New battery, starter won't even make noise!

Was having to use battery charger to start my 1984 XJ-SC 3.6. Pulled the battery, went to town. Bought new battery. 3 hours later installed battery. Turn the key and everything lights up and works, except the darn starter! Any ideas where to look first? Checking out my service manual, but nothing obvious jumping out at me. Thanks,

Check the gearstick position - especially if you have auto gearbox :wink: Place on Park and try again, if it won’t work, try every position available…

Manual gear box, but I’ll try stirring it to see if it makes a difference.

How about multimeter instead of new battery, seems to be cheaper - even on Amazon…

Multimeter won’t help a nine year old dead battery. Car started just fine with a boost from charger prior to changing out battery.

A general approach is to suspect what was altered with the work. In this case, terminals and cables going to the battery–might be corroded connections, particularly the end of the + battery cable that attaches to the starter (or the end at the battery if it’s separate from the wire going to everything else). If you turn on the lights, then turn ign sw to start, do the lights dim?

Well, few things to consider:

  1. Have you checked parasitic drain? How many miliamps your car is draining while sleeping?
  2. Have you got aftermarket alsrm installed? If not - are you sure and how you can tell?
  3. Have you checked black tubular plug between the engine head and firewall? (Disconnect clean connect)
  4. How wobbly is your ignition lock?

Point 3 is mandatory and to start with…

I had a ‘no start’ with one of my ‘40’s turns out somehow the solenoid connector on the starter had become detached, this was while I was changing the battery👿

Look a little inside of cable insulation… near the terminals… any White or green stuff … Had that happen to another vehicle… Impeded power from battery