Starter brushes

[<<Mark_C>>]

As my starter failed the other day and a fix is not urgent I decided to strip it down using Mike P's excellent thread on here.

I was expecting to find some obvious damage like loose magnets or some serious burn marks, but all appears fine.

The starter was working great one minute, but then suddenly failed turning over very very slowly and resetting the clock at the same time. Could this be a sympton of worn brushes? Does anyone know how long the brushes should be when new? On mine the -ve brush measures about 16mm and the +ve about 15mm.

 

[<<Mark_C>>]

Sucess! After a clean up, on closer inspection I noticed the oil catch plate had some slight scoring so must have been starting to short out the armature. No burning though.

Pushed the catch plate further home, re-assembled everything and she now turns over faster than ever. Job done.

Not sure how long it will last though - We'll see.

 

[Ian J Hartley]

Without sounding patronising, well done for sorting the problem yourself!

This is a common fault with this type of starter motor, which is well documented, as you have found out.

When it happened to me, I bent the locking tabs of the grease plate out further to make a tighter fit. I really had to force it to get it seated. I also tried heating the plastic housing to form ridges to stop the plate from coming loose, but the plastic didn't react to the heat too well, so I had only partial success there. Nevertheless, so far, after several years, all is still well.

At leaste you know the symptoms of the fault, so next time (heaven forbid) you can go straight to the cause.

 

[tugboat]

If the clock was resetting as well, that suggests a problem in the circuitry that supplies them both. If it were me, I'd be checking and cleaning the connections on the battery and main fuse box etc.

 

[MikeO]

If the clock was resetting as well, that suggests a problem in the circuitry that supplies them both. If it were me, I'd be checking and cleaning the connections on the battery and main fuse box etc.

The clock resetting is generally a symptom of low volts - typically a dying battery or a faulty starter...

Mike

 

[<<Mark_C>>]

Yep - Clock is fine now the starter is behaving again.