About a year ago my fuel shutoff solenoid began to go wacky on me.
I posted about it here, and got lots of good ideas. I implemented some of them, and the problem did improve but never went away. Briefly, if the engine was warmed up, the solenoid would not stay up upon starting. I'd turn the key and the engine would start, and then when I'd let go of the key, the engine would die because the solenoid wouldn't stay up. If the engine was cold, it started every time--it only failed to start once it was warm. If I pulled it up manually, with the key on, it stayed up every time.

So the darn thing just p****d me off once too many times.

I went to NAPA and got a heavy duty pull cable that's capable of being locked by turning it a half turn (although I've never had to lock it to keep it from moving).

I fabricated a bracket that I bolted to the fuel shutoff lever with the normal metric bolts. I used a 1/4 inch bolt in the end of the bracket, and drilled it for the wire to pass through, and I made sure in drilling it that I cut a shallow groove into one of the nuts for the wire to press against.



Here's the bracket bolted in place. Notice I had to cut out some of the original shutoff solenoid bracket for the lever to clear. And I used one of the solenoid mounting holes for the hold down to secure the cable. I did this upgrade while I was replacing the master cylinder and booster.


Then I used a really long bit and drilled a 1/4" hole through the knee bolster and through the firewall, and ran the cable. I fabricated a bracket for the cable handle and hooked everything up. Works like a charm!

I've put about 3,000 miles on my truck since this upgrade and haven't had a single problem. I've run 300-400 miles at a time and the handle never moves. It's never lost prime and has been completely trouble free.

I push the handle to start the engine, and pull it to kill. It's never moved on it's own at all, and I gave up locking it after the first few days. It is a very easy pull and push. Handle travel is about 3-4 inches.

Run:


Kill:

 

Best part... total cost was less than $15.

By the way, this all came about because I decided to flush the brake fluid. I started to flush the old fluid, and then remembered that I'd been wanting to replace the brake booster for awhile, so I went to NAPA and got a rebuilt one. Then after I put it on, I thought I'd better replace the master cylinder too, since truck has almost 300,000 on it, and it could probably use a new m.c. Then I had to wait a day for the new m.c. to come in and I thought, why not do the manual fuel shut off while that m.c. is out of the engine compartment? So I did. Afterwards I finally did flush the brake fluid.

 

Thanks for the write up - I like it.

 

I love it this way. The truck also starts up faster--just hit the starter and it jumps to life--it doesn't have to wait for the solenoid to open up. I wish I'd done it years ago.

 

This setup looks pretty good. My pull cable is cheap and makes annoying noises, I need to redo it.

 

A way I've seen folks do the cable lately that makes it simpler is to remove the plunger from your solenoid, drill a hole in the top for the cable to pass though.
Hook it up like the old solenoid was hooked.
The cable needs to be the type that's threaded on the end with two nuts to fix it to the old solenoid top.

 

Andy, if I put pressure on the handle while driving it will transmit engine noise. One thing I did while installing this, was I pulled the cable all the way out and greased it with white grease just like a speedo cable and then reinserted it. I actually did this twice to really lube it up.