1980 xj650 maxim starter problems

bought the bike yesterday and rode it home completely fine, today I went to start it and it just made a clicking noise and the starter celenoid is arking when connected to the battery even if the key is off . Any ideas on what the issue could be? I’ve already tried a new celenoid but maybe that ones bad too.

 

where is is arcing ?on the out side of the part?
your solenoid contacts that conduct the voltage for the starter may be stuck/welded together. test with an ohm meter it should read open.

with key off the battery is still hot to the solenoid the coil that controls the solenoid could be shorted.

small wires should ohm out at 3.5 ohms to 4.5 ohms (corrected ohms value)

could be your starter has a short where the starter cable connects to it ,



if you disconnect the starter wire you can test the solenoid bu applying 12 volts to the small wires and doing an ohm or continuity test across the 2 large connections

 

starter relay is the solenoid

 

hook a test light or volt meter to neg on battery check for voltage on both large connectors with key off you should only have 12 volts on 1 post
r/w wire should show no voltage as well .

 

Thanks for the help! Turns out one of the wires coming from the starter switch was slightly pinched and was grounding itself out on the frame.