Did somebody mention starter rebuilds ?
Funny you should ask- guess what I did last night ???
Redcar's intermittent starting problem was traced by
process of elimination to a bad spot on the starter.
When Mr. starter landed on that spot, it was either
reach down amongst the maze of plug wires & oil cooler
lines to fit a small wrench on the starter & turn it
over past the bad spot, or it was push-city. Well, with
the car all apart in the garage I figured that this would be
a good time to replace the starter. My first
inclination to buy a $57 rebuilt unit was negated by
when a fellow Sprite owner offered me a good used one
for $5. Now I reckoned that even tho' it works well, a
$5 starter requires at least an internal inspection and
it felt like it needed bushings, so I picked up a set
from Mini-mania for about $3, and dipped into it all
last night.
Spridgetly-speaking, the hardest thing bout
getting into a starter is disassembling the bendix (the
gear drive). On this model starter (Lucas 35G, stamped
on the side of the main body), you must compress a
*very* large spring, which I assume, is there to absorb
the shock of the starter gear slamming into the flywheel
ring gear. Once compressed, there is a small retaining
ring that comes out, and then the entire gear easy
slides off the output shaft. Note, you only need do
this if you're going to replace the bushings.
The end plate of the starter opposite the bendix
holds the brushes. Remove the inspection cover and you
can see them. The main terminal that extends through
this end plate will be insulated from the end plate &
probably retained in place by a nut. In the case of the
Sprite, you must remove this nut to take off the end
plate that holds the brushes.
Then there are two long bolts that run the length
of the starter, holding the end caps on the main body.
Once these are out the ends plates can come off, but
try to remove the stator and then brush-holding end
plate as a unit or the brushes will fall inward & off
the stator.
Once that end plate is off it's a simple matter to
pull back the springs that hold the brushes against the
stator & remove the brushes. As the manual says,
replacement is the opposite of removal. Except, when
putting the stator back, you must pull back all the
brushes *simultaneously* to get it to slide home. This
is a good time to have a friend with a pair of
needle-nose pliers handy to help.
All carefully re-assembled with new bushings & all
lubed, my 8$ starter performs flawlessly (on the floor,
that is). I won't know how well it works on the car
till I get all my cross-flow components back from ye
ole radiator shop. Ahhh, but that's another story ....
cheers-
dstone@sc9.intel.com
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