Solenoid clicks but my Mk3 won't kick over

arcpoint said:
I just tried connecting the two heavy wires from the solenoid and with the key and kill switch off. As soon as the wires touched the starter started turning over. If I were to keep them touching I believe the starter will run incessently. Does this mean there must be a short somewhere else? I've run a multimeter and power is definitely getting to the solenoid just not to the starter. I am going to try one more solenoid but am leery at this point.
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By joining the two heavy cables you have done what I suggested earlier in this thread. So now you know the battery and the starter are good. Before reconnecting them, take your multimeter set on resistance or the tone setting, and clip each lead to the heavy terminals on the solenoid. You should see 1 on the meter which is very high resistance. Then with the ignition on, operate the starter button and you should hear a click from the solenoid and see the restance drop to near zero and maybe hear a tone from the meter if it is equipped for that. If there is no change you have a wiring problem, or the solenoid is faulty. Next you could remove both small wires, and then take wires direct from the battery to those terminals and see if it clicks and the meter drops to zero (or close to it) if that works, you definitely have a wiring problem.
 
cliffa said:
Next you could remove both small wires, and then take wires direct from the battery to those terminals and see if it clicks and the meter drops to zero (or close to it) if that works, you definitely have a wiring problem.
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Only the white/red wire 'S' terminal operates the solenoid as the white/purple 'I' terminal is power out to the ignition circuit (ballast resistor bypass). The white/purple wire should be left disconnected if electronic ignition is fitted.
 
Okay, so a guy at the Auto parts store tested the original solenoid and it works fine so the problem seems to be between the switch and solenoid somewhere. But from what you're saying I've had the purple and white wire attached and shouldn't. Even though it worked with it attached before, is it possible that this is the problem in that I have a Boyer electronic ignition?
 
arcpoint said:
But from what you're saying I've had the purple and white wire attached and shouldn't. Even though it worked with it attached before, is it possible that this is the problem in that I have a Boyer electronic ignition?
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The white/purple wire should be disconnected at the other end (as the ballast resistor should have been disconnected if it has a Boyer ignition) so I doubt that's the problem. There should be no white/purple wires connected to the ignition coils negative terminals.
 
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