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Martin

starter generator solenoid install

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Martin

since i posted pics of my 1057 with a solenoid for the starter generator, ive had a few inquiries about wiring diagrams and such to do this. well my 1277 without a solenoid became a candidate today because of many wiring issues and a burnt out switch. so i thought i would post a rundown on the install.

the 1277 hasnt got much love since i got it xmas time, it gets moved around and thats about it. it had a few issues with wiring when i got it, but just havent had a chance to fix them and spend some time making it safe. well yesterday i went to move it and it was putting up a fight, wouldnt turn over very fast and started smoking from behind the dash. so i got the battery disconnected and left it alone until this morning.

first of all i got the old wiring and switch out of there and got a few parts together to start on this.

heres a few pics of what it looked like. cut wiring, bad connections and a bad switch. i already had disconnected the switch wiring before the pics....

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better switch will be used to replace the burnt smoky one......

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picked up some battery lug and ring crimp terminals for the 14 ga. wiring that i was going to replace.

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heres the solenoid i used. regular ford unit, around $7 from the local farm and fleet...

first thing is to prepare the solenoid and work out where to mount it. i chose the same spot as my 1057, in behind the lift handle on the inside of the hood stand. one of the quadrant bolts is removed and replaced with a longer bolt so the solenoid can mount to it and a nut and star washer is used to fix the solenoid.. i needed to open up one of the holes on the solenoid bracket for the bolt to pass through, one fixing seems to hold it well enough. theres no moving around once the nut is tightened.....

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i didnt get a pic of the solenoid mounted up on the 1277, but heres the one from the 1057. same thing just ones a little cleaner.... :)

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then i moved on to making the battery cables. the battery in this is not the original style, that was a round post. im using this smaller different L/G post style battery and so the cables will be made to suit. i made the cables long enough so i could install either a left or right + handed battery. this tractor will be used with whatever battery is spare for a while, so i wanted to be able to use both orientations.

now for this we need some 6 ga. cable and some wiring lugs. i used the crimp style with crimping pliers in a vise. ive made quite a few cables this way and it seems to hold the cable nice in the lugs. i worked on the bat+ to solenoid cable first. on a length of cable i put a lug on one end for the solenoid terminal post. i used the 'top' post for the battery feed and 'bottom' for the feed to the starter. you could do it either way as the solenoid doesnt care which one has the battery voltage.

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then measure the length for the cable and crimp the lug for that end.

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then i moved on to the cable that goes from the other solenoid post to the starter terminal..

and then made the neg side from the battery to the engine ground.

heres the three cables done. used heatshrink on the terminals to protect the connection from the weather.

IMG_0489.jpg

now we move onto the 14 ga. wiring for the starter signal to the solenoid. since i was replacing the wiring that was bad, i also cut wire for the regulator bat circuit and cig lighter as well.

these 4 wires were rough cut to 16 inches long. so we have 2 @ 14ga. red (for starter signal from solenoid BAT cable terminal to switch BAT+, and switch START terminal to solenoid S terminal.) 1@14ga. green (for ignition BAT+ to regulator BAT+) 1@14ga. black (for power from regulator L terminal to cig lighter)

pic only shows 3 wires, just imagine theres a black one as well.... :thumbs:

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now use ring crimp terminals to terminate the wiring at the solenoid.

crimping wire terminals......

first remove the outer cover.....

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then crimp using suitable pliers, i really like this style as it curls the tabs into the wire, rather than squashing them.....

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then when you are done make sure to heat shrink the ends......

both the red wires run to the solenoid. one wire will have a larger ring terminal to suit the larger bat post. the other will use a terminal to suit the S terminal on the solenoid. the wire that has the smaller terminal ( for the S terminal) mark the other end of it with a sharpie so we know this is for the S terminal.

fix these two wires to the solenoid.

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now terminate one end of the green wire and one end of the black wire and fix to the regulator....

black to the L terminal, green to the BAT+ terminal.

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snake all 4 wires up through the grommet in the lower part of the dash and route over towards ignition switch area...

the upper wire with the ring terminal is the wire to the coil + this was already in position. if you need to make a coil wire as well make sure to add this in so all wiring can be terminated and routed together neatly. i ended up cutting this terminal off and redoing it as the length wasnt right.

cut a small piece of heatshrink tubing and place over all the wiring. once you have all the wires going to the switch neat and allowed enough room for the black lighter wire shrink the tubing to keep it in place so the lengths can be determined at the switch without individual wires moving. sometimes i will use zip ties for the same purpose. identify the red wire without the sharpie mark and the green and work out the length to cut to terminate at the BAT+ terminal of the switch. i used a 12ga. terminal for these two wires and crimped them together.

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now terminate the red wire with the sharpie mark to the START terminal and the coil + wire to the IGN terminal. also work out the correct length for the lighter wire and terminate. all these crimp terminals get heat shrink tubing over them.

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now i remove the wiring and making sure not to pull at it slowly snake it out from the dash and grommet and heat shrink the wiring into groups. the red wires going to the solenoid together, the green and black going to the regulator together and finally place larger heatshrink over the wires to the switch so that the lower end of the tubing covers the ends of the first two groupings of wire. make sure to do any crimp terminals with the tubing as well.

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now snake it all back into position and fix it all in place at the correct terminals....

at the regulator......

black to the L terminal, green to the BAT+ terminal.

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at the solenoid red with the large ring to the bat terminal that also has the cable from the battery + attached. red with the small ring to the S terminal on the solenoid.

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red and green terminated together to the BAT terminal of the switch.

red from the coil+ to the IGN terminal ( this also takes one wire from the gen warning light)

red with the sharpie mark to the START terminal (this takes the other wire from the gen warning light)

black to the cig lighter.

IMG_0499.jpg

finish connecting the battery cables...

one from the bat + to the large solenoid bat post (same terminal as one of the red wires)

one from the other large solenoid bat post to the starter terminal.

one from the battery - to ground on engine and/or other suitable place.

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just want to mention that two different batteries were used through this process. they had different post orientations. the first one has the + closest to the belt guard, the second has the + closer to the opposite side.

hope this is easy enough to understand, not a real difficult job to do, just make sure your connections are good and you pay attention to where wires are meant to go. i used the colors off a factory wiring diagram, and used red for the solenoid signal which obviously wasnt on the factory non solenoid wiring.

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bowtiebutler956

Thanks Martin, thats a very informative post. Much appreciated! :thumbs:

Matt :flags-texas:

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AMC RULES

:text-coolphotos: Very nicely done Martin. :thumbs:

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Trouty56

Good post.....I may try this....

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dclarke

Thanks Martin. :thumbs:

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Martin

thanks for the comments guys.

i think we need more of this sort of stuff to help those willing to tackle these jobs themselves.

im more than happy to put my ideas out there. they may not be everyones way of doing things, though.

im mostly self taught on a lot of this stuff, but i do a bunch of research on how others do things too, and mostly draw on that when tackling different projects for the first time.

sometimes you already know what you want to achieve, and you know the basics, just need a little push to make a start on it.

this is my second attempt at the solenoid install, definitely easier when youve done it and learnt from the first time. most of my wiring experience has been from years of fixing and doing wiring on my cars and a complete wire of my brothers harley etc. i only have basic tools for wiring at the moment. would like to get my crimping tool that was left home when i moved here 12 years ago. i got a real nice tool for doing those small factory harley ones. a lot of the auto manufacturers used the same ones. really nice connections everytime.

these 60s tractors are very basic and are a walk in the park as far as wiring goes.....

i must thank sorekiwi and soi for ideas on this one.

and experience is good, but you dont get any without getting in there and doing it.

and i welcome the comments, good or bad, as long as the bad stays constructive, that is...... :thumbs:

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Martin

alright, i found a boo boo with the wiring of the gen light.

first of all, i will try to explain the theory behind the light and why it does what it does. When you switch on the ignition, you get 12 volts to the gen light from one of the wires connected to the switch ign pole, and the other wire connected to the starter (generator) acts as a ground, so the bulb lights up.

When you start the engine and its running, the generator gives out 12 volts and cancels out the 12 volts from the ignition switch that is lighting the bulb, so the bulb is now getting 12 volts from either side, (no ground) and goes out. if there is a situation where voltage coming back from the generator is very low or non existent, then the gen light will be lit in some capacity.....

now comes the boo boo......

one side of the light is wired to the switch ign pole (ok) and the other is wired to the switch start pole (should be right), except this start pole wire is now a signal for the solenoid to jump the battery terminals and supply power to the starter.

when the key is turned on we get 12 volts to the light from the ignition side and the other is grounded so the gen light is lit (good so far......) but when the engine starts and the generator is charging, theres no way for 12 volts to get back to the light from the other side as the heavy wire from the starter to the solenoid is now disconnected so the start function isnt operating.

the other end of the gen light needs to connect to the solenoid battery pole that is connected to the starter. that way when the engine starts and the generator is charging (hopefully) the light is getting two sources of 12 volts and the light goes out.....

as ive wired my 1057 this way as well, i have 2 tractors to get right....

these pics are a mix from the 1057 and 1277 and what i did to remedy this mistake, i wanted to edit my original post with this info but im not able to do that anymore.

first pic ive disconnected the gen light wire that was connected to the start pole on the ignition switch. to this end i extended the wire by about 6 inches to make sure it will reach down to the large solenoid terminal that connects to the starter.

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heres a better view of the extended wire

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fed the wire through the dash and down to the solenoid. put the dash back together and you can see where the bulb holder for the gen light is, there is one wire going to the ignition pole of the switch and one wire is heading down towards the solenoid..

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this wire heading down to the solenoid needs to be connected to the large terminal that feeds the starter....

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im sorry if the original post showing the WRONG way to wire the light screwed anybody around.....

im just surprised that some of you electrical guys didnt find it.......

well, maybe nobody is reading this stuff anyway.... :confusion-scratchheadblue: :ychain:

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Trouty56

Honestly...I didn't know how the light operated...now I do...thanks again Martin... :)

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bowtiebutler956

Great info, as always Martin. :thumbs:

Matt :flags-texas:

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Martin

even better when its correct.......

couldnt work out why the light just stayed on, even after i got the thing charging. then i started tracing the circuit and found one end wasnt going where its supposed to. dont know why i missed it. by installing the solenoid i 'broke' the circuit to the starter...... :angry-banghead:

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KC9KAS

Very nice "How to" post.

I like the way you crimp the terminals to the wires....I am often times called "Over-kill Ken"..because I would have crimped & soldered the terminals!

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Callen

The wire from the selenoid to the starter is hot when the engine is running?

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Martin

well, yes it is. but its power is coming from the generator part of the starter/generator (not to be confused with a starter with start only), and not the battery. its this voltage coming from the generator that controls whether the light is off or, in case of very low or no output, on in some degree of brightness.

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Callen

Great post. I didn't realize that it would be hot after it did it's job of starting.

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