Hello, John Talley here with Partzilla.com.
Today I'm going to show you the process of diagnosing a starter solenoid.
So, let's head over to the bench where we can start talking about it.
No matter what type of machine you have, I guarantee you it's going to have some type
of starting solenoid.
I have two examples sitting on the bench.
One is a real typical type where it's got one circuit that actually energizes the coil
and connects these two points together.
And the other one has a couple of more connectors, but I'll go into those later.
But basically they accomplish the same thing which is taking a high amperage source and
transferring it over to a high amperage load using just a low voltage circuit to accomplish
this.
Alright, let me explain that a little bit better.
Basically think of it as an electrical switch where you've got a low current device like
your starter button that's on your handelbar making a contact point between your battery
and your starter.
Alright, how do they actually do that?
Well inside here, there is a set of windings that are coing around an electromechanical
circuit.
And when they activate this using the low current side, it pulls up the contactor and
in essence connects these two point together.
So, it's taking your battery side and switching it over to your load, whic in this case this
is going to be your starter.
There's no polarity associated with these.
Basically you've got one line going in, it's going around that coil, then it's coming out
through the other side. and that's going to accept DC voltage.
It's still going to energize the coil, and that's what we want to check for.
So starting with this one, we're going to take just a battery on our bench here and
we're going to run through the coil wiring.
And what we're going to listen for is just a simple click.
That is going to be the coil energizing and pulling the contactor up and basically connecting
these two points together.
Alright, now just listen for that click.
So that tells us the contactor is actually making contact, but I can tell you fron previous
experience, sometimes you'll hear that click but your machine still won't start.
The reason being the contactors come together but there may be corrosion or there maybe
have gotten burned.
At any rate, they're actually no passing electricity through it.
So, what we need to check for next is just using a regular voltometer and we're going
to take a resistance measurement across these two points.
And when it's at rest it's going to read "OL" which is basically an open circuit.
Now, when we energize it, it should connect these two points together and we should see
some thing around .2, .3, maybe even as high as .4 ohms.
So, .2 ohms.
That is telling me it is making a solid connection in between one post to the other, and that's
the result we expected from a brand new starter solenoid.
Now, let's look at this other example I have here.
Like I said, it accomplishes the same thing: a low circuit connecting a high circuit and
there's going to be your two posts.
The trick to this is one is there are actually four connections that can be made inside of
it.
So, what you're looking for is that coil.
What you're going to find is there's two that are going to be for the coil itself and the
other one is basically a connection back to your battery post that's going out to your
electrical distribution system, also known as your fuse box if it has one.
Let me show you what I'm talking about.
Let's find out which post this one up here goes to.
You can actually see that is actually connected together down at the bottom so it's just one
point.
So I'm going to grab one there and then we're going to see which post it goes to.
Not that one.
There it is.
So, on this particular relay, this post would be going to your battery, and this output
would be going to your fuse box to be distributed through the rest of the vehicle.
So, that being said, we want to verify that these other two are actually the coil.
And when you do that, is just take a resistance measurement across them and it should be around
4 to 5 ohms, because that's typically how much resistance this is going to be inside
a coil.
So let's see what we end up with.
A little bit higher than I thought, around 6 ohms.
But that tells me that is going to be the coil.
So to test this one, this is going to be a connection point one side or the other.
And now we're going to trigger it.
from here to here.
There you go.
You're right at .6, .7 so that's basically .5.
That's telling me that it's making a good solid connection and that's what we're looking
for.
So as predicted, this is a good starter solenoid.
So what I've shown you is basically a simple test for two different relays that we're going
to represent probably 99 percent of the machines out there.
Alright guys, it's that simple.
If it's reading under an ohm, chances are it's going to be fine.
If it's reading that dreaded "OL," well then you've got more problems and you probably
need to go ahead and replace that starter solenoid.
But I do want to caution you to go ahead and reference your service manual that's dedicated
towards your machine, because I've just shown you the basics with the raw devices.
Sometimes there's a big translation when you're actually having to work on the actual machine
you need to take into account.
With that being said, if you have any questions or comments, having trouble finding which
one does fit on your machine?
Why don't you give us a call and we can direct you straight to it.
So we just want to say thanks for watching and we will see you in the next video.
Have a great day and enjoy the trail.