2016 - Volume #40, Issue #4, Page #33
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What To Do If The Solenoid On Your Mower Or Vehicle Goes Out
Keith Ford, Houston, Mo.: “Since I repair a lot of riding mowers, I have a pile of inoperative solenoids. A couple weeks ago I was looking through them carefully and noticed that most every one was of the 4-terminal type with the bottom riveted to the body. “I used my Dremel tool to carefully open and then disassembled the inside of one. The large coil inside tested good. I looked at the switch legs and saw that the solder joints were badly soldered. I decided to try to fix it and reuse it on my mower.
“I used my solder iron to gently reflow solder on the joints and then reassembled the unit. Since I had cut off the rivets I had to figure out how to close it up. I used some small nuts and bolts, drilling the holes out a bit and sealing up the base cap with silicone. I let it cure overnight and installed the repaired solenoid on my mower the next day. It worked!
“I spent maybe a dollar on silicone, solder, hardware and power, and 30 min. of my time, which I have a lot of in late winter. Those solenoids range in price from $10 to $16 plus a trip to town. If I repaired a bunch of them, it would really add up, and it would keep them out of the landfill.
“So if the solenoid on your mower or vehicle goes out, see if you can repair it. After checking 31 ‘bad’ solenoids, I only found 2 that I couldn’t fix.”
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