• Hi Guest!
    If you appreciate British Car Forum and our 25 years of supporting British car enthusiasts with technical and anicdotal information, collected from our thousands of great members, please support us with a low-cost subscription. You can become a supporting member for less than the dues of most car clubs.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Bugeye starter - is this repairable?

Share this page

I

ichthos

Darth Vader
Country flag
Offline
I finally got my starter apart to see if I could figure out what was wrong. I don't know why it is shorted out, but I can see visible damage.Is this still repairable? I can not see wear to the inside of the starter (name of the 4 pieces?), but there is damage on the part that rotates (armature?) Any help or guidance would greatly be appreciated. I have included two pics.
Kevin
 

Attachments

  • 25296.jpg
    25296.jpg
    59.2 KB · Views: 182
Looks like a really shot bearing has let it rub on the field coils mounting brackets. That puts it very close to the coils. If any damage there, it woudl probably be cheaper to just replace the whole thing. But if the wiring on the armature is not damaged, I don't think that bit of scratching on the iron would hurt much.
Ok, now I see our inside photo. I can't see any damage there but it is probably hard to tell much from a photo. You might just replace the offending bearing and try it. That seems worthwhile anyway.
 
As long as you can fix whatever made it rub, I think it's OK. In fact, that problem may have been fixed in the past, and what you're seeing is old damage. But this has nothing to do with the short. I suspect that the insulating washers at the power terminal are not right. There could be a short somewhere else, but the resistances are so low that it's hard to tell the difference between a short and normal conditions.

Starters aren't expensive, so if you don't find the problem from simple checks, you might as well just find another one.
 
I agree, it's usually only worth fixing of rare or oddball components that cannot be found from suppliers new/rebuilt already.
 
What was the symptom of the short? Smoking battery cables?

I would NOT use that armature. Look at the photo......right side of the pole piece, top, you can see a couple of spots of copper, which means it's rubbed into the copper winding and insulation and shorted it to the pole, most likely.
If you look further down, you can see the outline of the individual channels for the windings.

At LEAST a new armature.

When my Lucas starter shorted (with associated huge clouds of smoke) it was the field insulation and wrapping. I got a new set of field windings, put them in, and all is well for a spare starter.
 
The symptom of the short was that when I pulled the starter knob, all the lights went dim. Didn't see the copper until you pointed it out. So basically the armature is toast, correct? I guess I will keep it and see if I get lucky with some parts later on. Thanks for the help everyone.
Kevin
 
If it was able to dim the lights then its probably alright even with the metal scrubbed off. What does the commutator look like? That is what is going to make it beyond repair as far as cost. If the Comm is still good then replace the bearing and the brushes and take some 1000 grit or so to the comm and put it back together and chances are it will do fine.
 
regularman said:
If it was able to dim the lights then its probably alright even with the metal scrubbed off. What does the commutator look like? That is what is going to make it beyond repair as far as cost. If the Comm is still good then replace the bearing and the brushes and take some 1000 grit or so to the comm and put it back together and chances are it will do fine. The resistance of a starter is so low that it basically is a short. If it is mechanically dragging then it is going to heat the wires. Fix the bind and clean it up and it will most likely last longer than you.
Click to expand...
 
Back
Top