Thread: simple method to check 12V starter solenoids

yep, hook a big fat load up to them individually and individually activate the one wit hthe load on, measure the voltage drop across the terminals anything much over about .1v means its shot

if you cant make sense of that consider safely and adequately testing solenoids past your current auto sparky tech level and ask more questions, preferably get someone to give you a hand and demonstrate for you.

Getting it wrong can have terminal weldy battery killing vehicle fire starting consequences

Originally Posted by Blknight.aus

yep, hook a big fat load up to them individually and individually activate the one wit hthe load on, measure the voltage drop across the terminals anything much over about .1v means its shot

if you cant make sense of that consider safely and adequately testing solenoids past your current auto sparky tech level and ask more questions, preferably get someone to give you a hand and demonstrate for you.

Getting it wrong can have terminal weldy battery killing vehicle fire starting consequences

I'll do it out of vehicle with a spare battery, i googled it but nothing conclusive came up.

at your own risk.

grab a camera or label every connection, make sure you can put it all back exactly same same when you're done

each solenoid wil have 4 connection on it 2 big ones and 2 small ones.

the small ones are the solenoid wining the large ones are the wtiched ontact.

grab your multimeter, set it on ohms, check for continutiy across the small terminals and the absence of continutiy across the large ones. keep in mind that some solenoids have blocking diodes across the coil and some have sparking arrestors on the switched contacts, these will produce some different results but its unlikely to be the case with basic winching solenoides.

now stick 12v onto the small terminals and it should go clunk, a nice positive decisive action.. check the large terminals for continity now and they should come up as a full short.

Now for the dangerous bit.

de-energise the solenoid and hook up a big load, nothing less than 100w, preferably more, lots more, up to the maximum amp rating of the solenoid is good

energise the solenoid and then check for voltage drop across the large terminals of the solenoid and you're looking for less than .1v anything significanly more means the contacts on the soilenoids have gotten contaminatedd or are not making contact properly.

I decided to buy a single contactor type solenoid which came with no wiring diagram and searching the net doesnt bring anything useful.
Sticker on the side has the blade terminals as 1,2,3 L-R, then 4 F 5 R 6L and 7 R so how i equate these to a warn 3 pin controller i have no idea.

Managed some shed time so i got the new solenoid mounted in the original warn housing, found a wiring diagram for the solenoid and now connecting the warn controller wiring to the solenoid.
I have 3 wires red, blue and black and i assume red is for input power and the blue and black are the forward and reverse wires.

Nick google is your friend when i did mine i found this

And these as well

Thanks Chris, i already had a diagram for the winch to solenoid but my controller wires in the hand controller and under the cover are different.
I figured it out but also found the controller is faulty so i will just wire an in cab control.