Had a similar problem on my '53. Turned the key and nothing... no click, no nothing. But everything else was fine. I made up a jumper wire and put a full 6V to the solenoid and it clicked and worked. I assume my original solenoid is starting to fail, or maybe I'm lucky and it just stuck that one time. So I keep the jumper wire in the glove box. I hate to replace it with those ugly plastic copies.
