OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums General Discussion Forum Power Equipment...Mishaps and Funny Stuff Rebirthing a Honda 12 volt solenoid

An electrician brought in a generator for possible repair, found abandoned at a rural property, an old Dunlight with a Honda 11 HP GX340 motor. It had been converted to run on LPG - very crudely - just a regulator with a tube going through a hole in the air filter cover. The inside of the cover and the air filter had been fried so there had been flames in there.

Got it running on petrol after removing all the LPG plumbing but the solenoid for the 12 volt electric starter was not working, just making a clicking sound, had to use the recoil rope pull start. Couldn't get any power out of the 240 volt plugs. The electrician later found the problem was a burnt out capacitor and when that was replaced all was good.

Went to closest Honda dealer with the kaput solenoid and fell over when a new genuine Honda solenoid was quoted at AUD 200 !

A generic 12 volt solenoid is around AUD 40 but couldn't find one with a suitable mounting plate which would fit nicely into the tight mounting position so thought maybe I could repair the original.

The metal outer was crimped around the hard plastic guts and with a filed down sharp hardened nail I was able to slowly uncrimp the metal outer and found the insides looked OK. Couldn't see the internal contacts but with a bent pick scraped around in the contact region and put things together. Lo and behold it is now working perfectly and the generator starts with a turn of the key.

200 bucks for a solenoid is a bit steep I reckon.

Interestingly when I gave back the generator the electrician said he had never tried to repair a solenoid.

Well done MM I too have never bothered pulling a solenoid apart I have always just replaced with a cheap (under $20) motorcycle solenoid they are usually nice and small

In their design wisdom Honda had the solenoid tucked tightly down into a semi-circular chasm and the mounting plate is a boomerang or handlebar moustache shape. Yes, the actual solenoid was pretty much identical to any of the many I was offered at the mower shop and auto spares, or online, but none of their plates were shaped right, and yes, one could be mounted somewhere else but then the thicker two cables with lugs and the thinner wire would have to be cut and extended, a nuisance of a job and would have looked a bit messy.

Besides, it was interesting to see how a solenoid actually works, it is different to what I thought.

Yes I conside Honda a bastard of a manufacturer, sure the can build good motors but it is the dumbness of thing they do to bolt on components to their motors, just dumb stuff I hate working on their equipment