98 Malibu new starter tripping main fuse

Very new to the forums, but boy am I glad they are here. Thanks in advance for any help.

The starter goes bad, not a problem, 2 bolts and an aftermarket, bam new starter in. However after I wired it up and turned the key, bam the whole car goes dead. So obviously I have this wired wrong. Here is the thing though, The old starter had 2 posts. 2 wired (which I assumed were positive) on the thicker post, and 1 wire on the slim post. Seemed pretty basic to me. But now I'm a bit worried, I don't want to fry my system trying to figure out the right configuration. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Maybe a link to a diagram or something.

Thanks,

ded

Your post title mentioned you are tripping main fuse. Did you actually see what fuse or fusible link was opened up?

The wire on slimmer post is a purple wire which is the crank command for the starter solenoid coming from ignition switch.

On the larger post you have a large red wire which is battery cable positive. The other wire should be a smaller blue which is a fusible link which is spliced to a red wire and goes to generator output stud.

I agree this is hard to mix up. There should be three terminal lead that go on the two terminals. The purple goes on the smaller diameter terminal and the other two terminal ends go on the other larger diameter terminal. From the starting system wiring diagram there appears to an "IGN-SW BATT 1" fuse that is 40A. The only other is the fusable link on the blue wire.

I hope this helps.