As I posted below under &quot;starting rebuilt 77&quot; below, my starter would barely turn the engine over, and generally not at all when the engine was hot.

Naturally the rebuilt engine is tight and requires more power to turn over.   But it seemed like it should start (it did when it was new).

I followed up on several suggestions here and a couple ideas of my own.

I already had a new battery, new heavy battery cables, and a new ignition switch.  But I had the starting problem.

- Took it to a starter guy who replaced the bushing in the drive end.  I'm sure this needed to be done (it was in pieces) and that helped, but not enough.

- Took it to another starter guy who power-wire-brushed the surfaces between the sections of the starter case (brush end, cylinder, gear end).  He pointed out that the gear end grounds to the engine, but the grounded brushes are at the other end of the starter and there must be good electrical contact all the way through.  I think it was better but still would not start hot.

-Took the starter apart myself, took the wire brush leads off and cleaned where they screw on.  Re-cleaned between the starter housing sections and anything else I could clean.

- Also put a new battery cable from the point where the positive battery cable bolts to the dash assembly, and ran the cable down to a starter mounting bolt.  (This idea was from Chris Losey or Mark Korves, sorry I don't remember which.)  This was intended to bypass any problem (new paint etc) where the dash assembly bolts to the frame.

It starts great!  For now at least, and seems like it should continue.  

I tried taking off the new cable to the starter mounting bolt, to see whether that was the secret, or the cleaning inside the starter made the difference.   

My conclusion is that both things helped.

And I still have my 6-volt system. Will see how it does in a Wisconsin winter.  

Tom