Is it a good idea to rebuild your starter or buy a new/rebuilt one? Isn't it just an electric motor? Have very many of you rebuilt yours?

thanks,
phil

 

Depends. If the starter only needs brushes, then I rebuild it. If multipul things are worn out, replace with a GOOD rebuilt one.

 

could you recommend a good one?

 

I used to...

Then I realized that I was spending $15 for a Bendix, $1.50 for a set of brushes, sometimes a buck or 2 for new bushings, and sometimes $12 for a solenoid; about $2 for solvents and paint and other misc materials; I was not only taking the starter off and putting it back on, but also, I was tearing it down, cleaning it up, and putting it back together; and I could have bought a whole other starter for less money than the parts, and not done the extra work. But the real clincher was about the 2nd or 3rd one I ran across that had the problem whereby you turn the key and nothing happens, and you can whap it with a tire tool or something and sometimes it will work; and the only cure I know of for that is another starter, anyway. So I ended up spending the price of a starter on parts, and then had to spend it again, on a starter.

So, yes, you can do that; but statistically it's not real efficient. You'll learn in a hurry how a starter actually works though, and you'll know better than to ever believe this humorous "heat soak" myth that runs around.

 

please elaborate.

 

It's an electromagnet that works a high-current switch, and a series-wound DC electric motor. Neither is particularly heat-sensitive.

What really happens, is that the engine is harder to turn when it's hot, because it immediately tries to fire which opposes the starter. The problem is not that the starter is hot, it's that the engine is hot. And when you have the weenie Delco design starter POS, that little bit of extra required oomph on the part of the motor isn't available.

The real cure for the real problem is a starter of better design in the first place.

 

what about the case getting hot and making the metal expand.... making the silinoid stick a little?



and why is it that the motor is the same temp when you add headers, but the starter doesnt want to turn over the motor??? and why can it turn it over after you add a heat shield?

 

I couldn't say about that... considering that the tolerance between the solenoid plunger and the solenoid coil is about .050", I don't believe that that would be possible. And none of the cars I've had with headers over the years were any more or less prone to their starters being weak than cars without.

But I'm just an idiot, ignore me and do whatever seems best to you. But I just refuse to participate in that whole "heat soak" racket, and I will simply use a better design starter in the first place and have an altogether superior system without hocus-pocus and band-aids.

 

heat soak, happens to me all the time
as for rebuilding my own starter i ithnk the last one i rebuilt was in 79 or 80. i doubt you can even find parts for them anymore

 

i wasnt calling you a idiot..... and i agree just use a better starter to begin with...... but i was just asking why do they work if it isnt that they block heat?