1985 5.7 Mercruiser starter question

[Streffpilot]

Hello, I am trying to wire up the starer on my 1985 Mercruiser. Its a Chevy 350. I have 2 yellow/red wires. One is fairly small gauge, the other is probably 12ga. I know the small one is the one that goes to the solenoid to start the starter. Does anyone know what the bigger yellow/red wire goes to? The manual I have says that it can go to either of the large terminals on the solenoid, but what does that wire actually do?

Thank you so much!

 

[Scott Danforth]

yellow with a red stripe is start circuit

the heavier one is your feed from the pilot relay to the S-terminal on the starter. the lighter one is the feed from the key switch to the pilot relay

at the starter there should be 3 connections. the B terminal gets the battery cable, the S-terminal gets wired to the start pilot relay, and the I or R terminal is used to bypass the resistor wire to power the coil during cranking.

 

[Bondo]

Hello, I am trying to wire up the starer on my 1985 Mercruiser. Its a Chevy 350. I have 2 yellow/red wires. One is fairly small gauge, the other is probably 12ga. I know the small one is the one that goes to the solenoid to start the starter. Does anyone know what the bigger yellow/red wire goes to? The manual I have says that it can go to either of the large terminals on the solenoid, but what does that wire actually do?

Thank you so much!

Ayuh,..... As Scott says, it feeds battery power to the slave solenoid, so that the key switch can close the slave, which powers the tiny red/ yellow, on the tiny terminal nearest the block, which engages the starter,.....

Put the big red/ yellow on the same terminal as the big battery wire is on,....

 

[Streffpilot]

Thank you very much, Bondo and Scott! That makes much more sense now. The manual kind of glossed over this area, and I like to understand what I'm playing with rather than just hook up a few wires and hope for the best.