Newer-style starter solenoid bypass

So the newer starters- mid-90's and up- have an internal solenoid & relay that takes a low-amp current coming off the standard starting relay and handles the high current relay switching action itself. As in the starter has constant + from the battery at all times and takes a switched feed from another relay to kick off its own relay. Naturally we all know this, CCF 101.

The question is that if this built-in relay on the actual starter were to go bad, could you just bypass it by moving the high-amp switching action to the downstream separate starting solenoid, just like they used to work for ages? The starter has two poles with 9/16 nuts on it, I'm assuming the second/lower pole is where the switched high amp feed would go but without an internal diagram of the starter I didn't want to risk trying it.

I'm thinking the same thing. It does control the engagement/telescoping of the pinion gear (when I tried to take it apart sure enough the gear moved counter to the solenoid moving out of the housing) so by bypassing it I'd most likely just get a spinning pinion gear doing nothing.

Billy is on fire. Sadly they don't make the original big body starters anymore. Luckily I have two that function.

I got em if you so desire.

Those would be the last of the last. The current manufacturers are selling the stock they have left over and moving towards the solenoid on starter style production.

Whoever the manufacturer was quit making the internal armature parts.

Keep in mind moving to the newer style starter is actually a "kit."

Not a big deal, but the kit supplies some heavy gauge wire going from the constant hot big post of the old solenoid to the constant hot post on the newer starter.

Then you run lighter gauge wire (or I guess you could keep it heavy if you want it wouldn't hurt anything) from the switched Big Post on the Old Solenoid to the switched post on the new starter.

As Joel mentioned above, with the newer style, the old solenoid is just switching the current that switches the other switch. In the older style, the old solenoid is switching the current that activates the starter.

Buying it in kit form supplies the correct wiring and instructions. Of course, for Joel, the newer style is OEM, so he just needs the starter itself, not the extra wiring piece.

Hi Mark,

Someone familiar with the Big Block setup will have to weigh in on that one. That could have been the standard set-up on yours.

That's generally accepted. Gear reduction starters spin the engine easier and most times faster. Popular in performance world when working with much higher compression ratios and timing advance.