starter emergency and bonhead files

[wisser@domain.elided (Bill Wisser)]

Hope everyone is getting some good scout time in this weekend.  I had
planned to, but have run into a curious snag.  I have only had my '70
Scout 800a for three weeks.  Immediately after I bought it I had to
replace the solenoid.  It started fine after that and ran well for two
weeks.  I helped a friend move last sunday and must have started the
scout 20-30 times in one day.  I drove it home and it sat for a week. 
Yesterday I went out to start it up and play with it and the starter
motor would not disengage!  The key was out and still the starter was
turning over.  It started to smoke from the main ground (engine to
chassis) and somewhere near the starter, I could not tell if it was from
the solenoid or the starter itself.  I took off the negative battery
cable as fast as I could and waited for things to cool down.  I checked
the connections on the solenoid and everything was tight and I could not
see any chewed up wires.  It is hard to see there, so I may have missed
something.  Anyway, now if I just touch the negative battery cable to
the post it starts to crank.  What is going on?  I am planning to put
another solenoid in because I may have screwed something up the first
time and it is a relatively inexpensive part.  Should I look somewhere
else?  I will keep an eye out for frayed wires but if I knew what I was
looking for it would help immensely.

In other news, I have a classic bonehead tale.  You may remember me
telling you that I drove it home three hours when I first bought it and
it ran ok but not great.  It would not get above 60mph and backfired on
deceleration in gear.  I noticed there was a hole in one muffler but
figured it needed a good tune-up.  So I replaced the
plugs/wires/cap/rotor/points/condensor and lo and behold one plug wire
had no boot.  It was lightly stuck onto the plug by just the metal
connector.  I figured I found the problem and all would be well.  After
replacing everything it ran exactly the same.  Got up to speed well but
still topped out at 60 and backfired.  I assumed it was an air/fuel
mixture problem and was planning on playing with the carb this weekend. 
After this whole starter fiasco I noticed the #1 plug wire dangling next
to the exhaust manifold.  Upon closer inspection it appears I never
attached the wire to the last plug I changed.  It did not fall off
because my spark plug socket was still on the plug!  So if the original
problem was that it was only firing on 7 cylinders, I fixed that and
recreated the exact same problem on a different cylinder.  Unfortunately
I could not test drive it right away.  I am curious if the problem is
still there.  I used to own a '84 S10 Blazer (6 cylinders) and one of
the plug wires fell off once.  I could barely limp off the road to check
things out.  I could not hold 35 mph with surges and backfiring going
constantly.  With the scout I could not tell.  Of course I had nothing
to compare it with. 

Have  a good holiday.

Bill Wisser