Starter solenoid problems

[yamahaggis88]

Having a bit of an issue with a replacement solenoid on my bike, after the original decided to give up after 20-odd years. Have bench tested the starter and its fine.

Now the shop i bought the new solenoid from matched it from the old one, but there's still an issue. The new one was ordered and delivered straight to my work, meaning i wasn't able to confirm it was the right one with someone from the shop. They both look the same, two bolt on main terminals and two smaller solder-on terminals below those, sorry for the really shit description guys but try bear with me. On the new one, there is only one wire and connector on those little solder on terminals, and the other one is blank brass, but looks like you could solder a wire to it. The other problem is i never bothered to mark the wires before removing the old solenoid as I thought it would be an take-out-and-replace job, but after hours of humming and hawing and ringing people i now cant remember which way any of the wires went, and everythings black :doh: Anyone help me fix my fuck-up before i go mental and give in to rip-off auto sparkies?

The box is marked as ''Suzuki type universal solenoid'', if that helps...

Bike is an 86 GSX-R400, too.

[glegge]

love a chalenge.

well from your description, two large terminals, and two small ones.
obviously the two large ones are, one for battery +, the other goes to starter motor.

right as for the other two.

to make the solonoid 'pull in' or energise (or 'click') the coil needs flowing through it to pull the contacts together.

for this, it needs battery put accross it.
so, this could be what the last two smaller terminals are for.

so you can try just putting battery accross them, and see if the solonoid clicks.
if it does not click in, then try putting the battery neg on the casing of the solonoid (assuming it's a metal casing) and then touch battery positive on each of the small terminals in turn, one of them will most likley make the solonoid 'click' and operate.

if it does, you have found what you need.

the only thing left, depending on what you found above, is that possibly the terminal left over (assuming you used the case as battery neg in test above and it worked), the other small terminal, may have 12volts on it only when the solonoid is activated. sometimes this is used as a 'boost' when starting (mostly in cars i think).

otherwise, the case will be where you got the solonoid to activate by using both small terminals, one on battery neg and one on battery pos.

i hope this is not too confusing!
best of luck.
cheers
Gavin