anyone have a spare starter?

raidmagic

I have a 49 with A 308 in it and my starter went out

ski4life65

manual or Hydramatic?

raidmagic

Manual. I sent you an email.

raidmagic

Ok while it appears I'm talking to myself Ski4life and I have been emailing. I should have made it more clear, maybe there is a fix for my starter. The motor spins fine but it won't engage the flywheel. It was working fine yesterday. I just got the car legal and drove it all over the place. It worked fine and only didn't engage once. Now today I went out to move it and it just spun. I have tried multiple times to start it and it hasn't even tried to engage. I pulled it and checked it although I have no idea what I'm checking for. The gear spins on the worm shaft, you can do it by hand but when you put it in the car it just spins. Also I tried to work it out on the bench and it wouldn't even spin. Being positive ground I should put the positive on the body of the starter and the neg. on the post, correct?

Thanks for the help

Geoff

Sounds like you have a fouled starter worm, gunked up with dirt and oil. It's not too difficult to dismantle. Give the worm thread a good clean out with gasoline, and leave it completely dry. It could also be that your contacts are dirty, and the starter is not spinning fast enough for inertia to allow the pinion to mesh, but my bets would be on the sticky worm.
Geoff

Jon B

I don't know much about this, but have you tried simply oiling the shaft upon which the worm (?) slides in and out, to engage the ring gear? Does it already slide in and out easily?

Park_W

Don't worry about how to connect power. It doesn't care which way the current's flowing. And just to absolutely sure we're getting the right picture, are you saying that the pinion is not moving forward into place relative to the flywheel, or is it moving into place but the teeth aren't meshing with those of the flywheel?

raidmagic

Ok I just came back in from the shop. I pulled the worm gear off it and cleaned it up. There was nothing dirty or wrong looking about it so I put it all back together and put it in the car. Again it just spins, it doesn't seem to be moving out to contact the flywheel. If frustration I pushed the starter button a bunch of times and one time it started the car so I turned the car off and it went back to just spinning. To be clear on Friday it worked perfectly every time.

raidmagic

Park I'm sure it's not moving forward. When it does it starts the car

raidmagic

Ok so I've done more reading and thinking about it and I thought I would be a good idea to space the starter out from the bell housing with some washers and it worked.

I have read some things about needing special shouldered bolts could this be the issue? Now that I've spaced it it starts 100% of the time. What is my correct fix here other than washers? Thanks

Park_W

So, did the "locational" part of spacing it out from the bell housing do it, or did that accidentally correct a poor ground situation that was weakening the starter "startup strength." And again, to clarify, did you move the starter fore and aft-wise, or "in and out" from the block?

For more accurate location of the starter on the rear mount plate, you can compensate for the absence of the shoulder studs by getting metric size bolts that are just a bit larger diameter than the present 3/8" ones. They still fit through the original holes, but more snugly.

[Deleted User]

There os a special shoulder Bolt that tne starter mounts on . If it is not there or in wrong place starter will move around.
;,
Engine has to seperate from trans to install

raidmagic

Yeah I can see how those would make a difference. The weird thing is it worked fine until Sat.
To answer your question Park I don't know if it's
a spacing issue or power problem How would I be able to tell you can't see in there with the starter installed

Park_W

raid, the electrical grounding possibility was just a thing to ponder, partially because I can't think of any repositioning of the starter that would cause the previously stuck pinion to magically start working properly again.

raidmagic

What are the chances that it spins out but not far enough to make contact? I am at a disadvantage here because I know nothing about these types of starters. Maybe I should get a known good starter and see how it acts?

Park_W

Should be no need to get another starter, since yours seems to work OK some of the time. Is there a starter-generator repair shop nearby? If so, I'd take it there and have them check it out.

raidmagic

Yeah that's a good idea. I'll bring it down tomorrow and report back.

Park_W

Yes, please do tell us what they find. Even for those of us who've been playing with these critters for a long time, it's always useful to learn "what caused what."

[Deleted User]

You didnt take that starter apart and back together then put it back on then have the problem start did you ?
You can put the starter end plate on wrong (180 degrees out) and it will miss the flywheel. The mounting bolts are not exactly straight across from each other.
And yes that is the stud that the starter pivots on . Starter can be in proper place and bolted down and work OK for awhile . Then it slips a little and it hangs up ( I speak from experiance) .Although it generaly hangs into the flywheel.
Without the shoulder bolt it wont stay put,
Roger

raidmagic

No it started messing up before I fooled with it and all I did was remove the worm gear area to clean it up

Park_W

Note that the thing that really locates the starter precisely in the engine mount plate hole are the two "bumps" stamped into the rear face of the starter plate. You can see these sticking out a little bit in the starter photo above. The special studs with the mid-length flange are a pretty close fit to the engine mount plate holes, so that helps as well. (The flanges on those studs have nothing to do with positioning the starter in place correctly on the mount plate). When mounting the starter, the key thing is to be sure that those shallow projecting parts of the starter rear plate are accurately fitting in the engine mount plate holes. Only when sure of that should you tighten the two nuts on the studs.

It's unfortunate that these "positioning bumps" are so shallow. When the starter is engaged and turning the engine, strong lateral forces will try to push the starter outward, away from the flywheel. So if the studs and nuts aren't pretty tight, that's what will happen. Then the starter pinion isn't fully meshed with the flywheel teeth, which, as many of us know from sad experience, will quickly damage the gear teeth (not to mention the horrible sound when it's happening!)

raidmagic

Good info, thanks. The shop that I dropped it off to today isn't comfortable with the end play of the shaft so I am having it rebuild. These are good guys and I trust them not to screw me. I will report back when I get it and also I want to check out the bumps, I'm not sure I noticed them on mine.

One more question, why does the trans have to come off to install those? It appears from the above picture that they would just screw in. Mine has through bolts on it that you can access from either side. I will post pics of them tomorrow

Geoff

The "lumps" (collars) on the studs fit inside recesses in the bell housing, which bolts to the engine plate. Hence, they have to be installed first before bolting up the housing to the engine. My Hornet had an extremely noisy starter when I first obtained it. This was because the starter had been mounted 180 deg. out, which moved the pinion too far away form the ring gear. Also, it had bolts, not studs, which allowed ti move laterally as well, very slightly. Turned it round half a turn, held it in towards the ring gear as I tightened the bolts, no more problems.

Park_W

raid, as said in my note above, it's not the flanged studs that are critical to locating the starter on the rear mount plate. If you don't have those studs in there now, just use bolts. And again, you can get a little more precise fit if you use metric bolts that are just a bit larger diam. that the original 3/8" studs.

raidmagic

Ok got the starter back today, it's like a new starter. All the endplay is gone and the brushes that were in it weren't any good. They had life left but were small and wearing. There also was a bushing in the rear that was replaced. He said it appeared someone tried to rebuild it using parts from another starter. I can't wait to get home tonight and put it on to see what happens. Just FYI I paid $75 for the rebuild

[Deleted User]

That's about right price wise ,hope it works OK,
Roger