendix that moved it into position. The hammer trick used to work to get it unstuck (which I'm sure it is after sitting for all these years).

You could probably remove the starter and try to lubricate the starter gear drive to see if it would loosen up so it can engage.

And yes, these were positive ground cars back then. I'm sure there was some reason they chose to go that route, but you have to remember these are the same people that choose to drive on the "other" side of the road.