trouble with my starting system on my gilson

i wired up my Gilson today with a push button system that works fine, but at first it didn't want to crank. I finally got it to crank, but the battery seemed weak. I hooked up a battery charger to it, and I don't know if running the engine with the charger still on the battery caused this, but the red battery cable got warm and melted the solenoid. I put another one in which solved my weak cranking problem but then the solenoid got stuck, constantly cranking the engine. at this point, im sick of messing with these little solenoids and im getting one made for a big tractor tomorrow as they seem to work better for me. any other ideas on things I should check?

Sounds like something couldnt handle the amperage of the battery. Might need a truck solenoid or something. Also check your wiring to see if its shorting anywhere.

Kinda sounds like you had a short somewhere, something wired wrong. You could have 6 truck batteries wired in parallel, and nothing should melt. The starter draws what it requires, NOT what the battery is capable of delivering. A bad or loose connection can jack up the current draw, too.

hopefully a tractor solenoid will fix it I run one in one of my murrays and ive never had a problem out of it. ill also check the wiring though.

Update: today I found a couple of things wired incorrectly and fixed them. seemed to work fine but still didn't have enough amps to crank the motor. I usually buy the cheapest batteries possible (not anymore!) and it was only rated at like 150 cca. I took it back and got a duralast with 230 cca so hopefully that will fix the problem. other than that it runs and drives fine so ill post some pics of it and the murray.

A bad starter can draw a high amount of juice and shorten the life of the solenoid significantly (and also make it seem like the battery is weak). I'd check the starter first, then move on to replacing the burnt stuff.