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Bad Starter Solenoid?

  • Thread starter Thread starter yoshisakan
  • Start date Start date
Y

yoshisakan

Guest
I just went through all my wiring and fixed some connections. Now the motor wont turn over.If I short both terminals on the solenoid, the bike will start.

The wire to the solenoid goes to the start button/engine kill switch. I have removed the clutch check cable and instead connected both ends of this yellow w/ gr wire. How can I test if the solenoid is bad? I have checked all the wiring in between a dozen times and it all checks out. I tried to connect a wire from positive battery to the yellow w gr wire coming from the solenoid and it doesn't do anything.

Please advise!
 
yoshisakan said:
How can I test if the solenoid is bad? ... I tried to connect a wire from positive battery to the yellow w gr wire coming from the solenoid and it doesn't do anything.
Click to expand...
You asked the question, then you answered it.

That is the test.
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Damn, I wonder how it went bad. While hooking it back up the ground terminal did accidentally touch the fuse cluster and sparked, but it didn't blow a fuse, so I figured it was okay. I'll go ahead and buy another one, I hope it fixes the problem.

Just to make sure I wired it correctly. One post is + going to the battery, the other post is - going to the frame. The red wire powering the fuse box goes from battery + to the fuse box. Does this sound right?
 
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I have had two motorcycle Solenoids go bad in my life. Both times, I had jumped the bike with a car battery. I know of no reason why this would happen, but it did, on two occasions. Once with a Honda CBX that had stopped charging on a trip due to bad alternator brushes, and on my 1000G that I keep in Maine.
 
Solenoids go bad. No biggy. Now if you want to get one quickly and relatively cheaply, get a lawn tractor solenoid from Lowes. Around $14 as I recall. It may be a bit bigger than stock and have slightly different wiring but will work fine. I've used them on a couple of bikes.

Let us know when it is fixed.
 
spyug said:
Solenoids go bad. No biggy. Now if you want to get one quickly and relatively cheaply, get a lawn tractor solenoid from Lowes. Around $14 as I recall. It may be a bit bigger than stock and have slightly different wiring but will work fine. I've used them on a couple of bikes.

Let us know when it is fixed.
Click to expand...

That is a really great idea. I was going to buy a used gs1100 one for $15, but a new one would clearly be better. I'll stop on my way home and see how big they are. I am trying to make all my wiring hidden since I don't use side covers. By the way, if anyone else is redoing their wiring, look into this Powerbraid stuff. It's pretty great.
 
I think you might want to check your wiring diaghram. I believe one post comes from pos. on battery and to fuse box as you said. But pretty sure other post goes to the starter, not to a ground. It grounds itself to the plate it is mounted to, or you can attach a ground wire to one of the mounting screws and then ground other end to a good ground point. terrylee
 
terrylee said:
I think you might want to check your wiring diaghram. I believe one post comes from pos. on battery and to fuse box as you said. But pretty sure other post goes to the starter, not to a ground. It grounds itself to the plate it is mounted to, or you can attach a ground wire to one of the mounting screws and then ground other end to a good ground point. terrylee
Click to expand...

I wonder if part of my problem is the grounding of the mounting plate.. The wires are connected properly, I just mistyped above. But the grounding place is not grounded I don't believe. I'll look at it when I get home.

I just bought one of these incase I burnt out the old one. http://images.lowes.com/product/converted/037049/037049926374lg.jpg
It was $13 after tax and looks to be about the same size as the stock one.
 
yoshisakan said:
I wonder if part of my problem is the grounding of the mounting plate.. The wires are connected properly, I just mistyped above. But the grounding place is not grounded I don't believe. I'll look at it when I get home.

I just bought one of these incase I burnt out the old one. http://images.lowes.com/product/converted/037049/037049926374lg.jpg
It was $13 after tax and looks to be about the same size as the stock one.
Click to expand...

solenoid grounds can be a little confusing at times. Either do a physically check or you could use an ohm meter between solenoid case and battery ground.

I generally always remove all power when wielding an ohm meter. The ohm meter wants to be the only source of power so remove the battery from the circuit.
 
posplayr said:
solenoid grounds can be a little confusing at times. Either do a physically check or you could use an ohm meter between solenoid case and battery ground.

I generally always remove all power when wielding an ohm meter. The ohm meter wants to be the only source of power so remove the battery from the circuit.
Click to expand...

My new meter took a dump. I think I may have fried it when connecting the leads to the battery terminal. It sparked, then stopped giving readouts.
 
yoshisakan said:
My new meter took a dump. I think I may have fried it when connecting the leads to the battery terminal. It sparked, then stopped giving readouts.
Click to expand...

a volt meter should not have any issue, but if in current mode or possibly set to ohms you could have problems. Check to see if there is an internal fuse that was blown.
 
posplayr said:
a volt meter should not have any issue, but if in current mode or possibly set to ohms you could have problems. Check to see if there is an internal fuse that was blown.
Click to expand...

I looked and it wasn't blown. I believe I had it in current mode. I'll use voltage from now on. But yeah, the leads show 0 ohm when shorted, which tells me it's screwed.
 
yoshisakan said:
Just to make sure I wired it correctly. One post is + going to the battery, the other post is - going to the frame. The red wire powering the fuse box goes from battery + to the fuse box. Does this sound right?
Click to expand...
Sorry, but this is NOT correct. :eek:

One of the large posts goes to the battery +.
The other large post goes to the STARTER, not the chassis.

There is a smaller, yellow/green wire that comes from the starter button (via the clutch "safety" switch).

The metal case of the solenoid is the ground. There should be a wire from one of the mounting bolts to the chassis or the battery -.

The red wire that powers only the MAIN and AUX fuses in the fuse box can come from either the battery + or the solenoid terminal that is also connected to battery +. Note that the red wire, after running through the MAIN fuse, goes on to the ignition switch, where it comes back as an orange wire to power the rest of the fuse box.


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Alright, i've got some good news and some very annoying news. Good news is that I found the problem. It was a combination of grounding the solenoid and the old solenoid being bad. The bike will now fire up. All components are working except the stator. I'm not sure how to wire the stator because it and the rectifier have been replaced and the wire colors do not match. How can I go about figuring this out?

Now the annoying news. After all of the wiring harness repair, the initial problem that sparked the repair remains... The bike is not firing on cylinders 1 and 4. I ohmed the coils before breaking the bike down and they are good.

Is the signal generator/points the problem? Where should I go from here?

At least my wiring looks top notch now..
 
yoshisakan said:
All components are working except the stator. I'm not sure how to wire the stator because it and the rectifier have been replaced and the wire colors do not match. How can I go about figuring this out?
Click to expand...
Quite easy, actually. :D

Assuming you have a stock R/R, it should have five wires. One will be red, it goes to the wiring harness to power the bike and charge the battery. A second wire will be black/white and probably have a ring terminal on it. That is your ground wire. It needs to be solidly connected to a good ground, preferrably the - terminal of the battery (you will have to extend the wire to do that). The other three wires should be connected directly to the three wires that come from the stator. Do not connect to the white/red or white/green wires that disappear into the harness, do not pass GO, do not collect $200. It does not matter which color wires get connected, as long as all three stator wires connect to all three R/R wires. It is dark inside the insulation where the electrons travel, so they can't see what color the wire is, anyway, they just run along the wire and do their job.
icon_thumbsup.gif


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yoshisakan said:
Alright, i've got some good news and some very annoying news. Good news is that I found the problem. It was a combination of grounding the solenoid and the old solenoid being bad. The bike will now fire up. All components are working except the stator. I'm not sure how to wire the stator because it and the rectifier have been replaced and the wire colors do not match. How can I go about figuring this out?

Now the annoying news. After all of the wiring harness repair, the initial problem that sparked the repair remains... The bike is not firing on cylinders 1 and 4. I ohmed the coils before breaking the bike down and they are good.

Is the signal generator/points the problem? Where should I go from here?

At least my wiring looks top notch now..
Click to expand...

Look at GS Charging Health in my signature for recommended grounding between R/R battery, frame and harness. It did not come from the factory this way but it will help charging voltage to configure the grounds this way.

As is true about the positive side of the R/R not going directly to the battery, the same is true of the negative.
 
Thanks for the stator advice, sounds easy enough. Ill just make sure no light can get into the wiring. Dont want the electrons getting confused. :)

As far as my firing problem, the bike intermittently will fire on all 4. I think that makes the ignitor the culprit rather than the points. What do you all think?

And by intermittently, I mean one in 10 starts it might fire on all 4.
 
I have a signal generator (which i thought was called points) and what I thought was an ignitor, but the manual calls a transistor unit. The bike is a 1980 gs1100 16v, if that helps.

pg11-1
http://www.mtsac.edu/~cliff/storage/gs/80-83_GS1100T-LT-EX-1000SZ-EZ-SD-ED-ESD.pdf

Does this sound like a problem that a new Dyna S Ignition would solve? There is a store about 100mi away with one in stock. I could pick it up saturday and be on the road this weekend.
 
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yoshisakan said:
I have a signal generator (which i thought was called points) and what I thought was an ignitor, but the manual calls a transistor unit. The bike is a 1980 gs1100 16v, if that helps.
Click to expand...
The signal generator(s) replace the points, sort of. They sit where the points used to, and send a signal to the ignitor, which is just a box of transistors that actually do the switching of electric current that the points used to do.

In a nutshell, the combination of signal generator and ignitor replaces the points of the older bikes.

Also, don't be confused by the term "ignitor". That box does not "ignite" anything. It's just some transistors that either allow or block current flow through the coils. Note that it is also NOT a "CDI", which was becoming popular in cars of the time.

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