The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Starter Problems…

Robbie,

There are a couple of different ways to wire these trucks and I don't know exactly where a '61 fits into the scheme of things.

If your bypass ignition comes through the solenoid, it should work sort of like this.

On your solenoid there are two small terminals. One should be marked S and the other marked R. The S terminal is connected to a wire from the ignition switch which pulls the solenoid in and engages the starter. When this happens, it also closes a internal contact and passes power out the R terminal to the coil side of the ballast resistor.

When the key is released to RUN, the starter disengages AND no power should flow from this R terminal. This is probably the only wire you should see on this terminal on the solenoid, and it's small.

Ideally, your ballast resistor should have two wires on the distributor side and one on the key side. The wire from R on the solenoid should terminate on the distributor or distributor side of the resistor.

The S terminal wire needs to be good and tight and not broken or frayed as this is what energizes the solenoid coil.

There are other methods that involve a key switch which is the bypass circuit, but I don't know if a '61 uses it. Check the wires and their locations and see what happens.

For some reason, bad solenoids aren't as rare as they should be.

There are other things that can make your rig not shut off with the key after it is started. They involve a alternator and how it was connected into the system. You haven't mentioned if there was work done in this area or not.

EDIT. Digging around I have found schematics that show NO ballast resistor, but instead the resistance wire. This would result in one R wire from the solenoid directly to the key side of the coil. Attached to this same point on the coil would be another wire from the ignition switch...this would be the resistance wire, which is the RUN source for the ignition.

Stuart