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Thread: Starter rebuild

  1. #1
    Senior Member mwizard's Avatar
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    Default Starter rebuild

    Had my FF starter rebuilt. If yours is not on the list of things to take care of, add it, cause it is on the list of "soon to fail". I caught mine before it reached the top of the list. The starters have 4 brushes. Mine came out in 7 pieces and only about 1/4 in long. The rebuilder put in new bushings, clutch and gear and a new solenoid plus painted it to look new. I have yet to try it to see if that takes care of the no crank when warm issue, but this wkend will be the test.
    Mark
    1990 Van Diemen, the Racing Machine, CM AutoX, 2016 Frontier
    You can try to make a street car into an autocrosser or you can do a lot less work and make a race car into a great autocrosser

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    Senior Member mwizard's Avatar
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    The rebuilt starter seems very strong on a cold and slightly warm motor.
    Mark
    1990 Van Diemen, the Racing Machine, CM AutoX, 2016 Frontier
    You can try to make a street car into an autocrosser or you can do a lot less work and make a race car into a great autocrosser

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    Senior Member Nardi's Avatar
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    If the 1.6 and 2.0 cars use the same starter, a mid 90's Ford Taurus v-6 starter is cheap and usually available at a local chain auto store. Has a warranty too! Just thought it might be worth you looking into.

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    Good catch Mark. As a Swift owner, I have two starters. Spares are always good. Just remember, what fails will always be the thing that you do not have a spare of. It is just racings cruel way.

    Eric Little

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    Senior Member chrisw52's Avatar
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    As a euro swift owner, I found my starter was out of toyota corolla.

    The starter is cheap, less than $150 and it takes about an hour to swap out all the components. As long as the output shaft and gear reduction housing isn't damaged, I can do this as long as needed.

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    Senior Member mwizard's Avatar
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    Several people said I might have a Toyota starter, or one might be a fit. Mine is a Bosch.
    Sure hope this solves my "no start when warm" problem.
    Mark
    1990 Van Diemen, the Racing Machine, CM AutoX, 2016 Frontier
    You can try to make a street car into an autocrosser or you can do a lot less work and make a race car into a great autocrosser

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    Senior Member mwizard's Avatar
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    Starter rebuild did not solve my warm start problem. Darn. In other news, the car and driver worked very well. https://youtu.be/7lImPGI2qBE
    Mark
    1990 Van Diemen, the Racing Machine, CM AutoX, 2016 Frontier
    You can try to make a street car into an autocrosser or you can do a lot less work and make a race car into a great autocrosser

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    Contributing Member TeamFRD's Avatar
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    it's like you predicted my started solenoid failure on the Wednesday Nationals practice course. One associate at a chain parts store suggested Fred's Auto Electric in town. They happened to have a solenoid in stock. In and out in 15 minutes Made it back to make the next practice session.
    My starter is from O'Reillys Feb 2012 for a 78 Fiesta. Time to replace it.

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    Senior Member mwizard's Avatar
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    Still hoping to solve start problem. After 12 runs, the onboard battery started the cold car on Tues just fine. Someone must know what is going on here.
    Mark
    1990 Van Diemen, the Racing Machine, CM AutoX, 2016 Frontier
    You can try to make a street car into an autocrosser or you can do a lot less work and make a race car into a great autocrosser

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    This will take a little inspecting. A lot of Bosch starters that I've seen were direct drive starters - the pinion was on the motor shaft itself. If you take a look inside, or ask your rebuilder, you might find it's a direct drive unit. Many modern starters are indirect drive, they have a reduction gear drive so the motor shaft runs at a much higher speed than the pinion output. The result is far higher torque developed at lower battery current draw, hence marginal performance becomes great performance. There are two popular styles of gear reduction starter - Hitachi (used as the basis of many Tilton starters) and Nippondenso, used in Swift style mounts, and a vast number of OEM car units. Both have a quite standard motor body and custom made noses to suit whatever they are being bolted on to. I personally found the Nippondenso units the most reliable, but the nose design is more complex. I don't recall that I made a Denso nose from scratch, but I did swap other Denso bodies onto good noses that came on various cars. Denso starters don't always fit where Hitachi starters will. I used to make Hitachi noses all the time, they are very simple and you can make them adjustable for various unique installs where you need to twist the starter to clear various tubes, linkages, etc. I used to buy brand new Hitachi starters at my local circle track store, they had them for $110 with a Chevy nose and the wrong pinion for my Ford ring gears. I had a float of good pinions (again extremely easy to swap) and noses and I would swap them when one got tired. I don't think I ever had an actual motor fail, but the solenoids would get killed regularly, I always blamed the unique vibration modes of a highly revved Ford 1600 engine. I only ever put one on my BMW M10 engine, it lasted forever.

  12. #11
    Senior Member mwizard's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mwizard View Post
    Still hoping to solve start problem. After 12 runs, the onboard battery started the cold car on Tues just fine. Someone must know what is going on here.
    Mark
    I found that the 2nd start switch I installed in the back would start the warm motor w/o help from a 2nd battery, so I added another wire from the front starter switch to the solenoid and it worked. Yea!
    Mark
    1990 Van Diemen, the Racing Machine, CM AutoX, 2016 Frontier
    You can try to make a street car into an autocrosser or you can do a lot less work and make a race car into a great autocrosser

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    Contributing Member TeamFRD's Avatar
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    Default 78 Fiesta = starter = Bosch SR52X

    I've found equivalent starters, for my VD RF88, cross-ref to a Bosch SR52X. Both myold one and new one have Bosch marking on the main,black part, body.

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