no starting / manually override of the solenoid

[mhrbek]

Two months ago the troubles in starting up my engine occured for the first time, the starter and batteries were ok.

First i thought it has to do with outside temperatures, the problem occured only in the morning when the engine was cold, but during the starting attempts i noticed that no smoke was coming out of the exhaust, so i thought that no fuel gets into the engine, and so it was the solenoid valve was defect.

My mechanic changed the solenoid valve and everything was perfect (for about a month), until today.

I wanted to fire up my baby the starter goes normally and nothing my life turned black again, also i noticed no smoke.



Could there be an electrical problem which destroys the solenoid?

How can i check the solenoid?

Can i override the solenoid manually and how?



Thanks for any suggestions

 

[Cummins Corvette]

Mine did something similar. It turned out to be the relay which powers the pull-up coil in the shutoff soleniod. The soleniod has two coils in it: one high power one to pull the arm up, and a low power one to hold it up. Try truning the key to the on position, and pull up the soleniod manually. It should stick in the up position. If it does, start the truck as normal. The relay is located on the firewall right behind the pump/solenoid. There are two relays and on my truck only one of them is used/pluged in. It is the larger of the two and I got the relay at the dealer for 26 bucks (I have a wholesale account).

 

[Joseph Donnelly]

The solenoid and relay are powered by a blue fusible link wire attached to the + terminal of the driver's side battery. Battery acid can eat the terminal end of the blue wire, and also cause a bad connection from oxidation.

 

[Blakers]

mhrbek,



My 95 Ram and my cousin's 98 Ram both did the same thing several times this winter and we could not track down any trouble. It went away on its own on both trucks!



The only think I can think of that may have caused the problem was salt spray build up and the perfect humidity conditions - perhaps this was causing a bad connection somewhere? But all connectins looked nice, clean and tight.



I know problems rarely heal themselves, but this one did ON TWO TRUCKS! Strange!



Blake

:--)

 

[mhrbek]

Success, the relay of the solenoid valve was the problem, i disconnected the wires to the valve and operated the valve directly from the battery and it worked fine.

Happiliy my neighbor had exactly the same relay, i changed it instantly and everrything works fine now!



Thanks guys