Help with old motor.

[botnb]

That motor is older than I'm more familiar with but, all the solenoid does is make and break the starter circuit. If you are 100' from the starter and don't use the solenoid , you would need 1/0 wire from the key switch to the starter.( At least some crazy heavy wire.) The small wires are under very little draw at the solenoid and only "make" the solenoid a contactor. The Motor still needs a full time "hot" to the box and coils. The solenoid only keeps you from having to directly touch the battery hot to the hot terminal off the starter. If you check your ignition switch, one wire is dead on "on" and another is hot with switch "on" The wire to the solenoid that was dead on "on" will read hot with switch on start and the other "hot" will too..The one "hot" is full time feed to the motor, until the key is off, or the ground is broken with the kill switch. Maybe .... LOL

 

[botnb]

We used to wire in low voltage contactors when we did the first mechanical " smart houses " back in the 60's. The difference was they were low/line voltage rated, but gave full control to different areas of the huge house, from multiple places in the house.

 

[Skibum]

With power disconnected, if I’m thinking right, you should be able to put your MM on continuity (or ohms if no continuity setting) and put one probe on each wire coming from the ignition switch, have someone move the ignition switch to the start position and determine if their is continuity through the switch. Did you jumper the the two poles of the solenoid to determine that the starter spins, or did you jumper direct to it off the battery? If you went direct, it would be good to determine that you are getting 12v at the end of the positive cable from the battery that connects to the solenoid to insure that your positive cable is putting power to the solenoid. I’m thinking with all wires connected properly, the switch could also be tested by using a piece of scrap wire to jumper the pos ignition wire to the positive pole on the solenoid. If you jumper across the big poles on the solenoid itself, use a heavy gage wire like a jumper cable made for starting. The “kill switch” part must just be like the seat circuit on a riding mower that just somehow shorts the whole thing to ground.

 

[Dave I.]

Always amazes me what great/knowledgable/sharing and quick guys on here!! Esp Dave I. !!! KUDOS!!

Funny thing is that I have people call me from the lake quite often with problems and I have no problem talking them thru some troubleshooting steps to get them going. If it can save their vacation, I have no problem helping. It's not always about profit.

Happy to help. Call if you have any more questions.
Keep us all posted!