Bad solenoid or bad starter?

striper522

My apologies for not providing the model but for the life of me, I can not locate the S/N on my Yamaha cart. I have read through the applicable stickies above and while extremely informative, I'm still stuck.

I am unable to get the starter to work. As indicated, I started with cleaning the battery posts and then started chasing down the power. I had power to the keyswitch and leaving the key switch. I had it down to the gas pedal switch and leaving the switch. I had power at the solenoid coming from the gas pedal switch. I had power from the battery to the solenoid. The gas pedal switch was working because I had power when pressed and none when released. The problem is I have no power coming out of the terminal that goes to the starter. I have since replaced the solenoid and I have the exact same issue. No power going to the starter. The odd thing is that while I can clearly tell that power is being sent from the gas pedal switch to the solenoid, I do not hear the solenoid clicking. I tried to jump the power from the terminal from the batter on the solenoid, directly to the terminal that goes to the starter and while it did spark slightly, it did not turn the starter at all.

If the starter was bad, would it not "accept" power from the solenoid? I know that is not how it works, but that is what it seems like. Everything appears to be operational except that power is not leaving the solenoid and going to the starter. Any insight someone may be able to offer would be greatly appreciated!

BGW

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meimk

Just a little clarification here: The starter solenoid is part of two separate circuits. The smaller wires are in the circuit with the ignition key switch & stop (pedal) switch. The solenoid is an electronic switch. With the ignition key switch turned on and the pedal pressed there should be battery + power to one of those small terminals. The other small terminal should go on to ground to complete that circuit. When that all happens the solenoid should "click" and flip the switch on for the circuit through the larger terminals - battery + to solenoid the on to the starter, ending with a ground connection from the starter/generator to chassis ground. All those connections have to be clean, solid & tight. Battery also needs to be something close to 12.6 volts at rest. Remember the ground(-) connections are just as important as the (+) connections.

sho305

And yamaha likes to wire all the grounds just like hot wires. So you have to check all the grounds. If you see 12v on the ground of the solenoid when you power it up that means it has no ground....tested to battery ground post.

Solenoid will click then you know its working, if no start then check big cables then check starter.

They are not like a car where ground goes to body or frame, they use wires for grounds. When they get old wire connection problems are common.

striper522

meimk....Thank you for taking the time to reply!....I should have been a little more descriptive. When the gas pedal is depressed, I have power on the smaller terminal. I also have power on the larger terminal that comes directly from the battery. Its interesting to note though that I only have about 9.6 volts when testing at the battery and through the whole circuit up to the solenoid. Could this be the reason? I would think that I would still get a click from the solenoid even if it was not a full 12v?

sho305....I will run though the negative side of things to see if there any ground issues. Thank you for explaining the grounding a bit more, I was unaware of that.

cgtech

We have to figure out that voltage drop. Check on the lead post, and check on the lead terminal around the lead post. Then check at the he solenoid terminal. If the voltage drop is present on the actual battery posts themselves, it would indicate a very weak battery, if not, it's a bad connection in the terminal or cable.

meimk

[QUOTE=striper522;1420097]meimk....Thank you for taking the time to reply!....I should have been a little more descriptive. When the gas pedal is depressed, I have power on the smaller terminal. I also have power on the larger terminal that comes directly from the battery. Its interesting to note though that I only have about 9.6 volts when testing at the battery and through the whole circuit up to the solenoid. Could this be the reason? I would think that I would still get a click from the solenoid even if it was not a full 12v?

Are you saying that the battery is showing only 9.6 at rest? If that's the case then that is your first problem. Need to have closer to 11 volts to even make the solenoid click, needs to be over 12 (again at rest) to make the starter turn the engine over.

striper522

Foremost, thank you for all of the replies indicating that the voltage needs to be higher. Chasing down bad grounds and such is frustrating to say the least. So I ended up throwing a set of jumper cable on it from my truck in the hopes that I could get enough power and it started right up. I ran it pretty much WOT for about ten minutes and then tried to start it backup after sitting for a few seconds and it started right back up. I then tried to start it about an hour later and nothing? Right back to the 9.6 volts. So I now assume it is a charging issue. It seems as though there are multiple posts on charging problems so I'll do a bit more research on it. Thanks again for everyone's help!

Spicyunicorn

Are you sure it's not just a bad battery?