How to fix your starter and its solenoid
 

My starter began acting up recently; sometimes it would take a few turns of the key before it would kick on. My starter is original and I could hear the solenoid pulling but the motor not running so I figured the solenoid contacts were heavily pitted.

I pulled my 140,000 mile starter and disassembled it to check everything out and see if I could clean the contacts but unfortunately they are sealed and would thus require a new starter solenoid. I got a Borg Warner S5095 starter solenoid from my local O'reilly Auto Parts for $42. This is a bolt on replacement but the connections for the battery and the starter motor are swapped compared to the Mazda unit. I discovered this because the new solenoid didn't work when I first installed it. After troubleshooting it by checking the posts against the ignition wire I realized the connections on the new solenoid were different. To fix it you clock the new solenoid 180 degrees before putting it on the starter. The battery and starter posts will now be in the same positions they were for the Mazda unit, but the ignition wire is at the top rather than the bottom. No biggie; it all still bolts on and connects fine.

I was surprised that the starter itself looked great; the brushes were perhaps 1/4 worn. I went ahead and polished the commutator and cleaned all the parts since they get dirty from ingesting spent clutch lining. The Mazda starter looks to be a high quality unit. The brushes were not worn much at all and the bendix was perfectly fine as well. You don't even have to actually remove the starter in order to replace the solenoid but I did so anyway so I could look it at. Doing it again I wouldn't bother; I'd just slap another solenoid on. I would think it hard to believe that any of these starters actually go bad, they just need new solenoids.

good writeup, good info

Good stuff! Mine has started to need a few turns of the key when really heat soaked - ie, *click*, *click*, crank. Sure beats the "tap starter with hammer" method :).

I'm also wondering if some no-start problems can be heat soak of the harness to the starter.

Thanks,
Dale

The starter and all it's wiring are on the driver side of the motor. Nothing real hot over there. Probably the safest area in the entire engine compartment ;)

If you hear the solenoid pull but the motor doesn't run always assume the solenoid first. There is a pair of large contacts inside the solenoid that are brought together when the ignition is engaged inside the car. The starter itself has battery voltage present 100% of the time, the ignition merely closes a large switch inside the solenoid that brings these contacts together to make the starter run and throw the bendix out at the same time. The contacts have a tough job as they handle a heck of lot of current and will pit and dirty from use. This leads to a poor connection over the years and is of course worse the hotter the contacts get. On some cars you can sand or file the solenoid contacts to clean them but the FD's are completely sealed up inside the solenoid and are unaccessable.

If you replace the solenoid you'll probably notice the starter running slightly faster as well since there is not as much voltage drop through the nice new contacts.

Thanks for the leg work!! Good work

Again, awesome stuff, Damon. Interesting point about why it fails, too!

Thing that's had me thinking about heat soaking is the TSB Mazda put out about the auto tranny cars. They would have starting problems when hot, and a TSB harness was made that bypassed some of the length of the cabling - supposedly to help with heat soak. Auto trannies have the starter "backwards" right next to the motor, which is pretty dang hot. Good thing I don't have that problem :).

Man, now I'm wanting to go get me a solenoid...:).

BTW, are the posts for the large electrical connections metric on that solenoid? As in, you can use the stock nuts to bolt the connections on? Using standard stuff bugs me :).

Dale

I reused the stock nuts on mine since I liked them better than what came with the new solenoid.

Great job Damon. Got another thread to save. Maybe we should add it to the FAQ...

I forgot to point out the Borg Warner S5095 part number is for the manual transmission starter only. I'm used to thinking there is no such thing as an automatic for this car ;)

I used a borg warner (not sure if it was the same one) on mine and the different routing of the power wire caused it to eventually (3 weeks) rub through on the metal side of the solenoid. This caused the wire to catch fire and my car started going up. Thank god for my little fire extinguisher ;)

just a warning to make sure the wire is properly seated and away from any hazzards. :)

***EDIT***Double post....

Great info. My car has the same problem after running it for a while though. I don't recall it happening on a cold start. But I have an auto so I guess I need to find out the p/n for mine.

When I did a search I came up with the S5095 listed as the FC solenoid and the FD has a p/n of SS634 for M/T and SS659 for A/T.

http://www.bwdbrand.com/web_app/catalog/catalog.aspx

Damon any chance the one you got is a bit off because it is for the FC? Maybe if you look at the pics on their site you could tell us if it is the same as the one you got?

same problem here, thanks a ton. pretty scary about the fire.

Perhaps I was supplied with the wrong part; I took their word for it that this was the one I needed. As I said I did have to clock the solenoid 180 degrees to make it work correctly but figured that was just one of those things since it's an aftermarket part.

ASSuming the pics on that website are correct the SS634 part looks exactly like the stock Mazda one I removed. The S5095 part that was supplied to me by Oreilly is slightly different; the lug for the ignition wire faces to the side instead of straight back and the starter and motor posts are swapped.

It's entirely possible Oreilly gave me the wrong part. Maybe an FC expert can say for sure?

If you hold the stock FD solenoid in your hand with the ignition connection at the bottom and look from the end the battery is on the left post and the starter is on the right. The S5095 part I got does fit the FC pattern because on that one with the ignition at the bottom the starter is on the left post and the battery on the right. I fixed this by merely rotating the solenoid around 180 degrees so the ignition was now at the top and the posts were in the proper orientation. If the part numbers listed on that website are correct I did receive a solenoid for an FC rather than an FD.

I looked at the pics, and the FC solenoid definitely looks to be correct. But, I haven't had enough eye-time with the FD's starter to say for sure what's up there.

BTW, mine did the "click" on me this morning, bone cold in the garage. Methinks I'll be fooling with this sooner than later.

You do have to be VERY careful with the routing of the power wires to the starter. The main power lead is NOT FUSED and goes straight to the positive terminal. If it rubs through the insulation, many bad things can happen - fire, melted wiring, melted starter, all kinds of crap. Had that happen once in my old FC and it melted a chunk off the starter solenoid on my BRAND NEW MAZDA starter. Really pissed me off.

Dale

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y284/dubulup/Ssole.jpg

funny thing is...they didn't list a solenoid for 1995 M.T. :scratch:

I know this is an old thread but ................

First, thanks for posting this Damon!! My starter was not doing anything some of the time. I would turn the key, and nothing!! A couple of tries, and then it would turn over fine. I figured it was time for a new solenoid. I tried to find the Borg Warner part listed in this thread, but no one could get it. I called the Mazda dealer (just for grins) to see how much they wanted. They quoted me over $140. Time to make use of my Mazda Motorsports membership :). I called Wednesday. The part was about $80, and was on my doorstep Thursday.

Installation was pretty simple. After removing the undertray and looking at the starter, I didn't see a good way to access the two phillips head screws that hold the solenoid to the starter. The starter was easy enough to remove. Just two bolts. Anyway, it took about 1/2 an hour, and was on of the few jobs that Mazda didn't engineer to be difficult ;).

Once again, thanks for posting Damon!!!

SS634 Starter Solenoid is $118 through O'Reilly. I tried to source a solenoid local to me (phoenix,az) and no one carried them and really couldn't get them. It was generally cheaper to get an entirely new starter.

Wonder how much Ray Crowelicious is charging for the related parts, good writeup as always.

i had the same starting problem, sometimes in mycase it was real bad with somethign like 5-6 key turns needed. I fixed it in a similar way except i did not replace any parts, i just cleaned it up and made sure everything was lubed correctly.

Its been working perfectly for the last 3 months now.

Well, wouldn't a write-up be in order?