Wondering if anyone can give me some help on a suspected wiring issue on my 89 MFI xr3i. The car won't start after putting some parts back in the engine bay I took out for spraying (inlet manifold, throttle body, WUR and rocker cover). All plugs were labeled and definitely put back in the right place.
Problem I have is that the starter motor won't engage. I have tested the starter motor off the car and it works fine. I have tested the permanent live to the starter and I am getting a reading on my multimeter but when testing the ignition live terminal on the starter (the covered push on fitting) I am getting no reading on the multimeter.
Can anyone shed any light on the problem before I start ripping wiring loom to bits??!!

 

The excitor wire (red/black trace iirc) usually breaks further down the line (around the reverse sender type area of that piece of loom).

 

What do you mean by excitor wire mate? Did you mean ignition? And where in the engine bay should I be looking?

 

So turns out it was the ignition switch! Swapped it for a new puma one. Puma escort and fiesta mk4/mk5 are all the same