• 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

Starter trouble--Local lifetime replacment?

Share this page

nope, just need to shove it in there - if the bolts line up, it should be fine. BTW no torque for starter bolts - just tight. Try the autoparts store, new starter is not a big cost.
 
Did you check the ring gear teeth on the transmission side of the flywheel? That is where the gear on the Bendix will engage. Do you have a picture of the starter motor showing the Bendix that you can post?
 
When you say "the transmission side" what are you referring to? Is that another angle to see the ring gear besides looking through the hole where the starter goes? The teeth seemed fine from that angle. They all looked similar to the photos posted.

When I pull the starter back off, I'll take a wider-angle photo of the starter. All I have at the moment are the close-ups already posted.

The crescendo annoyance at this point would be to purchase a starter, install it, and find out that the problem isn't the starter after all. In any event, it will take a few days for a new starter to show up nearby, and I'm tied up this week.
 
Transmission side is the side you cannot see from where you are.

There is this bell housing thing wherin the flywheel and ring gear resideth.

Towards the (vehicle) front of said flywheel-residing bellhousing is the engine, also referred to in the vernacular as "the engine side".

Towards the (vehicle) rear of said flywheel-residing bellhousing is the transmission, also referred to in the vernacular as "the transmission side".

So, apply "engine side" and "transmission side" to the adjacent sides of the flywheel/ring gear, and you'll be in full compliance.
 
I picked up a rebuilt starter from Local Import Parts Store this AM. $77 plus $25 core. Could have ordered cheaper on the web but Bugsy is stuck in the garage with a starter that have been getting increasingly more difficult to get going. Brushes I'm sure are bad on the old one. Turned the key to do a grocery run the other night, got a real hard groan and nothing more. Starter stuck on a bad place internally. Now this has been gong on for several months on a cold start big groan, nothing, and then motor spins to life. Once warm no issues and starter spins away as motor catches on first turn around. Even cold motor starts on about 2 turns around. Yes I know I can back off the Bendix and move the engine a little and it will fire right up but has been an issue for some time, price not all that hateful. Tried all of the Big Box types got quoted $49.95 plus core, all said need to order, and when I asked how long all said it's No Longer Available. Next time around might be time for the gear reduction starter.

Anyway starter has been getting progressively worse and decided I could replace with starter on spare motor which sort of gave off a little puff of smoke last time I tried doing a compression test on my spare motor. Or replace with one that was Bosch "rebuilt" with 2 year warranty including a 2 year tow warranty.

Anyway time tomorrow morning to pull dizzy, disconnect external oil filter and hoses and see if I can get access to the bottom bolt. Frank your 10 minutes claim to get this puppy off sounds a little bit ambitious to me but we'll see. Even with front tilt BE Bonnet access to that side of the engine is tight to say the least.
 
Jim, it will come out without removeing the Dizzy, etc. The lower bolt can be removed from the bottom. Slide under the car if you wish.
 
OK Thanks Jack good to know. If I can get at the bottom bolt then this may be very easy and pulling the dizzy is a 2 minute job just to get additional room to work. Time to get the jackstands out. Hmm better roll the car down the driveway, jump start, and back the car in to get better access. Guy's you've saved me some work already just getting it apart.
 
Treme, I see your car has excreted the customary anti rust film. Have you cleaned up all the cable ends, as in take them of, clean/sane them and put them back on? Fell the cable where they bolt up at each location after spinning it and see if any are hot ('noid too). If so, your proiblem might be a voltage drfop there. I'm inclined to think maybe a bad spot on the wheel from all the debris, but that might be from the wear on the sleeve dragging against the wheel. How much voltage do you have at the battery? have you tested that yet?
 
I'm 95% sure it's not an electrical issue. Previous to failure, the starter motor turned the engine very enthusiastically. In addition, I used large gauge jumper cables to bypass the wiring on the car to go directly from the starter to the battery...In addition, I tried starting it while getting a "jump" from a my new pickup truck. I didn't try every single one of these things in isolation, so it's still possibly electrical, but it just doesn't seem likely.
 
If you can't see the far side of the ring gear teeth with a mirror you can feel them with your finger. You need to do this a section at a time rotating the motor between feelings.
 
Seems to me by looking at the pix that wear on the ring gear would also leave some tell-tale wear on the Bendix drive gear, and that looks really fine to me! Is the sludge in the pix just that (sludge) or does it also have any gritty metal shavings in it? The wear on the starter collar looks to be on the engine-side which should leave some trace of any contact on the ring gear. In the pix I see no evidence of this! Is the starter seating flush in the mounting hole, i.e. not cocked so that it doesn't contact the ring gear well?
 
If you look real careful at the picture of the starter nose closest to the Bendix, you will see a whole lot of burring and gear marks.
My guess is the thrusts are bad enough the ring gear is hitting this extension, hence the aluminium shavings everythere.

starter-sleeve.jpg


Conversely, if the bushing in the end of the starter is shot, and allowing a whole lot of up/down movement in the shaft, ithe Bendix could be gouging out the inside of that extension.

starter-gear.jpg


I mean, look at the curl on the right side of this picture!

Dave
 
Boy, something gets pleanty hot for sure.
 
I'm gonna get the starter back out tonight. I did see plenty of metal shavings when I pulled it the first time, but I looked at the front of the ring gears, the teeth of the starter gear, and assumed things were okay (ie, it seemed to just be the Bendix sleeve rubbing something because I was being too aggressive while starting).

I expect to find some wear on the ring gear. That said, the car has been moved several times, and the starter has yet to engage the ring gear since the car broke. I'm inclined to believe that I did not wear out the <span style="font-style: italic">entire</span> ring gear in just one sitting (though I'm ignorant to how easy this is to do in general).

I'll happily buy another starter if there is a chance it's really the starter. I really don't want to pull the motor. There's currently no other reason to do it--The car is running great.
 
I'll take a real close look at the starter gear as well. I didn't notice much slop at all on the gear or the Bendix. I believe the burrs are loose shavings from the Bendix.

I'll try and be less tolerant of the starter's operation...Worked fine in a vice with jumper cables...
 
And does it work in the car with jumper cables?
 
With/without jumper cables, the starter spins, but does not engage the ring gear. I felt the tranny side of the ring gear and felt sharp edges and burrs, as if it had been ground up a bit. There is a pronounced "notch" on all the teeth on that side of the ring gear. I'm not sure if it's by design or if it really got ground down that much.

I just can't believe that I could do that much damage to the ring gear. I need to pick up some oil, so I'm going to grab one of those telescopic little mirrors and see if I can get a better look.
 
If it just spins, whereees, and does not clunk at least the bendix gear is not meeting the flywheel. ie the starter is not spinning fast enough or the gear is stuck for some reason or another.
 
That would be the easiest solution-starter hits other side of ringgear so it thinks that the ring gear is new!
-By the way- is anyone else having trouble seeing these pictures as a Lucas starter? it just doesn't look like any Lucas that I have ever seen (or am I looking at the pictures wrong?
BillM
 
Back
Top