okay so i was under my car today and i noticed that the ground was a little loose. So i said hey why not tighten it. As i was tightening the nut for the ground cable i must of over tightened and the hole area broke. The cable is still on the nut but i can literally pull it out of the starter. It broke the whole plastic cover on the front of the starter where the ground goes. How long will the starter last before it dies. The car turns over fine but the first time i started it it sort of sounded like it was dieing.

 

the bolt is attached to a metal conductive guide. SO as long at the bolt stays in the guide, it will work fine. As it can still conduct current.
If it gets pulled out however, it's dead.

 

its dead of course until it attatches back onto it right. Hmm ductape

 

That happened to me once... my starter died the same night I had a date. No big deal, I'd done the job plenty of times before- and this time, I had a spare starter from a parts car! Well- the "B" terminal on the solenoid was frozen solid- when I finally got it to loosen, the whole plastic solenoid cover snapped. Guess what, the nut was still on the stud! The stud was just hanging there, attached solidly to the harness wire. I tried like heck but couldn't get it off (used vice grips on the other end) so I fired up the air compressor to use my cut off wheel on it. Finally, I sliced the nut off and got the wire free.

Quick get the spare starter, bolt it up, running out of time... hop in the car, turn the key- nothing. What?!? Pull the starter back out, stuck my boot on it, hooked it to the battery with jumper cables- all I got was a big spark. The spare starter seized up just from sitting in my garage.

Needless to say I never made it on time for my date. My 20 minute job turned into 3 hours worth of work- and the girl wasn't too happy with me.

 

hahaha funny story tom. I figure i'll buy another starter and just keep it in my garage until this one seizes or dies on me. no problems so far. starter still sounds the same and hey my car is running.