Starter Solonoid

[PVEqualsrt]

I have a 3 cylinder gas 2000 with a 4 post starter, and my battery slowly drains. First time I went in to diagnose it I notice that sometimes the fourth post (the ignition resister bypass) remained hot even when the tractor was off, and the coil was very hot. So I went and got a new solonoid, but now I see the fourth post in the new solonoid is occasionally live when the ignition is odd as well. Am I missing something? i thought that the fourth post was only supposed to be on when you were cranking.

 

[old]

Sounds like you may have a bad ignition switch

 

[Bob]

With the ignition switch "ON", the starting bypass terminal on the solenoid will be backfed from the ignition switch, through the ballast resistor.

 

[RickB]

Disconnect the feed wire from the key switch to the solenoid and check for power at the wire end with the key off. This will indicate a bad key switch or other short in the circuit. While that wire is disconnected, check the fourth post on the solenoid and see if it is powered. If it is, disconnect its wire and see whether the power is coming from the coil connection or the solenoid itself. Don't discount the possibility of the new solenoid being junk right out of the box. There are 1500 junk distributor rotors in the parts stream of two major retailers, and nobody is doing anything about it.

 

[PVEqualsrt]

Thanks, I"ll try that out tomorrow.

 

[PVEqualsrt]

Ignition switch checks out fine. The fourth post doesn't always read a charge, but sometimes after turning the tractor off it does even if the wire from the coil is disconnected. At these times the 3rd post (from the ignition) reads 0 as does the wire to the coil (once disconnected). Maybe the old ad the new solenoid are bad...