Re: Mike's 53 Caribbean

Posted by Tobs On 2024/9/26 9:46:59

Making some progress...I removed the solenoid and gave it a little clean and wire brush treatment. At rest, there is continuity between terminal 4 and the case, this must be the windings of the coil of the solenoid. that's good. Terminal 6 to ground is open when the solenoid is at rest. That is also good. I used the 6V car battery, and some jumper cables to apply positive to the ground and negative to terminal 4, and the shaft gets about 1/4 or 1/3 inch shorter. I guess that is also correct. When voltage is applied to the solenoid, I still have no connection to ground from terminal 6. If I push the shaft into the slenoid about ~1/2 inch or so, then I get the ground continuity to terminal 6 of the solenoid.

Is the actuation of the solenoid only supposed to be 1/4 inch? is there a spec on the travel of the shaft? It seems like the solenoid pulls enough to engange the OD, but not far enough to engange the second set of contacts.
I used jumper cables from the battery to the solenoid, so there should be enough current getting to the winding. I double checked that the wire going from the kickdown switch goes to the side of the coil that the points are connected to. That is also right.

Next step open up the solenoid and bend things so that the ground points close earlier? Or somehow get the solenoid to pull ~1/2 inch?
(thanks Ross for the help and description of how this works)

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Edit: I was doing something wrong before...I re -connected things, with some better wiring, and was able to get the solenoid shaft to extend with a nice snap about 3/4 inch or so. However, with my meter attached to pin 6 and ground, I got no beep. -so no continuity. I guess I need to take the lid off of the solenoid.