hi

i have a 62 beetle with a 1300 engine. i was told it was a 6 volt but it has a 12 volt battery? the problem is i just put a new brosol carb on it and im only getting 8 volts at the cut off solenoid instead of 12, so the car wont idle. i have the solenoid wired to the hot side of the coil.

Is it on the + or 15 side of the coil?

Is it a standard coil or one with a resistor?

if your looking at the engine in the car, its on the right hand side, which has 9 volts when ignition is on, the other side has 0volts.

not sure about coil type, its silver with no name on it, maybe there is a resistor somewhere else dropping the volts for the 6 volt system?

So the coil only has 9 volts? Or just the solenoid?

If only the solenoid then remove from the carb and use a test wire direct from the battery to the solenoid terminal and touch the solenoid body to a chassis earth point. Does the solenoid pull back in properly and do you get 12v at the solenoid?

If all of this is OK then either the coil to solenoid wire is eating 3v or the carb earthing is a bit crap and the resisance this creates is eating the voltage.

If neither of the solenoid tests work correctly then the solenoid is faulty.

ok thanks

yeah i did wat you said and the solenoid worked, so i will look into the quality of the earthing. is there anywhere else in the engine bay i can get 12v from?

Depends on your year of engine. If generator with regulator mounted on genny or fanshroud then 12v output there otherwise no.

Did you say you got 12v at the coil positive? If so then the engines/gearbox earthstrap is working well so points towards earthing issue with carb. Twinport motor earth thru the centre manifold support bolt and singleport thru the cylinder heads. Try running an earth wire from the carb mounting stud to an engine case bolt. See if you get full 12v then. If so you defo have a carb earthing issue.

My guess is you have a bad conection on power feed (big red wire) often the issue is where it loops off the back of the headlight switch, or at the fuse box, or contact at or on the ignition. It's the black wire that then powers the coil so it then runs all the way back to the engine. You need to track the circuit either from the coil to the ign sw to the fuse box to the headlight switch to the battery or the battery ---- to the coil and at every junction/connection, find the voltage drop. Somewhere your loosing 4 volts, could even be the battery terminla or ground strap etc etc. There won't be/unlikely a resistor droping voltage, and there is usually little wrong with 6 volt cables, they are actually thicker than 12 V hence more capable of carrying current

Did you say you have 12v at the coil? If not then follow Matts advise. I was working off the idea that you had 12v at the coil.

9 volts at the coil, how about running the solenoid off the + on the generator?? that looses it volts when the engine isnt running.

thanks for all the different advice.

No good on gennie, that s un regulated voltage so will burn out the solinoid as it can see up to 17 volts. Fix the low voltage problem as it will only get worse and the coil will provide better spark etc etc. The bad connection could at worse burn your car down !