Series 3 New solenoid - now my charge light is on permanently

Hi - I replaced my solenoid becasue the old one was clicking.
I connected all the wires as per the old one and the Landy now starts fine.
But now the charge light is burning bright and not going out.

It seems likely that I did something wrong. As the photos (attached) show the old one didn't have two spade connectors - just one at the top. The new one does have tow spade connectors. Did something break off the old one? The first two phots are the old solenoid now out of the Landy - the other two are rather poor photos of th enewly installed solenoid.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

Is it alternator or dynamo? Did you only touch wires on the solenoid, could you have distrurbed any others? Does it have a balast resistor on the ignition?

From memory (manuals with wiring diagrams not available this evening) there's a brown or brown/yellow that goes from the solenoid to the charge light, only a thin one. Have you left it off, or has it got damaged?

Or have you put it on the wrong terminal?

The charging light is wired across ign live and either voltage reg "D" for a dynamo or the small spade on an alternator (be very careful as some have 2 small spades and they are not the same, google the images). When the ign is on the light earths through the dymano or alternator, when the engine spins up the volts balance and the light goes out. If yours stays on either the volts are not coming up - turn the headlights on and see if the get brigher once you rev up from idle, if they do its charging and the fault is the light, if they do not the light is not the fault. Follow the charging light circuit, is it earthing through the D or Alternator or has it got another earth? Are there 2 wires from the alternator, one big and one small?

Have you fixed this yet? What you might have done is fitted the wire from the alternator to the solenoid on the wrong terminal(on the solenoid) That wire should go to the 'live' side not the 'switched' side. I had exactly the same problem and I only found it 3 alternator swaps later.

wireman said:

Have you fixed this yet? What you might have done is fitted the wire from the alternator to the solenoid on the wrong terminal(on the solenoid) That wire should go to the 'live' side not the 'switched' side.

Click to expand...

thank for asking (and thanks to everybody else for helpful input). I was away this w/e so haven't been able to have a go at sorting this out. Based on Rob1miles' comment I think the dynamo is charging and that it is therefore a case of finding the wire that should go from the alternator to the dynamo and checking whether it fell off (see the bottom terminal in my photo of the old solenoid which looks like something fell off) or whether I have connected it wrong. I'm resonably confident I swapped the wires across from the old to the new in the right order and to the right place, as I disconnected them and attached them before moving on to the next terminal and before bolting the new alternator to its mount.