VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1949-1954 starter solenoid

hi guys, i just converted to 12v on my 53 chevy 210. i just got a 12v solenoid to put on my 6v starter. my problem is the wiring the solenoid has two terminals one is the s side and the other has an r. im trying to figure out how to wire them. i have a 12v coil with an internal ballast resistor so im kind of stuck. i know where the s goes but where do i put the r lead too.

maybe the s one goes to the starter and the r one goes to the resistor, the one that was on the first Chevys with a 12 volt system,that used a six volt coil connected to the 12 V system with a dropping resistor, that allowed 12 volts to go to the coil when the starter motor was Turning the engine over, then dropped back to 6 volts while the engine was running on it's own, it worked via the solenoid and the starter switch. By the way the voltage at the coil was reduced below 12 volts when the starting motor was running and using a lot of the available storage battery current. It was an engineering thingie.
Just for curosities sake why did you change the 53 to 12 volts? did you add a 12 volt A/C?

The "R" stands for relay and does need to be hooked up to anything to be used. MRMack is correct though, if you wanted a hotter spark when starting the vehicle you can hook it to the coil. The "R" terminal is only hot when the starter is cranking. Hope this helps.
Jason

On the 12 volt systems the R terminal is for the resistor bypass so the coil will get full battery voltage during cranking.