My starter makes a clicking sound when I turn the key to start. Battery is fully charged, good ground. Does this sound like a bad solonoid or could it be the starter itself? Thanks for your help!

 

Solenoid may be energizing, producing the click, but failing to make the high amperage connection to the starter.

Starter may have bad brushes, comm bars, or ground.

Starter support/ torque/ GROUND strap may not be in place. The starter case to nosepiece connection may fail to pass electricity...

Really need to remove and examine everything in the starter/ solenoid, unless your ground/ support strap is missing, and adding it solves your problem.

 

+1, but I would add that corrosion in the battery terminals, cables, or connections is high on the list for this sort of problem, and these (at least the "near' portions of them) can be addressed before pulling the starter.

Does it click once, or does it click repeatedly, sort of like a buzzer?

- Eric

 

It only clicks once, I'll check the battery connections once again for corrosion, thanks for your help.

 

Single click increases the likelihood of a bad solenoid.

Check and clean terminals, etc., then if that doesn't do it, pull the starter, remove the solenoid, open it up, remove the disc, flip over the other way so the clean side is facing the contacts, remove the starter contact and rotate it 180° so its clean side is facing the disc, then put it all back together.

- Eric

 

The ground cable is the original with the end cut off and replaced with one of those that fasten to the end with a little bar and two bolts. I will see if I can clean it up and see what happens. Thanks for your help!

 

What does it mean if you are getting a series of clicks and barely turns over?

 

Not enough juice, usually.

Solenoid clicks on, powers up starter, which draws current from dead battery / bad connections / whatever, which steals current from solenoid, which clicks off, which shuts off power to starter, which causes violtage to go back up, which causes solenoid to click on...

- Eric

 

Spend the ten bucks and get a new ground cable, those replacement terminals that clamp on to the cable are junk and sooner or later cause problems, not to mention they are ugly....

 

X2 They will fail and look as good as new. For a test take it apart clean it up and try again, my moneys on the battery clamp....Tedd

 

I thought that NO ONE ELSE on Earth was as cheap, er, FRUGAL as I am!

 

A new solenoid will probably be Chinese crap.

The one in there is probably a quality American unit, whether OEM or aftermarket.

I'd rather stick with quality parts.

Plus, I hate to spend money.

- Eric