1966 American stuck starter?

tomj wrote: That's the horn relay, nothing to do with the starter. Do you have a technical service manual? What do you mean by "stuck starter"? That phrase conjures up starter that operates but won't turn the engine over (loud CLUNK sound, not turning over), or worse, one that engages and won't stop. If you mean you turn the key and nothing happens, that could be (and I think commonly is) the neutral safety switch, mounted to the bottom of the steering column, that allows starting only in Neutral. They get out of adjustment, fail, etc.

My mistake with the picture.

But to answer your question what the issue I’m experiencing is the car constantly cranking without a key in the ignition.

Quick back story: So initially the car had carb and PCV issues and the car was dying and having issues. I was able to limp it home one night and at one point I went to start the car and it attempted to crank on its own for 45 seconds with no key in it (I removed the key obviously). I’ll say a little bit lower in the post how the first thing I did was replace the starter solenoid.

So here’s the current issue.

The battery is low enough right now that the car needs a jump. The two times I’ve had car savvy friends come over to help we experience this:
Grab jumper cables and attach positive/negative to friends car
Attach positive to AMC and the second the negative jumper makes contact we get bad sparks.
We attempted to “tap” the horn relay (we mistaking my thought it was the starter relay as I stated) and we were then able to somewhat safely attach the negative jumper to a different ground without sparks. (Obviously a coincidence we were able to ground it after tapping on it)
Half the time we did that the car attempted to crank over on its own (while a very dull attempt) it was still attempting.
This obviously was causing a considerable amount of risk with the jumper cables and disconnecting as we started to get smoke from the negative cable once.

Our thought was a “stuck” starter relay possibly, but not sure if it is the ignition switch, starter, starter solenoid or something else.

I have already replaced the starter solenoid (took before pictures) and connected the new one the exact same way.

Not sure if what I said makes sense or not. “Rambled” a bit.

Edited by BayAMC - Dec/27/2020 at 7:11pm

Let’s hope we get a little guidance for both of our sanity. It’s to the point where I can’t drive it anymore so I’m just a little worse off than you right now ha ha.

RobinPDX wrote: If I am reading correctly here, what is occurring, normally  the starter solenoid is energized by the key . So the key tumblers likely are the “root cause” issue allowing the tumbler start contact to stay closed feeding the solenoid kicking the starter.

So you’d think the ignition switch would be the next piece to swap out/troubleshoot? Or really just the tumbler system itself?

Yes a TSM or wire diagram will allow you to follow the circuit electrical path,  to see what contacts actuates what. Possible disconnect the wire harness for Ign switch assembly then connect battery cables to see if it runs away still, if NOT then verify the IGN switch out pin by pin to see if you get the proper open Pos.

Edited by RobinPDX - Dec/28/2020 at 2:11pm