Re: Torsion Ride Troubleshooting

Posted by HH56 On 2012/12/17 18:48:01

If by side lugs of the solenoid you mean the two connected together by a buss bar with a red wire heading off, that is the motor power and will be present at all times as long as the inline fuse is good.

If by over ride switch you mean the on/off switch under the dash, that controls the activation circuitry and actually never connects to the solenoids directly. It gets power from the brake light switch & circuitry and is fused under the dash in 55. Anytime all 4 wheels are not carrying the weight of the car or on the ground or supported as if the car were on the ground, switch should be off.

What that switch does is cut the power to the bimetal heaters & relays in the control box which give the 7 second delay. When the car needs to level, a primary contact is made activating a heater. After the delay and thru secondary heater contacts it feeds the power on to one of a pair of relays in the control box. The relays turn on after the the delay and a set of contacts on the relays ground the solenoid center terminal thru the limit switch. That energizes the special solenoids. Once one of the solenoids energize it passes the motor power on to level the car. Turning the switch off prevents the relays from working so solenoids never energize to provide power to motor.

On 55 cars, you could bypass the control box to work the motor by shorting the limit switch terminal to ground. Sounds like you may have accidentally done that. Still can in 56 but harder due to the different limit switches.