Starter replacement woes and tips

[17alloveragain]

I replaced my worn out starter today. All day. I thought I'd pass along some things I ran into and how I tackled them.

I dreaded removal of the bolts more than anything else. It was, surprisingly, not terrible. A combination of wobble extensions and universal socket adapters made relatively short work of them.

Getting the big (very big) original starter out of the engine bay, however, was a bloody nightmare. Here is what I did. First, I tried to get to come out from below. I can fathom no way this is possible. Turning the wheels didn't do the trick. Then, I removed the alternator to bring it forward and out. That still didn't give me quite enough room. I then wrangled it back to a position where I could remove the bolts holding the solenoid to the starter housing. That did the trick, and I was able to wrangle it forward and up. At several points in this process, I resigned myself to removing the intake manifold but after removing the alternator and solenoid it wasn't necessary.

The Auto Ricambi Special starter is much smaller, and much easier to get into place. It wasn't terrible. The lower two bolts went in just fine. The top bolt, though, was ridiculously hard to locate. My recommendation, and what I did, was enlist the help of a helper with hands small enough to fit between the body and transmission, and who can find the hole and guide a bolt held into a socket with a paper shop towel into it. Once the helper says "got it in" after dozens of attempts, spin the extensions, wobblers, and universals like mad and hope for a non-cross-threaded bite. I, mercifully, did.

Reinstalling the alternator was where I got closest to disaster. Bolts in place, check. Lower bolt and nut tightened, check. Belt on, check. Put tension on the belt, check. Tighten tension nut with a ratcheting wrench, check. Remove wrench, NOPE. There is a little lip on the housing of the alternator that, once the wrench cleared it and the bolt was tight, would not allow the wrench to be removed from the bolt. It is an incredibly small lip, but it also seems incredibly strong. Given that I was using a ratcheting wrench, I could only go tighter and not back the nut off to release it. It took every prying tool in my modest arsenal, lots of banging, and my full cursing vocabulary before I finally got it loose. Frankly, I am not sure what actually succeeded. The short of the story is do not use a ratcheting wrench or, I suppose, any wrench with a thick housing to tighten the alternator tension bolt.

Anyway, all's well that ends well. The car starts. I hope my experience helps one of y'all out.

[18Fiatsandcounting]

That's quite the story, 17. Most starter motors do eventually come out through the top, although I seem to recall that there are some model years where it is possible to remove it from the bottom, but perhaps something else has to be removed or at least loosened.

One note on reinstalling the starter bolts: I usually start with the bottom bolt just to hold the starter in place, but don't fully tighten. Then I move the the middle bolt but again don't fully tighten. Loose enough so that the starter can shift around a little, and the reason that this is important is that the top bolt may not be ideally lined up, and being able to shift things ever-so-slightly can help with getting that top bolt properly threaded. When that is accomplished, tighten up all 3 bolts.

-18 (AKA Bryan)