[Capri306]

Dang, you guys beat me to it. I was gonna recommend cleaning the fender where the solenoid mounts, too. There's two sets of windings in a starter solenoid: pull-in and hold-in. They do electrically just what the name implies. The ground through the casing of the solenoid is VERY important. I had this happen on my '79 Capri once and it had me baffled for a bit, too. The best way to prevent this from happening again is to just run a ground wire/braid from the mounting screws to the negative battery terminal. I hate anything grounded to the chassis. It's just like an invitation for electrical problems. Ever notice how much stuff in the EEC's harness is grounded back to the computer itself???