Electrical Gremlins

Just finished putting the engine in the zed (er.. again), got everything hooked up and code55, but when I try to start it in park all I hear are a couple of clicks (mainly from the fuses in front of the brake booster), and the car does not turn over, i.e. starter does not engage.

Yet oddly when I put the car in neutral and try the same thing the starter enages and the circuit breaker trips instantly. From what I can tell the starter may be sticking but when I first rebuilt the car the starter sticking was nowhere near bad enough to trip the breaker. I also think that the problem might not be the starter because another couple of times when I switched the lights on, the trip blew again (lights are now fine).

Gearbox and engine ground wires are fine and the gearbox body ground is also fine and I can't see any damage to any of the wiring.

Has anyone experiened similar symptoms? and does anyone know why the car wont even try engage the starter in park?

I'm hoping that my starter internals have somehow degraded to the point that it is causing the tripping, so I'm gonna take the starter off tomorrow night and see if it spins when I apply current.