Starter solenoids keep going bad 85 115 Evinrude

[jason727]

I have a 1985 115hp Evinrude and I keep having to replace starter solinoids. It just went out today and this will be the third time in a year and a half that I have had to replace it. Any ideas why they keep burning up? They are definitely bad, I have tried touching 12v power to the switch side and it will not activate. I had to bypass it by jumping the power wire to the starter while someone held the key on to get home today.

 

[64osby]

Re: Starter solenoids keep going bad 85 115 Evinrude

No real expert, my guess - electronics typically don't like high voltage or low voltage, could be spikes or a drain, maybe high temps?

Have you tried to verify the voltage and amps when in use?

 

[glenn property of pam]

Re: Starter solenoids keep going bad 85 115 Evinrude

put a volt meter on the solionid coil wire and see if theres a small amount of voltage when the key is off/on or running it could be that a problem is allowing low voltage to the solinoid coil thats not enoght to pull it in but will cook it over a long period of time. check the ground wire is clean and tight on both ends. check that the starter bendix is not getting stuck in the bendix when the motor is running. If you are buying solinoids from the same place then i would surgest also going to a diffrent seller as its not uncommon if theres a bad batch that one supplier has most of them and use a quality solinoid not some cheap autoparts store brand

 

[jason727]

Re: Starter solenoids keep going bad 85 115 Evinrude

Thank you guys for the replies. Last time I bought the factory replacement part from an Evinrude dealer. This time I bought the Sierra replacement part due to the major price difference if I am going to have to keep replacing them. I'll break out the volt meter this weekend and see what I can find. I'll post my results here.

 

[Crosbyman]

Re: Starter solenoids keep going bad 85 115 Evinrude

not much in selenoids...
in--->out +12v forthe starter circuit and one electro-magnet coil ( +12v "start" from the key to the magnet coil over to ground) to pull the contact closed & feed the "IN +12v" to the starter via the OUT +12v

what exactly is "burning up?" You indicate it won't "click" and start the starter spinning so the maganet coil circuitry must be going "open" somewhere
You must validate this with an ohmeter by finding the magnet coil to be open .....resitance wise

Aside from a bad batch of selenoids which is unlikely since you went different routes to purchase them it is more likely you have poor grounding or an intermittent start key contact to feed +12v back to the selenoid.
Do you see +12v on the "coil" wire post when you turn to START and the starter does not spin ?
if not….. key +12 or "start" wire is bad.
If you do see +12v everytime and the magnet does not pull-in retest for open coil or bad grounding.

if wires, key &coil winding are all OK then something is killing the selenoids coils.

That can pretty well be only one thing.... heat. Does the selenoid feel abnormally hot all the time ? (excluding normal engine induced heat of course)

Heat induced from stray current making it's way to the coil while to weak to cause a pull-up could generate internal heat & (theoreticaly) burn up the coil.

Measure the selenoid coil's "start post" voltage with the engine running... you should have 0 volts,
if you do see voltage....find the source of it ! (you can always hook-up an amp meter in series with the coil circuit to measure coil winding current flow. You should have 0 current while not in the ? start ? key position.
If you see current flow in the start winding….find the source of it

Good luck