StarterMotors- New or Recon ?

[AnimalJack]

Ive just bought a new starter motor and can see that they now make them quite differently to the old ones There is no easy access to replace the brushes and the bendix looks factory-machine fixed and probably not replaceable ....and was wondering whether it would be better to recondition the original one (for next time) or are the new type the better option?

[bmcecosse]

You pays your money and makes your own choice !

[SUE482]

If you decied to refurbish this might help, sorry about a couple of pics the camera wasnt on macro.
Here is the Starter Motor brush replacement.
After cleaning and removing the old brushes using a 240 watt soldering iron, you can just see the two eyelets which secured the brushes at 4 and 10 o'clock.
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When replacing the brushes solder very sparingly as too much solder it will creep up the braiding, you can see its started on the right hand one in the picture and don’t forget to note which side of the eyelet to insert the new brush braiding.
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Brushes on the coil side is a bit more fiddly, I found it easier to dissemble it rather that try in situ, the 4 coils securing screws will require an impact driver to loosen and lots of WD40 but once its out all can be cleaned a lot more thoroughly. I am afraid the photos are out of focus but you can see the construction of the field coil.
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When replacing the brushes cut the old ones off at about 1/4" from the coil and resolder the new ones to this. It is much easier then removing the old ones from the coils, you can just see the solder joints, again note that these brushes have different lengths of braiding make sure you replace the same way.
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Reassemble not forgetting to position the field winding insulation band in the correct position or else you may have a short to ground.

[bmcecosse]

The later starters have the brushes on the end -and are even more difficult to renew....

[BLOWNMM]

G.day all
A tip for fitting new brushes as well as all of the above. When removing the old braid I drill a 1 mm. hole through the centre of it and when the 250 watt iron heats up the eyelets the braid collapses into this hole and is easily removed. Because of the need to drill the hole accurately in the centre of the braid I first of all use a 1/8" centre drill. This is mounted in a hole drilled in a 1/4" dia. rod and secured by a 2 mm. grub screw due to the short length of the centre drill. To facilitate fitting the new braid the eyelets can then be opened out using round nose pliers then reclamped again to speed up re-soldering. As stated above speed is of the essence here to prevent the wicking of solder up the braid.
Cheers Bob

[AnimalJack]

Thanks for all the info' Im going to keep the old one and have a go ........I just don't like the idea of chucking things out -if they can be restored...........but I was interested to see whether the old ones (once re-built then, ) are better than the new type .

[IslipMinor]

If you get a new/reconditioned one, try to get one with 10T on the pinion. The originals are 9T and somehow the 10T pinion meshes fine with the original starter ring gear. With a decent battery, probably higher capacity as well (I use an 075 60Ah), the engines spins over much faster - 10/9 = 11% faster and very noticeable.

[smithskids]

Much better to o/h the old ones as there is more copper on the comutator to skim up. Some of the later ones have less depth of copper on them. This goes for the dynamo as well. Nice pics by the way!!