Starter solenoid failed

Never seen this before. Rode the bike home, the next morning it was a paperweight. No electrics, nothing. Checked the fuses, battery and the R/R. All good. Pulled the starter solenoid to check the main fuse, and found the problem. The plastic of the fuse had melted off and run down into the fuse socket. The metal blades of the fuse were sticking out and the bridge wire was intact. My guess is that something went wrong with the solenoid and it heated up enough to melt the fuse body. The solenoid body and connector socket looked normal, possibly it's plastics have a higher melting point. I dug out the melted plastic with a pick, put in a new fuse and plugged it back in...nothing. I've ordered a new solenoid, should be here by Monday. Hopefully that will do it. If not I'll start the electrical test routine.

 

My 06 did the exact same thing. I has to shove a stick between the new fuse and relay body to get a good enough connection to get it started. I replace the relay with a used one from ebay, then a knockoff chinese one. I had to replace the connector as well. I checked all the usually suspects but found nothing. I'm hypothesizing that my reg/rec was on its way out and kept spiking, causing the problem, but that's just a guess. I no longer have it, and I never did figure out what was going on with it.

 

Over charging should not cause a solonoid problem because the only time the solonoid has power running through it is when you actually push the start button and at this stage the alternator is not charging. High voltage won't melt the fuse, high current running through the fuse causes heat, maybe the starter was drawing too much power

 

I would agree with you, but I can think of no other reason why mine kept failing. Mine melted while I was riding, not while starting. And it happened several times quite quickly. This is a VFR we're talking about here. There has been some strange things happen to these beasts.

 

At 1st I thought the fuse malfunctioned, but it wasn't blown. The heat had to come from the solenoid. It ran fine until I parked it. It sat overnight and was dead in the morning. I think I'll take a hacksaw to it and look inside. Will let you know...

 

Still doesn't make any sense, should be no power in the solonoid unless you have your finger on the start button. A loose connection from the battery to the solonoid would/could cause it to heat up, in particular if the battery was low and the alternator was pumping power into it

 

Well, if you pull the 30 amp fuse on the relay, the bike will die. After my fuse melted, the relay still worked,but the connections weren't exactly all there. Hence having to shove a stick in there to make the fuse connect.

 

on my 91 I had the same thing happen to the starter solenoid. I can't remember when it happened though as the bike has a bit of history being with me for 20 years. I replaced the entire harness on it and it does make a difference being a high mileage unit, it rides as well or better than the 93 I have with 19,000 miles on it. Other parts and maintenance contribute to it though.

I got stuck on my 91 when the r/r committed mechanical suicide, I think I already had the plug that goes to the starter solenoid cut off and individual connectors soldered on. Its a little hazy :hippy: I had a stator issue and maybe that when the plug that your talking about got fried? I don't remeber, I have all the connectors on my 93 crimped and soldered so there are no plugs blocking the flow of electrons My 93 right out of the gate was not charging and I got a replacement unit and everything was cool. Cheers and happy motoring.

 

Of course if you pull the 30 amp fuse it wil die it is the main fuse for all electrics, it has nothing to do with the solonoid, they are just mounted there because it is easy to make it one unit and the power from the battery is right beside it on the solonoid. My belief would be it was the fuse holder that melted first, not the solonoid, unless the cable from the battery was loose on the solonoid

 

everyone agrees that Jev has the best avatars

 

I know it's the main fuse and I didn't say it was a solenoid problem. I merely stated what mine did. You assumed that I was blaming the solenoid,which I did not. The connector there is the one that melted along with the fuse. Maybe I should have specified I did not blame the relay,but the fuse/ connector area.

 

When I get the new solenoid I'll pop it in. In the meantime I'll go ahead and solder the connectors while I have it out. Whatever caused it stayed hot long enough to pool the plastic down into the socket well. The connectors all look good and the battery was solidly connected. The fuse wasn't blown, just melted plastic. Maybe a short under the fuse like NormK said? That makes a lot of sense. Thanks all for the help. Will keep you posted.

 

You know, connectors get loose, increase resistance and subsequently increase heat. That fuse just plugs into the same type of connectors that are in the fusebox itself. Lots of folks have had their fusebox connectors get loose with age and cause problems. Possibly that is exactly and ALL that happened here - not a short (would have blown the fuse anyway). My $0.02 anyway.

I had the same sort of thing happen on my old V65 Sabre once, but not the solenoid. Ran normal, then I stopped for 10-15 minutes and went back to a total black-out - not so much as a click or a flicker. I disconnected the battery terminals which were still tight but had corrosion. I cleaned them a bit, reconnected them and she fired right up. Did a proper cleaning when I got home and never another problem. Just sayin that sometimes it doesn't take much to lose contact completely so a loosened fuse connection is probable.

Cheers,
Glenn

 

Just thinking that if the short occurred at the fuse, it would have blown the fuse. If the short occurred ahead of the fuse it wouldn't have blown the fuse. In an hour or so I'm gonna cut up the solenoid unit and see if anything is burnt inside.

 

My guess inside the solonoid will be fine, I'm convinced the problem is in the top fuse section, coil solonoid should be fine

 

Yep Normk, the socket had shorted out and arced under the fuse. That's where all the heat came from. The old solenoid was indeed fine, I put 12V to it and it gave a nice loud click and closed the circuit. I installed the replacement unit and the bike fired right up. In the next week I will fab a new battery hotwire with an inline fuse to keep this from happening again. Chinese knock-offs are only $7 on Ebay so I'll order one as an under-seat backup next to my spare R/R. The bike will stink for a while until I burn out the Sta-bil and the Marvel Mystery Oil I added to the gas tank a week ago.

 

Did the same on my CB yesterday, had no problem with the fuse but I'm chasing a misfire and with 30+ year old connectors you can't take anything for granted. Misfire starts after about 15ks once everything gets hot. I took the 2 ignition wires from the solonoid plug and put them onto the battery side of the solonoid and put an inline fuse in it. Didn't fix the problem but I have to start somewhere

 

On my Nighthawk 750 my misfire was the same...engine warms up and there it was. Turned out to be one of the plug wires.

 

Checked compression, fitted new plugs,plug wires,plug caps, fitted new coils a couple of years ago,fitted a relay to power the coils straight from the battery,over the last couple of weeks, changed the pulse generators, and tried a couple of sets of spark igniters, one set new Procoms, no change, now I'm working my way through the connectors and removing them one at a time from the loom. This I know will cause me problems later if I have to remove the motor but at this stage I don't have a lot of alternatives.

 

What a freakin' nightmare! Was going to suggest checking the spark color @ the plugs, or syncing the carbs, but you're way waaaaay past that.