Cleaning the starter

M

mjennings23

Senior member
 North West
Quick question for you all, my starter is slightly noisy in the cold weather, as though it's slightly slow at retracting from the flywheel, so I was planning on pulling it off and giving it a clean and lubricate it.

Any advice on what needs stripping, best suggestion for cleaning and what lubrication is best to use? I can't imagine grease being ideal when it can potentially get covered in dust from the clutch.
 
As Mac said. They're pretty cheap, and they're known to fail. My one failed on me in cold weather (fortunately it was on my driveway). I bought a Lucas one from Eurocarparts for about £65, which has been fine for about 4 years now.
 
mjennings23 said:
Quick question for you all, my starter is slightly noisy in the cold weather, as though it's slightly slow at retracting from the flywheel, so I was planning on pulling it off and giving it a clean and lubricate it.

Any advice on what needs stripping, best suggestion for cleaning and what lubrication is best to use? I can't imagine grease being ideal when it can potentially get covered in dust from the clutch.
Click to expand...

I refurbish old starter motors for classic and vintage cars.
Don’t put any grease on it. If the pinion is slow at retracting you can try spraying it with WD40 and moving it backwards and forwards till it’s free moving. They do stiffen and clog up over time.
 
Cheers guys. No plans to replace as is still works perfectly well, just sounds like its catching a bit on particularly cold starts. No issue in warmer weather or if the engine is warm, so I just figured its due to everything tightening up a bit when cold.
 
mjennings23 said:
Cheers guys. No plans to replace as is still works perfectly well, just sounds like its catching a bit on particularly cold starts. No issue in warmer weather or if the engine is warm, so I just figured its due to everything tightening up a bit when cold.
Click to expand...

Higher viscosity crap on cold mornings :P
Rob
 
Consensus seems to be clean it up and a bit of WD40 then? Quite happy to do that this weekend while the alternator is out anyway, cant imagine its more than an hours work?
 
Seems quite intermittent, car was frozen over this morning but no noise, it was definitely cold enough so must just be the start of it sticking. Still planning to clean it up tomorrow
 
Petrol or break cleaner to get all the crap out and then a ptfe based lubricant to help prevent it happening again would be my recommendation. WD40 isn't really a lubricant and doesn't last long at all. You want a 'dry' lubricant like ptfe, e.g:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/3-IN-ONE-400ml-Professional-Dry-Lubricant/dp/B006A8JEUS
https://www.amazon.co.uk/WD-40-Specialist-Lubricant-PTFE-400ml/dp/B006UCJ4Z4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1512142195&sr=8-1&keywords=WD-40+Specialist+Dry+PTFE
 
I think you can better dismantle it and clean it all.
Most important thing is to replace the brushes. They wear and all starters now come of an age that they need to be replaced or you get problems (worn brushes can burn up the commutator inside).
You can get replacement brushes pretty cheap in germany:
https://www.autoersatzteile.de/7990196-era
(era 232032)
The inner planetary gears need to be greased with ptfe grease.

You can wash out the one way bearing in the starter gear with petrol, then dry it with some compressed air and then soak it in oil.
That one way bearing is the reason you hear the noise and it doesnt retract properly.

If you dismantle the starter, there are 2 long torx screws on each side. They tend to corrode and get stuck.
The metal of those screws is fairly soft, so stripping the heads is a risk. You can put some vise grips on the sides and rotate along when you unscrew the first turn to break it loose.

With dismanteling the starter, there is 1 specific clip that is hard to remove.
Its a small c clip underneath a bronze bushing that prevents the startergear coming off the shaft.

These are all the parts inside the starter (cleaned that is):
demonstarter9.jpg

When you open it up, it looks like this :lol:
demonstarter7.jpg
Full of carbon dust from brush wear
 
Finally got round to this at the weekend, and it was in surprisingly good condition for a 14 year old motor! Brushes still have plenty of life left in them, mainly seemed to just be dirt and dust from the clutch so cleaned all the gears off and lubricated with a dry PTFE spray. All good this morning with no noise.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom