I guess I should have said that I'm a very cautious tedius person when
it comes to taking things appart. The problem with my solenoid was
that due to wear that large collar was not making contact inside. I
was very careful about drilling out those rivets and then when I put it
back together I sealed it up with RTV to make sure that it was
waterproof again. Bear in mind I was actually able to take appart and
repair the defective power lock motors in my suburban. I didn't really
intend to do that but my curiousity about "what the heck is failing"
paid off. But you do have to be pretty anal to fix things like that.

Good news is that I suspect that those solenoids are pretty cheap. The
other obvious test is just to take a car jumper cable and jumper around
that solenoid and if everything else is ok the starter should fire
right up.

Keep going. Worst case you will just damage something else but you
will have learned a lot and saved yourself from watching TV.

Good luck

Don


wrote:
For your safety and for the safety of your loved ones along with innocent
bystanders, buy the OEM solenoid from a Johnson-Evinrude dealer. Your
starter solenoid is mounted in an environment with gas fumes around it, and
the factory unit is designed for marine use and for containing any spark to
avoid "blowing up" the motor should the gasoline fumes reach a critical
concentration.

Automotive or "universal" solenoids may look similar but are not wired the
same internally as yours, besides being unsafe for marine applications.

Bill Grannis
service manager

Well I get the "money down the drain award." I ripped out the POWER
TRIM solenoid located under the transom inside electrical box, (not the
starter relay/solenoid) broke off the back of the Trim solenoid as in
thinking this was the STARTER solenoid to fix.

Now I'm picking up now two new solenoids to fix this cold hard start
issue. I now understand that the 'starter solenoid' is mounted next to
the starter motor on the motor. Thank Bill very good advice. Taking out
the Trim solenoid I did touch something to ground and there was a huge
blue spark - no fumes or fire but could've been serious if there were
fumes or gas floatin around in the back under the transom.