Ford starter solenoid. Im stumped.

Thread from 2017:

New one on me. No matter what i do, it doesnt work. Tried switching sides for in/out. Tried directly grounding to the cage with a length of wire. Direct hot lead from battery to switch post. Nothing. Bought another solenoid, same thing. Returned for solenoid #3. Same. What am i missing????

Got the "S" trigger and "I" ignition ballast override posts mixed up?

If the bracket is grounded, you have power at the battery terminal, and you short the S terminal to the battery terminal with a screwdriver it will trigger and put power to the starter.

BrokenYugo wrote: Got the "S" trigger and "I" ignition ballast override posts mixed up? If the bracket is grounded, you have power at the battery terminal, and you short the S terminal to the battery terminal with a screwdriver it will trigger and put power to the starter.

What he said, exactly.

I will double check tonight. Maybe im just not getting a good enough ground. Done everything else, including confirming via stamping that im using the s terminal.

All im using is the s terminal, batter lig, and starter lug. I cant think that leaving the ignition lug unconnected would cause a problem.

In reply to Dusterbd13:

It is fine to have ignition terminal disconnected.

Are you testing for 12v at the lug that goes to the starter or are you trusting the starter to be good as an indicator of the solenoid function?

In reply to patgizz:

I jumed across the solenoid completely to hear the sound of the starter to make sure it will make noise when i get it. Starter will spin the engine when solenoid is jumped with a chunk of 8 gauge wire.

If you activate the solenoid, do you hear a click or any noise coming from inside? I have a new solenoid but no Fords in my life, yours for the shipping.

Dan

No noise from any of the 3 solenoids I have tried. I can't believe that I have found three bad ones in a row. Two new, one used.

But i may take you up on the offer anyway to have a spare.

Did you buy them from Advanced Auto? I had two of theirs go bad--- when I asked the store manager, he admitted they had got a bad batch, and were changing suppliers. Perhaps you got a few of the old ones?

Ground the mounting bracket directly to the battery with a jumper. I'm thinking you don't have a good ground path through the cage to the battery. If the battery is grounded to engine and engine/drive line is rubber mounted you may not have a good ground path from cage to battery.

Just throwing this out there: Do you get 12V from the Ign. switch to the Solenoid when you crank the engine over? I had a Ign. key switch go bad that would work OK except when you tried to start the engine. That pin was dead. I just added a separate starter button to activate a relay that supplied power to the Ign. side of the solenoid.

I took the switch completely out of the equation. So we can presently eliminate that possibility

Will jumper a ground directly to the battery tonight and see what happens. Poor ground path is all i haven't completely eliminated.

If its a fox chassis after a certain year they added a solenoid to the starter but did not remove the one on the fender. A little redundant but to remove the fender solenoid would have meant more wiring changes.

Dusterbd13 wrote: I took the switch completely out of the equation. So we can presently eliminate that possibility Will jumper a ground directly to the battery tonight and see what happens. Poor ground path is all i haven't completely eliminated.

I had an old pickup that intermittently gave me a no start because of that. I'd cleaned the mount some, but not well enough apparently. Finally I saw it it throw a huge arc flash between the bracket and fender while starting. after that I ground down the fender under it to bare metal and coated bracket and fender in dielectric grease. That solved it.

In reply to akylekoz:

Its actually an amc with a chevy column, ford drivetrain, and custom wiring harness.

I did not have time to get to the shop after work to test ground. SWMBO needed me home asap.

Dusterbd13 wrote: I did not have time to get to the shop after work to test ground. SWMBO needed me home asap.

Brown chicken brown cow?

Huh?

If thats code for "get home before you are no longer a parent" then yes.

Dusterbd13 wrote: Huh? If thats code for "get home before you are no longer a parent" then yes.

Pretty sure thats code for making kids.

Ah. Yeah, i wish it was that call!!!

Would have been a lot more pleasant evening....

Brown chicken brown cow is a bedtime story alright.

My solution for the final picks for this was to run a 12 gauge wire directly from the mounting lug of the solenoid to the negative battery post. Worked flawlessly ever since.