Starter Solenoid Install Problem

[gpd955]

Just installed a new starter solenoid as part of my spring tune-up. With the help of Don Moyer, i was able to get the thing mounted and reconnected. However, I found that when I went to make the final connection--- the threaded hole that connects to the post sticking up out of the starter (how's that for technical), I found that the old screw was too short and there was no new screw to go with it.

My assistant said that there may have been a threaded spacer that he took off when he was helping me remove it but he can't be sure. (there was rum involved)

Can I just buy a larger screw and use that to connect??

Here's a picture of what I am talking about

[hellosailor]

Jack-
"the threaded hole "
The problem I've found with threaded holes is that it is hard to see them unless the lighting is just right.

Did you mean, maybe, a nut? A hexagonal piece of metal with a threaded hole in the middle of it?

Your picture is so tiny I can't be sure of what you mean, but it looks like you have circled one of the contact posts, and those are just nuts and bolts designed so the power connections can be firmly bolted on to the solenoid. It looks like there's a nut on the post (bolt) and normally the battery cable ends in a "lug" terminal. You remove the nut from the post, slide the lug terminal over the post, and then put the nut back on.

For some perverse reason we call this "bolting down" the cable, even though it is the nut we are turning.

DO BE SURE the battery positive post is disconnected before you work on any of this. If it tool arcs out a battery cable while you are working--you can literally blow a finger off from the arc, or set the boat on fire, among other ways to ruin your day.

[cardiacpaul]

go to your local auto parts store, tell them you need a "solenoid to starter lug" for a "10mt - delco" starter

if they look at you funny, print out this picture and hand it to them.

[hellosailor]

If his lug (threaded post) didn't snap off short...why would he need to replace it?

Which goes back to whether he could replace the lug bolt with a standard machined bolt. And I'm guessing, a lug bolt is copper or bronze to have lower resistance?

[cardiacpaul]

its the bolt that comes out of the back of the solonoid that goes to the starter thats the problem. delco has a little "bolt" for lack of a better term that has a female part that screws onto the solonoid, and a male part that goes thru the fitting on the starter effecivly extending the solonoid bolt
and a nut goes over the end of that. kind of like a "bolt extention" i guess. this eliminates the need for a stack full of solenoid inventory.

[hellosailor]

c.paul, you realize that somewhere out there, there are machinists who are laughing at us saying "Ah, these guys have no idea what a Whitkowski Lug Extender really is called!"

(Heck, there must be SOME proper name for it.)

[cardiacpaul]

probably is.. thats why when i go into napa, or oreillys, i point a lot (and grunt)