24V Series3 Lightweight starter solenoid

Ignition barrel is the same (or at least it was on mine).

Solenoid is different, but I put a 12v one on mine and it lasted the two years I had the car.

On or around Wed, 14 Apr 2004 23:05:01 +0100, Simon Atkinson enlightened us thusly:

I presume you could put a sod-off ballast resistor in series, to drop the voltage across the solenoid.

Say you used a 12V solenoid on the 24V landy.

Will an increase from 12V to 24V make that difference to the operation of the soleniod?. An increase in current might kill it, but changing the voltage shouldnt make any difference should it?

In news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Richard Adcock wrote: | Does anybody know if the starter solenoid for a | 1974 24V series3 lightweight is the same as | a 12V version? | if not where could I get one? | same question for the ignition barrel? | | thanks | richard

Can't help you with the ignition barrel, but when the starter solenoid died on my 24V 109" I just went to my local Lucas dealer and got a new one off the shelf.

Can't remember the price, but it was not that bad.

Don't see why it should be different on a Lightweight - mine was separate to the starter itself and mounted on the bulkhead at the back of the engine bay.

Mark

Twice the voltage through the coil will push through twice the current, doubling the strength of the electromagnet, and making a good solid fast contact. The current drawn by the starter is possibly less -- similar power, more volts, fewer amps -- so the contacts should last longer.

You will get more heat dumped in the coil, but as long as the engine starts easily things should be OK. It's the long and futile cranking that lets the magic smoke out of the electrics.

On or around Thu, 15 Apr 2004 17:24:04 +0100, Tom Woods enlightened us thusly:

Doubling the voltage will induce double the current in the coil, resulting in 4x the heat. This might break it. In fact, you could use a second identical 12V solenoid as a ballast, but you'd need to make sure it didn;t earth through the casing, which many of them do.

the lightweights' on the bulkhead as well, it made load of sparks and stuff when I bypassed it direct to the starter :) I think I'll give Lucas a call in the morning

ta richard

As a real cheat use a 12V solenoid, buy a push button and wire the push button between the centre of the two batteries and the solenoid activation terminal, the solenoid will be activated by the 12V and transfer 24V to the starter motor.